New Family Member

January 18, 2010

We have some exciting news. Beckah and I are with child! Number two, in the chute and ready to go! We are very, very excited and thrilled about it. For those who may question, this pregnancy is planned, charted, timed, and with so much purpose. Beckah and I started talking about planning our second child nearly a year ago. Things got very serious when I learned about an insurance policy that I can sell to myself (since I have an insurance license) that covers short term disability. Pregnancy is the only short term disability you can plan for.

It's a no brainer deal. Pay for the policy, deliver the baby and the insurance policy reimburses you more than the cost. Classic investment if you do it right. Not to advertise, but if anyone is planning their family and is not yet pregnant you would be a fool to NOT do this if you are a responsible financially minded person. You should email me right away if this is the case and I can help you out.

We've been playing our cards close to our chest and we have told no one other than family, until this journal entry, which is happening now. Recently we celebrated my dad's birthday and I think we chose a creative way to share our news with the family during this event. London gave a gift which was a picture of a positive pregnancy test. (Nothing says love like the image of a stick your wife peed on!) But the gift giving went over well and mom's reaction is absolutley classic Phyllis. Here is the link to the video that says it all!

I'm sure there will be lots of planning and dreaming and talking about this in the future. We will have to make some changes of course, like plan a new room and move some furniture. But our family is ready for this, and it makes sense. Not saying that it will be no sweat or anything, but as always I remain very positive that all obstacles can be overcome. Around September 15th will be a powerful journal entry!

Larry Greenwood's Birthday

January 15, 2010

Today is my father's birthday. Of all the people in the world he is the one who is primarily responsible for who I am. He's a good guy, my dad. I have so many memories and still make memories with him. Now that I am a father I compare my actions to his and try to emulate what he did as a father. Many times I have literally asked myself if this is what my dad would do. As London grows up and has challenges I know she will get through them with my help if I do what my dad did.

One of my most fond memories of my dad is when I was in 2nd grade or so, and I got a book on how to make paper airplanes. I opened it and began folding paper and got completely confused by step two of the first page of the book. I tried for probably an hour to make this airplane which was very basic. By that time I was extremely confused and frustrated and in tears. Dad walked in and said, "Let's see if we can figure this out." He sat down and displayed patience and taught me how to understand the book and I watched him fold that first airplane and my tears of frustration turned to tears of joy. I was so happy and I have hung on to that story. I want to do the same in my future fathering!

Any memory about my dad would be incomplete without this one. I wanted to go camping one summer. I wanted to go for two nights, not just one. Dad worked 4x10s and usually came home exhausted on Thursday nights after driving home from Dugway, about 2 hours away. Even though he was tired that night, he got home at 7:30 pm, loaded the van for camping and took me up the mountain. We didn't even get to where we were going until after midnight. The reward was we got to see an entire family of porcupines crossing a dirt road and that was thrilling for me. I remember when he sacrificed his time and energy. This story is just one of a thousand when he did similar things.

I remember my dad being extremely supportive about my drumming as a child. He would sit in the room as I drummed, not because he was making me (he didn't have to) but because he liked hearing me progress and get better. He bought me my first drumset, helped me put it together and bought me books and sticks. Without my dad I wouldn't have the meager talent that I do have on drums. I remember him strumming a guitar when I was very young which inspired me to learn that as well.

Dad would let me "help" him work on cars. Can't say I learned alot about mechanics from him, but what I did learn from his working on cars is that if I ever wanted to do anything (like fix a car or get an insurance license) all I had to do was sit down and do it. I remember him doing amazing things that he rigged together. I remember him working all weekend just to get his work van running by Monday. I learned how to commit to a project, how to see things through to completion, how to appreciate the quality of good work through watching him work with those cars. Those were extremely meaningful times.

I love my dad very much. There is so much he has given to me to shape my life. His impact will last through my entire life. Happy birthday, Dad!

Horton Heard Something

January 5, 2010

I bought London a herd of childrens books for Christmas. Flock? Library? Anyway, a bunch of books. Last night we read Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss. That was a great book! I havn't read it since I was six years old so reading it now was practically the first time. I saw the movie that came out a year or so ago with Jim Carey. I thought it was great then too, but reading it you get more out of it somehow. Very moral story line with lots of ideas.

