Moving out of my apartment in the course of the next month. Since my parents are moving to St. Charles, I decided to buy their old house. Next few months are going to be a little crazy; I'll have to move in by the end of the year, but they won't be moving out until a few months later. So I'll be trying to start doing some work on the house, but working around my stuff, their stuff, and some of John and Julie's stuff that's taken up temporary residence.

I need to spend some time figuring out what my expenses are going to be getting the place fixed up, and work out a plan for what to do in what order. The carpet in the basement has to go. Once side of the yard still needs to be fenced. Need to have a bathroom put in the basement -- I imagine that'll be an expensive one. While I'm at it, I'll probably run minimal plumbing for water to where the bar will be. And of course, there's the bar itself...

And all that's beyond just the basic lights, furniture, and stuff that needs to be bought. This is going to be interesting.

Working on a mortgage with Allegiant. They're quoting a pretty good rate, though of course the application paperwork is still in progress. Interestingly, the papers I received today quote the purchase price at the low end of the range we discussed, but the loan amount closer to the high end. This, of course, results in a down payment calculated at <20% of the property value, which in turn causes them to factor mortgage insurance in to the cost estimate. Looks like I'll be back on the phone again on Monday...


In about a week and a half, I'm off to London. Going there with a couple friends from college for Thanksgiving weekend (plus a few days the week after). I'm leaving most of the planning to them (with the exception, of course, of setting up my flights).

Bought GPS map data covering western Europe (so unlike my previous trip I'll have more than just waypoints to work with). The way they divided up the map segments for download to the receiver has its good points and its bad points. On the plus side, you can download point-of-interest maps separately from road maps. But (at least around London) I'm not too sure about where they drew the dividing lines between map areas. I imagine this wouldn't be a big deal with a newer receiver, which probably has a lot more memory for map storage anyway... But they have one huge area around Heathrow, then four maps each covering a quarter of London. Not all of these can be loaded in the memory I've got, and I can't count on computer access while I'm there. The concensus is to load the London maps and not worry too much about maps near the airport, as we'll mostly be in London.


Other stuff I could rant on about, but I don't really have time right now. Perhaps later.

(4 Comments |Comment on this)

The data movement utilities for DB2 are really starting to irk me. Of course, the frustration is compounded by problems relating to the way the company's servers are configured, which isn't the software's fault, but even so I think I have a good case for being fed up with, in particular, the autoloader. (Actually, the problem is probably the basic load utility, upon which autoloader sits. But I digress...)

When you issue a load command, you can list multiple files in a comma-separated list. This is convenient, because our data extract system produces multiple files for certain tables. This is good.

Not so good is the fact that apparently every line of the file -- including the last one -- should be terminated. DOS-style termination is tolerated (unless the last value on a row is NULL; then may God have mercy on your soul), but UNIX-style is prefered (at least on the UNIX platform where we're working). So, yeah, I understand that UNIX tends to think of the last line as incomplete if it doesn't have an 0x0A at the end -- even vi bitches about this (and silently "fixes" it if you save the file). Fair enough, I suppose.

I will now pause to reflect that an ASCII-mode FTP does not automagically stick a 0x0A on the end of the last line.

So anyway, when I first wrote the extract code, Acceess was handling the files, and it seemed to be happier without the final sequence. So I structured the code so as to leave it off. When I chagned the code to produce files for autoloader to handle, it didn't even occur to me that I should change that behavior. So I didn't.

Problems weren't immediately evident, because in most cases this works fine. The data is loaded, no warning is generated. But, it seems that if you load multiple files in one pass, and if each file is big enough, and if a file other than the last doesn't terminate its last line, then the file following the offending file silently (as in, once again, no warning is generated) drops a record. Not always the first record... often about the 1400th record. All of the logs, message files, etc. behave as if the correct count of records read were simply one less than you, as the programmer, know it should be.

I was puzzled. I wondered if it were because of the last line of the preceding file, but that didn't make sense to me -- shouldn't that affect the first line of the next file? I thought so, but I was wrong. I can only speculate that it has to do with the way autoloader splits the file before loading it.

