me talking out loud

Damn - We’re going to get hit with another Typhoon. This one is called Chaba. The question now is will it go over us or will we just get the edges of it. We are of course hoping to just get the edges.. . Only Mother Nature knows for now.

Have to get water, money and gas, have plenty of batteries and all the other stuff involved. Will let you know how it goes.

Well I have to do a major rewrite of a program I made with less features (remove connecting to remote databases) and 1 big addition (make and maintain own database)…. Shouldn’t be too bad so I’m not worried about it - but it is a major pain in the buttocks. Also have to make all my documentation diagrams - Man haven’t drawn a network, system, data diagram in a long time (though I have been doing my database diagrams). I also have to flowchart my program. When I first started the project I was doing all the documentation… and what did they say - “No, don’t do that it takes up too much time. Just comment your code well.” They should have just left me alone - Oh well.

Don’t you just love it when they change their mind just as your finishing up

Ahhh… back home again. I enjoy traveling and seeing the world but “there is no place like home”. Jason and Kayla managed not to blow up the house (but then neither one was home) while I was gone. Thank you Kathryn for watching Kayla on the 18th while Jason had duty. And thank you Michele and Kevin for watching the dogs during that time.Of course - thank you Jason for making sure Kayla got up and out to school as well as all the the other million things you do.

It is a pain when I have to go away for business when Jason has duty. He is on the ship for 24 hours. No quick run home to take care of something. Sigh… Hopefully I won’t be away again anytime soon on when Jason has duty. Hope my boss wasn’t serious when he said I might be gone for a whole month.

I do have to admit though that it is nice being away (company owns hotel where we stay) - room, food, and even some entertainment is all payed for by the company. Quiet, no need to discuss who has the remote or what we will watch, don’t need to cook or clean. Well it’s nice for a little while and then you miss your family and home. Oh well - guess you can’t have everything.

Yeah I know this is old news.. Sigh - I’m slow (most of the time) and I need to update my laptop (it’s the one with the latest versions - unlike work). I hopefully will have it done by the end of the weekend (maybe I can do it while I’m in Siapan…. Hmm).

Oh and just a small note on the new version graphics for php.net… Pretty cool. Could have been cooler but honestly - who besides me would care.

Off I fly into the wild blue yonder… Tomarrow I am off to Siapan for a project planning meeting. Can’t say what the project is but it should be fun (and nerve racking). I will be learning/relearning a new language for it - either C++ or java. Time to stretch a few muscles that havn’t been used in a long while (namely my C and java skills).

Hope I don’t make a total fool of myself. The project team consists of myself, ~7 other programmers and a system engineer as the project manager. I am the junior most programmer of the group. Time for me to sit down, shut up, listen, and learn. Not like I haven’t done that lately (just 3 months ago )

Didn’t really do much this weekend. Basically hung out with the new puppy and the kid. Kai is doing well - mostly adjusted to us. He and Khan are still trying to work things out. Khan is getting a little jealous - can’t blame him since we normally give all of our attention to him and now he has to share. We used to have another dog so he knows what is going on. Before though he was the new comer not the other way around. I’m sure it will all work out.

Kayla finally realized that she would need more then 2 new pairs of pants for school. We tried to tell her but… she is at an age where she thinks she is always right. Anyway we also went out and bought her some. Took forever to find a couple that fit pretty well - think she tried on a minimum of 15 pairs to find 2 that fit. She is currently wearing mens jeans - they fit better since she hasn’t really started growing hips yet (just chest).

Kayla wants to bring over a friend to see Kai. I told her that is fine with me but she needs to ask Jason first (since he would be providing the transportation) and to get the approval of the other parents. We’ll see how it goes. I told her to shoot for Friday as the day.

The pictures of Kai’s arrival are loaded into the gallery. If you want to see them go here..

Kayla is studying hard for school. Last year Kayla learned that she has to do her homework when she first comes home from school - so this year there has been no problems. She does her homework and studies for any tests coming up (we like to use flash cards). Only then can she watch TV.

She has been doing pretty well so far. Homework usually only takes ~1 hour and then she hangs out with us in the living room. I disconnected her TV in her room last year because she was watching it when she wasn’t supposed to and I will not be reconnecting it anytime soon. I don’t like her disappearing in her room and not being involved with us (she used to come home, go to her room until dinner, eat, and go back to her room - we never saw her). Now unless she is reading, she is in the living room and available to normal family life and social interaction. She still wants her TV turned back on - but right now I think we/she need her/us around.

Kai is finally here! He is so beautiful! Thank you Amanda for this very special little man. I will be posting pictures of him in the galley when I get home. He seems to be doing OK. He was playing earlier this morning and Jason is now taking him in for his health check at the vet (Guam usually has a quarintine but since Kai comes from Australia he is exempt with a vet check in the first 24 hours).

Poor Khan. Kai is going to drive him crazy! Kai so far has been only in 2 modes - play and sleep (standard puppy). So I am more then confident that he will constantly be bugging Khan to play. Khan is young (4.5 years) so he can handle it - and even dish it out occasionally. If Kai is a typical Mal we are going to have to look into obedience classes - and the sooner the better. Well that is still a couple of months away.

Was messing around today and a friend told me about “Gallery”. A PHP based photo album program. Went and checked his out - Cool! So I of course had to get it and install it on the site.
I would be great for friends and reletives to be able to see what we are up to not to mention all the cool places we’ve been.

Yep - that’s right I did it… Granted there is nothing in it right now but there will be. Now all I have to do is find all my old pictures and load them in. I wonder if I backed them up before my old computer crashed… Hmmm. Sigh - I don’t think so (let that be a lesson to ya - always back up). Man now I’m going to have to rescan all the original pictures. I really hope I backed up the digital ones.

Remind me why I did this again.

Read enygma’s article at PHPdeveloper. Pretty cool. Have to agree with it. Programmers are gods and the computers are the slaves. They only do what we tell them so if something goes wrong - start looking at your code. Now granted I don’t know jack about enterprize level apps (or even very large apps) but even with only ~5000 lines of code you have to keep it clean if you aren’t seperating presentation from logic…. personally over that I would recommend using some kind of templating system. And don’t even get me started on indention (I hate lazy programmers). PHP is a very good language - easy to learn for the beginner - and more then capable for anything in the hands of a professional.

Only 1 more day until the puppy shows up! Bought the kennel (for crate training), collar, food and bowl for the puppy. Bought a dog bed for Khan dog (he normally sleeps on a pillow in the bedroom) so hopefully I will get back my pillow. No fence around the backyard yet (landlord will put one up later in the year) but we have put up a line so the puppy can go out at night for a little and do his thing without us worrying about the road. Khan knows better then to go on the road but the puppy won’t have the intellegence to understand that for a little while.

Poor Khan - he isn’t going to loke sharing his toys… especially when the puppy starts chewing the stuffed toys apart. Khan loves his squeeky baby.

Hope we haven’t forgotten anything… and if we have… well we can get it later.