The obvious one is the religious implications. Horton has a peice of dust that is talking to him and no one beleives him but Horton's faith is never swayed despite being mocked and ridiculed. The stakes are high because lives hang in the balance. Imagine if we as people could be like that in our faith in God? Unwavering strength in our beleif. I love when the little guy stands up and wins. It becomes almost scary in the end. They are dragging him off to jail and he's fighting and at the last minute the others finally beleive because they hear.

Never give up. That's the other thing. If I wanted London to get anything from that book, it would be to never give up. It is a long book and London was losing her attention span. So everytime the Who people spoke I would whisper their lines and she would get quiet and listen real close.

Anyway, nice moment. Everyone should be more like the elephant that was sure.

Its The End Of The Year As We Know It

December 31, 2009

We had a really great Christmas. This Christmas was exciting because we really get to start reliving it through the eyes of child, now that London is coming of age. She got some great presents. I was worried that she would get too much toys or too much chocolate and that things would get imbalanced. But really I feel like she received a good balance of practical things and fun things. She got a rocking horse, books, clothes, toys, dolls and more. Tennessee came through with some books, a cell phone and Barney DVDs.

Holy cow, Barney. Most of London's DVDs have characters that I eventually want to pummel. Like Veggietales, that was fun for about two weeks. Then I just wanted to kill cucumbers and tomatoes. It took Barney about 3 minutes to acheive that state. I think Veggietales try to have humor for adults and they do silly things and its all very tongue in cheek. I now enjoy watching Veggietales...again...and again...and again. Barney is nothing but oozing sweet cuteness. He makes no apologies. That's all he's trying to be. I better stop. I'll end up over analyzing it. But London melts when Barney comes on. She freezes and just stands, hypnotized. I beleive she is thinking, "Whoa! What is that big purple thing and I want 10 of them." So if she's happy, I beleive I can deal with Barney. But if he ever steps out of line...

One thing that was on my list was activities that I could do with my daughter. Beckah got me a kit that is used for teaching toddlers letters, numbers and colors. It has posters and games and books. I thought it was just random stuff, but we opened it last night and its a whole system. You introduce one topic each week, spend 20 minutes twice a day (or more much as possible) as per her attention span. London basically knows upper case letters and almost has conquered numbers (digits anyway). So last night we started on colors. It was new for her but she seemed to get the basic idea of how to play the game. I honestly would expect her to start naming colors in the next week, and have them conquered easily in a month or sooner. We shall see.

I will forget details here but I also got some great stuff. Beckah takes really good care of me at Christmas. She says its because I refuse to buy anything for myself during the year, which I think I mostly agree with. I try hard to not let myself buy toys. I try to be budget oriented and when there is extra money I will do something practical with it. But during the year my list of wants waxes and wanes. That gives Beckah good ideas. One thing she got me was a fancy Apologetics Bible in a new translation that I can't remember the name of. It goes in depth and describes all kinds of things about behind the scenes history, various beleifs that each verse has inspired from Christians to Mormons and Wiccans and everything else. I love that! There is also a big concordance that a pastor might use. I havn't dug into that yet but it will be a good argument solver for sure!

I received many DVDs, including a David Attenborough series that I am really enjoying. It's about the Bird of Paradise and people of New Guinea. Absolutley fascinating. She also got me seasons 1-4 of a series called "The Office" which we just started last night. I like it so far. She also got me the entire Weird Al Yankovic music library. I love that too. Weird Al is musical and comedic genious. Hyper creative, very intelligent. She also got me some clothes which I always need at Christmas time because I never buy anything for myself. Why would I? I get way to stressed out clothes shopping. I hate it. If Beckah ever dies I will probably end up naked and cold.

All that is just Beckah. Ashli got me a groovy desk organizer which I am using and like. It's such a simple thing and I wouldn't think about buying it if I saw it in a store, but now that I have it I like it a lot. My desk is cleaner! Eddie got me some gardening stuff that I am looking forward to using this spring. But we're just getting started! Mom and Dad offered to pay for Beckah and I to fly to Springfield, MO to see Ashli and associates. That is a great gift. It's not material, it's all about family, and it's very helpful. Eddie and Brittany got the same thing so it's just a matter of organizing the trip. I need to wait for things to settle down with my job before I plan vacations but we have some ideas!