Well, the batch of files I was loading had DOS-style line termination, so I focused on that. Loaded one of the smaller files in vi, did a little /^V^M// magic, and saved the file. Sure enough, that load was fixed. Thinking I had the solution, I FTP'd the larger files (BINARY mode) to my NT box, then FTP'd them back in ASCII mode, only to be baffled again when this didn't fix the problem. (It did, however, affect the bug; a different record got skipped, probably because the byte offsets of records in the file had changed.)

If you didn't follow all that, it may be because I'm a little tired and am not explaining too well. Or it may be that you forgot what I said about vi quietly terminating the last line of the file when you save. Who knows? It was eventually vi that tipped me off to the problem so I could fix it. The UNIX vi gave me warnings about incomplete last lines, which I finally corelated with the glitch. WinVI has a HEX mode that I used to detect the hard-to-see 0x0A at the end of the last line.

The new version of the output code is actually simpler and makes more sense; this, at least, is good.

...

Also annoying is the fact that when autoloader fails, it often leaves the table in a locked state. One reason it can fail is if the parameters you issue for the load utility are in conflict (e.g. you can't say STATISTICS YES if you say INSERT instead of REPLACE). Even this is a case where the table is left locked.

The ODS folks told me if this happens to run autoloader with the -terminate option. Well, guess what? If the config file contains conflicting options, then this too will fail (though I know not why) and will still leave the table locked. Very helpful.

...

Enough DB2 for now.

The errant St. Louis County Cab charge got taken care of with relatively little effort. Too bad evil credit card-related problems travel in small herds. My bank mis-handled the check I used to pay that same statement, posting it for $1000 less than its value. I found this out early this month (rather than just now when I got my bill) because I was dealing with the disputed charge from August.

So, as I may have already posted (too lazy to check), the woman I talked to said that she'd make a notation on the account, but that I should call again to deal with it when I got the next bill. This made no sense to me whatsoever. It continues not to make sense, but now I have a conspiracy theory to cover it.

So I got my bill, and sure enough it had noticable finance charges on it. In fairness, since my finance charges are always $0, any such charge is noticable... Anyway, called the company again and explained what was going on. The guy checks my account, presumably sees the notation on my account from the previous conversation and/or the fact that I never carry a balance, and says that indeed he can take care of it (as a "courtesy" to me, of course; a phrase that will go down in infamy). Anyway, the fix is that he'll credit the amount back to my next bill, meaning that I still need to pay it for now. I'll have to wait and see if this fix really fixes the entire problem; I will be most displeased if it doesn't.

So the conspiracy theory: In essence, by correcting the problem as a courtesy rather than admitting that it's not my problem, and by getting me to pay them and then crediting me back, the company gets a free (albeit small and short-term) loan. Practically speaking, I don't mind losing the use of about $25 for a month. It's the principle that bugs me. If they do this to enough people enough times, I bet it adds up nicely in their favor.

Moreover, every time they "fix" the problem in some complicated way that might screw up, they make it more expensive time-wise for me to take my $25 back. Hell, the lady I talked to the first time could've nipped this in the bud, but she opted to drag it out to a second call when I got this bill. This guy today could've fixed the problem outright, but instead he says they'll fix it on my next bill. If this goes wrong, then the explanation I have to give the next time I call is even more complicated, meaning I probably start getting attitude from the person I'll be dealing with.

At some point, I bet most people give up. I don't. I've been down this road before with MBNA, and although I eventaully had to tell a customer rep that she would do what I asked whether she understood and agreed with my reasoning or not, I eventually got it sorted out. The premise upon which I use credit cards is that I will not pay for the use of my money, and only while a company helps me stick to that premise will I use their card.

So hopefully I've heard the last of this problem, but I'm not sure that I have.

So the thing that bugs me: On an individual level, you pretty quickly reach a point where your time should be more valuable than a few bucks. I believe in buying convenience. But, I believe in doing so above board. When most people buy convenience by letting someone skim a little of their money, the encourage companies to pull little "oopses" that take a little money from each of a lot of people. (You know, like in that Superman movie, only different.)

Not wanting to be part of the problem, I'm inclined to fight to the death on these matters. Trouble is, even if I do, most people won't. I do all the extra work, and it does nothing to actually discourage the problem behavior, because as long as most people give in, there's an overall profit to be made.

I suppose this isn't entirely different from the kind of thinking that leads to low voter turnout.

I think somewhere in there I crossed to rambling. Enough for now.

(Comment on this)

Hmm... been away from LJ for a while.

A while ago, I commented on the apparent equivalence in Oracle between a 0-length string and NULL. I figured the same was probably true of DB2 (since a DB2 guy I work with didn't seem to understand that there could be a distinction). Turns out that they are not the same in DB2, and in fact the DB2 docs make a point of the fact that they aren't the same. For example, IIRC, '' || 'foo' = 'foo', but NULL || foo = NULL.

Pondering this new Sprint PCS deal. In the past I haven't really considered the new deals they offer because they always want to move the beginning of "evening" to 9pm. This deal would keep it at 8pm. I'd get a few more anytime minutes; cost would be about the same. Only downside I see is the per-minute charge if I run out of minutes might be a little higher, and I'd have to sign on for another year. (They offer free PCS-to-PCS calling if I sign on for two years; not sure if that's worth it, though... it only matters during peak hours, and I try to avoid calling other people's PCS phones at times when it uses their anytime minutes anyway...)

Getting ready for Christine's wedding late next month. Austin's brother has called a couple times for advice about planning the bachelor party. He apparently isn't very close to Austin, so was asking what he's like as far as alcohol, tobaco, and women.

Of course, none of this group is very wild, really. He doesn't smoke, doesn't drink much, and while he may or may not enjoy the whole strip club thing, he doesn't admit it if he does.

Well, we'll see.

Also need to deal with a tuxedo; finally got the info from Christine and Austin. (They apparently each thought the other had told me. Figures. Should still have enough time, but I need to get on it.)

Julie's birthday is Saturday. She's talking about doing something Friday evening. (She's in town after her last job interviews. Got a job in Fort Worth, so she'll be moving there in a couple weeks.)

Chili cook-off is also this Saturday. It runs later than it usually did in the past. Hopefully I'll shake this cold (or whatever it is) before then.

Looks like I'll probably by my parents' house when they move (early next year) to St. Charles.

New bowling season started last week. We now have a 6-player team (Christy, Rich, Scott, Ethan, Dad, and I). There was some confusion about whether Ethan was bowling with us this season, so Rich joined. Then Ethan said he was in. So now the two of them will alternate weeks. (Ethan has two other leagues anyway, so it should work out.)

Dad and I got new bowling balls just before the season started. Taking some time to adjust, but I think it'll improve my game.

(Comment on this)

Bowled two league series last week. The regular series was Tuesday; we won 5. Only a couple weeks left, but we're not too far out. Depends how the leading teams did last week.

The second series was Thursday; pre-bowling for next week. Dad and I both had good series; the other two bowl at the regular time Tuesday. So it'll depend how they do (and how the other team does), but we gave them a good starting point.

Friday evening we went to see a midnight showing of Willy Wonka. I'm not sure if I'd ever seen it straight through before. That is a messed up movie. Luckily, I was good and drunk at the time. (We'd gone to some Thai place for dinner that had seriously strong drinks, then to Blueberry Hill for a couple more rounds.)

Saturday night was the Moonlight Ramble. I'd just gotten my bike back in riding condition. Adjusted the shifters the other day, and it was riding fine. Checked the lights and brought spare batteries. Came pretty well prepared, in fact. (Flashlight. Water bottle. Raisons and granola bars...)

Not two miles into the ride, my chain jumped off the front sprocket as I was shifting to high gear. Got jammed between the sprocket and the chain guard. I was behind Christy, Scott, and Rich, so they didn't notice I was gone at first. Managed in spite of reduced control over the bike to get through traffic to the sidewalk. Set out a couple lights to keep from getting run over, and started looking at the problem.

Luckily, we'd brought the two-way radios we got for the ski trip. So I called ahead and let the others know what was happening. After a few minutes, a former bike mechanic stopped and helped me free the chain. About the same time, Rich got back to where we were.

Back on the road, but I didn't realize that the shifter had been pulled out of alignment. So, the next two times I tried to shift into high gear, the chian jumped off again. Fortunately, I had a screwdriver with me and knew how to make the required adjustment. Of course, by the time this was all done, we were well behind the pack.