There were a few other odds and ends that I forget now. Nerf dart gun to annoy folks at work, new Bathroom Reader book (gotta have that) and lots of candy. But, overall a great Christmas. Now, let's talk about the new year.

First of all, 2009 was a great year. My daughter walked, I learned lots of new things, we did a rafting trip, no major disasters. I made a resolution to do more volunteering type things last year. I made the weakest attempt and can not say I acheived that goal. I did some but nothing worth mentioning. I will have to try to do better in 2010. This year I am job hunting (again) and my goal is get a permanent job. I passed one SQL test in 2009. I want to finish my SQL 2005 DBA certification which consists of 3 more tests. If I can do that this year that will be significant.

I want to read the entire Bible, cover to cover this year. I have read the Bible this way twice in my life, but its taken over two years to do it each time. This time I want to conquer it in a single year. And I don't want to just read it as a checklist. I will use the Bible Beckah gave me and I will increase my understanding of God's word. Adapt, adopt, improve, divide, conquer, destroy and mock! 2009 was great, 2010 will be even better.

Comments Finally Work

December 24, 2009

Well, this is an exciting day! Yesterday I finally was able to get comments working on my site. I want to try to document some of the hassles I had but this is not meant as a "how-to" guide of anything like that. I want my Journal to be my creation so that I learn about how Webpages work rather than just make use of someone elses code. I don't want to pay one cent for something I can do for free either. I remember working at eBay and learning for the first time about data driven Websites and I knew that's where I wanted to go. No one gave me any directions though, other than saying it was possible.

So I learned slowly. Working at New Horizons was without a doubt the primary reason I was able to learn about this stuff. I learned the programming languages necessary, and above all I learned what in the heck a database was. Even today I hear people talk about databases and they throw it around having no idea what it entails. "How does this button work?" "Oh it gets data from the database and puts it here." As if that is a satisfactory answer. While technically true its like saying "Cars move because they have gasoline." There is so much more.

I've wanted this comment section for a long time, and even knowing how databases work I could not get it. I've had a table in my database called "Comments" for a long time and tried to implement it years ago. I hate to admit it but I finally looked at other blogs to get an inkling of an idea. I always hated the fact that comments where on a seperate page in your standard blogs. My philosphy about Web surfing is that the more pages there are the more jarring experience the visitor has while surfing. Commercially its bad, but it has benefits as well.

I now realize why they are on seperate pages. It probably could be built in the same page but the code would be messier and you'd have to account for a lot more stuff. That was a key discovery/realization. Once I accepted that comments must be on a different page the rest practically snapped into place. I built the form and the data handler, accounted for all the data clean up and it was 99% finished. Then I had a huge problem with the insert query.

The query was correct actually, but my variables were empty. Even now I have no idea why they were empty. It took me another few weeks to sit down and tinker with it enough to change my approach. Once I did that, the variables were full, the insert worked. The feeling was like that of a sailor being lost at sea for months and months and then finally, one day, seeing land. I'm happy to announce comments can now be left on any Journal entry.

There are still things I can improve. Presentation, data handling, an approval system (which is pre built in to my code I just have to turn it on a change a few select things).

What stinks is that my brain is hard wired to beleive now that I have comments I should expect a minimum of 50 comments on every entry in the past and higher amounts for every entry in the future. I know that won't happen. But still I check my email every 10 minutes. It's like a child building a paper airplane and then expecting the US Air Force to call.

No action yet but it does feel good to have it built in and working. So what's next for this page? I keep talking about a major face lift to make it look better. That's going to be rough. But perhaps. I keep dreaming about making a store to sell items. Not for the business of it. I don't really want to sell T shirts or anything. But I do want to use XML more so that my code can stand up to job interviews better.

Oh, Merry Christmas tomorrow, eh? How 'bout that? We were supposed to go to Tennessee but didn't because of Beckah's new job. We are ready for Christmas in Utah though. The stockings are hung (no chimney), tree is up (praise be to the pagan gods of the Romans), and we have a manger seen over looking everything (Gooooo, Jesus!). I'm looking forward to it. I will try to update one more time this year.