Once the shifter was re-adjusted, high gear was really smooth. The low-end adjustment was still off, but I figured I could deal with that later. Not a lot of hills, plus I still had full use of the rear shifter. Along the way, we caught up with a guy who'd had a couple flat tire problems (and so was also behind).

So we got to Euclid, and the police there advised us to cut across Euclid to Lindel. (They don't want stragglers getting too far behind, as it gets a bit dangerous if you're still on the route when the police call it a night.) Unfortunately, this cut all of the park (and the rest area) out of the route for us. When we re-joined the main route, we stopped to wait for the rest of the group.

By this time, my front light had burned through its batteries. I went to change them while we were waiting, but I needed (and hadn't brought) a flat-head screwdriver. Oops. Eventually I realized a small key would do the job.

The others caught up, and the rest of the ride was pretty uneventful. Ran into several people we knew at the end of the ride. The ride ended at City Museum, so I got a brief look at what it's like. I'll have to go there sometime to really look around. St. Louis Bread Co. was a sponsor of the ride, so they had bagels at the end. They were ok, but we did better with the food we'd brought.

Definitely a more eventful ride than last year. I was better prepared; had one of those disposable ziploc containers for the food so it didn't get smashed; spare batteries (last year I had to go without lights through half of the ride; then again, nobody else in our group had lights at all)... The radios, of course. Didn't need them last year, and would've gotten by using cell phones if we hadn't had them this year, but the radios definitely helped things go less badly when there was a problem. But, on the other hand, last year we didn't have the mechanical problems, scares where we thought we'd lost stuff (my cell phone, one of Rich's radios; both ended up found), a few other minor reminders that Murphy was running the ride.

The biggest difference for me was the new bike. When it's working, it rides great. But then, nothing has ever gone wrong with the old three-speed shifter on my Schwin (the bike I rode last year). For all the abuse I put the old bike through, it was always reliable. This Trek may be the death of me.


Uncle Dan turned 60 not long ago, and there was a party planned for Saturday. The plan didn't work out, though. His wife passed away on Thursday She hasn't been exactly well in a long time, but this was sort of sudden. The funeral is later today.

(Comment on this)

Took my bike out for a ride to make sure it's in good shape before the Moonlight Ramble. Every time I have the shop fix one thing, it comes back with something else messed up. This time, the front shifter's out of adjustment. For the second and third gears, I can just shift 1 position "lower" than I should and it works fine. For the lowest gear, I just have to hope the chain falls into place instead of falling off. I am not amused.

I might try to take it in sometime this week. If they can do the work while I wait, that might be ok, assuming they don't mess anything else up. Right now it's ridable if a bit unstable. Hmm...

Anyway, I went back by the condos by the library to see if anything was new with the two units up for sale. The less expensive of the two had switched to Remax. (Had been for sale by owner according to Mom.) So I figured that might mean the price would be down a bit. Called Remax, it had already sold.

Played a few games of Spades and Hearts on iPlay with Christine. We won the spades games. I started out doing well in the Hearts game, but ended up getting beat up pretty bad late in the game. Then we switched to Go. Neither of us exactly knows how to play, but I think I've got the idea now. Interesting. I wonder what actually costitutes good strategy...

I've been pondering what it is about 3D games (N64-style) that makes them seem so much harder to me than old-style games. I've decided it's the variable perspective. Makes it harder to be thorough in exploring a level, which is important for the few games I play. Mabye it's not harder; maybe you just have to get used to it. Dunno. I find it harder.

There are two condos for sale in McKelvey Manor, which is right next to the subdivision where I grew up. One of them is definitely in my price range, and it's not a bad complex, so I decided to check it out. The place is pretty nice. Small yard. Finished basement. 1-car garage.

According to the condo association rules there, you can (with permission) fence your yard, but then you take responsibility for mowing it and stuff. As far as I can tell, you still can't actually leave a dog unattended in your yard... So basically you'd have to have an indoor dog.

This place would certainly be a step up from where I'm at (in terms of space, noise, and ability to keep a pet), but it wouldn't be ideal. I'm coming to the conclusion that even a condo with a yard generally won't be great from a pet standpoint; I guess that should've been pretty obvious. Location-wise this place would be pretty good (about as good as I can expect, I think).

So I'm debating whether to give up and just start looking for a house. As I've said before, I don't really want to go that route, but the more I look at it, the down-side of doing so doesn't seem that bad. You can always hire someone to cut the grass and stuff...

If I don't make a decision pretty quick, this place I'm looking at will likely sell to someone else. The lady who owns it is moving out of state in about a month, so she wants to sell fast. But, I'm not going to rush into a place if I'm not sure it'll suit my needs for at least 5 years (which at this point means into my 30's... geh). So I guess I probably won't end up buying the condo in question.

(3 Comments |Comment on this)

Have I complained about MS Access lately?

I'm translating queries written for Access so they can be run in DB2. It's a step in the right direction (i.e. away from Access). Generally the work is tedious rather than hard. The most you usually have to do is periodically dig through documentation to find the DB2 equivalent for some function.

One problem, though. Until recently, I didn't have a machine where I could load a proper copy of the "back-end" .mdb file. The back end stores the table definitions. For those tables that we have in our DB2 schema, this isn't a big deal; I just re-link them. For the rest (which we're putting in the DB2 schema but which aren't there yet do to organizational red tape), I have no definition. This should only impact testing.

I say "should" only impact testing, but in reality, Access throws a fit when it can't see the table definition. Says it can't model the join condition, which (as far as the graphical view goes) I can sorta understand. What I can't understand is why, when you go to the SQL view, it screws up the join there, too. You can't tell if it's an inner or outer join, because the query is rewritten as though there'd been no join condition between the two tables. If it doesn't understand the query, why doesn't it just show you the unmolested SQL (like it would with a pass-through)?

I have to assume that it doesn't use SQL as its internal representation of the query. Even if that's so, it still should be able to generate the SQL correctly regardless of whether it has visibility to all of the objects involved. It knows the names of the tables and columns in the join. It must know what type of join is going on (since that doesn't depend on the structure of the tables). So what's the farking problem?

(Comment on this)

On Thursdays a club called Viva in the CWE apparenlty offers brief classes in salsa and related dance steps. Went with Rich, Christy, and Scott went last night. Arrived late, but still learned a little. It would appear that "a little" is all that one can learn from such classes. We'll see if my vague interest in learning this sort of thing overcomes my general laziness to the point that I track down a proper class.

(Comment on this)

Had some repairs and adjustments done on my bike. The work was all covered by the warranty, so the only money I spent was for a ticket for the Moonlight Ramble (next week).

When we picked up my bike, Dad dropped his off to have a tire replaced. Apparently Schwin used unusual tire sizes (and have since been bought out), so the tires have gotten a little hard to find (have to be ordered) and expensive.

I'm debating whether to take my old bike in for work when we pick Dad's up. Obviously I don't need it, and really it's too small for me anyway, but I figure I should either get it in usable condition and keep it as a spare, or get it in usable condition and try to sell it (or even just give it to someone; the point is, right now it can't be used and is just taking up space).

One of the Music Fest concerts at the Gardens was postponed due to rain, so it was rescheduled for yesterday. Luckily we got in and out of the bike shop early enough that I was able to catch up with Christy on her way there (rather than taking a cab to catch up with the group). This ended up causing some minor food confusion (she'd already put an order in for the group at Syberg's), but it worked itself out -- Heather and Dianna dropped out at the last minute.

So that's basically the last of them for this year. There are groups playing the next few weeks from 6 to 8; not sure what that's all about. Some of the group will probably try to make it; I doubt I will.

(Comment on this)

Got my guitar back from McMurray last night. I took it in Monday night to have the pick-up installed. They apparently got to it pretty quick, so we went to get it before bowling.

It's an active pick-up, which means it has a battery. The battery pack looks like it'll be hard to get to when I need to change the battery. Supposedly a battery will be good for about 6 months. Maybe more since I don't intend to use an amp that often, but who knows. Anyway, I'll probably have to remove a couple strings to reach the battery.

Played it briefly at the shop before leaving; not enough to get a good feel for how it sounds, just enough to hear that it was working. Dropped it off, then went bowling...

We won 7 points; been a while since we've done that... we should be back in 3rd or 4th place. Just need another good series or two. I'm a bit frustrated with how I played. We bowled a practice game first (we got there early), which went well. The first five frames of league play went well. After that I just couldn't hit my target all night. Series average just over 110. But, at least the team won.