Making Fun of Movies

December 18, 2009

A few weeks ago my brother sent me some funny motivational posters. I have looked them up online and there are a plethora of them available. I said to myself, "I bet I could make one of those. If I only had a subject." I am full of nothing but subjects that I want to lampoon and they are such a great thing. An abbreviated complaint about life, summarized with an image with the goal of comedy.

So my first topic is a movie that is out right now called "Avatar". I saw the promotions for this movie and rolled my eyes and just thought, "Something for the kids, I suppose." But critics are raving about it, its the most expensive movie ever made, people love it, etc. But for the love of Pete, its just giant blue people who look funny, and are apparently in love and running from bombs...for some reason. So I found a quick way to build these posters and with that said, I promote my first (de)motivational poster. Maybe there will be more of these coming! Enjoy!

Test Has Been Passed

December 15, 2009

Test was taken, and passed. I have been taking practice tests from a program called Transcender. I took a warm up test this morning and passed with 98%, so I felt very ready. When I took the real test I found there was a good amount of difference from the practice tests. The practice tests did introduce me to the right concepts and got me the right direction, but I had to do a lot of thinking on my feet. About half way through the test I thought I was doing badly and even resigned myself to thinking, "Well, this will be a practice test and I'll pass it next time."

The test happened in two sections: non-performance and performance. The non-performance questions were just database maintenance theory, and tool identification in a given scenario. The performance section of the test was a specific task was assigned and they turned you loose in SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio) and you had to solve the problems.

I got 788 on the non-performance section and 820 on the performance. I'm not sure what the highest score is and I guess Microsoft is mysterious about it. All they tell you is that 700 is passing. As my friend recently said, what do they call the guy that graduates from med school at the bottom of his class? Doctor. I can't be called a doctor, but I can be called a Certified SQL Specialist.

There are more tests to take, and since I have identified SQL as my target career I will be taking them soon I am sure. But for now, its a major relief to have passed that test on the first attempt.

London Does the Alphabet...Well...Most of it!

December 12, 2009

I have really been wanting to get more videos on my journal so I recorded one of London doing the alphabet. I did them all in order here, but she can identify them at random. Sometimes I spell words for her and she rattles them off. I'm proud of her though. She's just over 19 months now and just needs a little polishing on a few letters. This was recorded yesterday on December 11, 2009. Enjoy!

MS SQL Cert-70-431 Test

December 10, 2009

I have been working this SQL database administrator position since April. It is great because it is real life, resume worthy, nitty-gritty, solid SQL experience. But most SQL jobs require 5 years minimum experience. Now I have more experience than just this current job, what with teaching it at New Horizons and using it as part of MySQL on this here very Website. However, I have not posted to my journal that my current contract will expire sometime after the new year. That means I am job hunting,

I have made a decision that I want to work this SQL angle for a while, perhaps the rest of my career. There is certainly more I can learn and conquer with it. But I have to job hunt with the experience I have. Thus I am taking tests to compliment my experience. The first such test is the Certification 70-431. I have been studying for months. It's just these past few weeks where it's come together for me. I am scoring 80% on my practice tests. So I have scheduled the real test for this coming Tuesday. I will conquer this test.

A few other things going on in life. I'm quite happy. On the job hunt, I have a phone interview on Monday which I am looking forward to. It is a dba position so definitley in line with what I want to do. London can say and identify 21 letters of the alphabet. I need to post a video of that. She is happy way more than the average baby. She makes Beckah and I very happy when others see her and comment how good she is. Speaking of Beckah, she is working her job and making our little family operate. Christmas is fast approaching. I am excited about it for London's sake. I still think that next year is when Christmas is going to be truly thrilling for her.

What is worth mentioning is that London has not batted an eye at the Chrsitmas tree. It's odd that she hasn't tried to climb the tree. She did get hold of a present and rip the bow off of it, but even that wasn't that bad.

I think that is all. I just wanted to post that I'm taking that test on Tuesday. I will post next time whether I passed or not. I am working on the comments section of this journal again. I may have something on that soon too.

First Video Posting

November 28, 2009

I am trying to figure out how to work with videos because its a trend that started 10 years ago and I'm just getting on board with it now. Sad but true. As my trial run I put a video of London ALMOST walking. Almost, but not quite. Hope it works!