Got home around 9:30, returned a call to Christine. She was looking for things to do in St. Louis (so she can give people ideas for what to do while they're in town for her wedding in October). Talked about some writing she's doing, a couple story elements that always seem bad for a story, random things.

Played around with the guitar a bit (with no amp; would've been too loud for that late) to make sure the pick-up wasn't interfering with its accoustic sound. It seems to be fine. It'll be a while yet before I can plug it in and really see how it sounds amplified.

(Comment on this)

Pondering buying a condo. In many ways, now would be the time to do it. (Low interest rates. Reasonably sure I won't be moving out of town terribly soon.) And of course the conventional wisdom is that owning is always financially more sensible than renting. (Not that I don't trust the conventional wisdom, but I'm working through the numbers, because it's certainly not as straight-forward as it sounds...)

Downside: I like my current location. If I were willing to just buy a house (I'm not; I don't want to deal with the maintenance issues just yet), I might not have to move more than a couple blocks. There are many complexes of condos in the area, but even a move of 1 mile is significant when you have to walk to get around.

There is a part of my mind that is revolting at the thought of pulling a down payment out of my stock holdings while the market's down, but that may just be the way it goes...

Anyway, I figure my limit's about $150k. Depends on the loan, of course, but that's my guess. There are some condos that (according to tax records) should be in that range near the library. I think it's between 1 and 2 miles from where I live now. Two units for sale. One guy wants over $170k, the other wants over $195k. (Both for sale by owner.)

Now, I haven't looked at the interior of these places yet, but from the outside they look nice. Each unit has a 2-car garage (which, for me, would mean "storage space" or "sublease"). Decent yard. (Important because if I buy a place, I'll probably get a dog.) And the location isn't bad.

But, no way can I pay $170k, especially for a place that isn't valued above $150k (as I'd like to be able to get my money back out of the place when I sell it). So I'll keep an eye on them to see if the price comes down. If they stay on the market a bit longer, maybe I'll contact the owners and see how open they are to the idea that they're asking too much.


Meanwhile, Mom and Dad are looking at maybe buying a house in a new neighborhood being built in St. Charles. It'll be just across the river where the Page extension's going. I rode along with them to look at display houses. (Had to drive all over St. Charles to find the displays, because construction on the new site hasn't actually started.) Some of them look pretty nice, but they all have one or two quirks. Mostly small things that you might be able to change without any problem.

Dad's worried about if they'd be on high enough ground. (Matters both due to flooding concerns and because he wants to get back into amateur radio.) I think they're both thinking the price is a little higher than they'd like. We'll see what happens.


Taught Heather, Dianna, Scott, Christy, Rich, and Steve how to play durak. It went pretty well, although one of the more confusing rules caused a few problems and one near-revolt.

Saw Twister again. It wasn't as bad as I'd originally thought, but still not what I'd call a great movie.

Got very little sleep last night; I'd been running around enough on weekends that I was behind on a few things (like checkbook and bills, etc.), so I stayed up late getting caught up.

(Comment on this)

Bought a new guitar. Tried to do a little shopping Friday. Only one place was open past 6. I'd run into the same problem when I bought my electric, but I'd forgotten.

So we went to Fazzio's. The salesman was a nice guy. Obviously a salesman, but whatever. Wasn't until later when I looked at his card that I realized he's either the owner or family of the owner.

Anyhow, he was showing me guitars that cost a bit more than I'd intended to spend, but he was willing to cut a pretty good deal. I said because of the cost I'd have to shop around a little and think about it.

I was looking for an acoustic/electric -- an accoustic guitar with a pick-up installed in it. The idea is you still get an accoustic sound, but you can plug into an amp instead of playing into a mic. (The amplified sound is still better than you get from an electric. Don't get me wrong; an electric has its place. But for solo guitar / vocal stuff, the sound of an electric generally won't cut it.)

Supposedly a good (and well-installed) pick-up system won't affect the sound of the guitar. This is important to know when comparing guitars, because sometimes you're looking at one with electronics built in, and sometimes you're looking at a straight accoustic and you'll have to have the electronics installed.

So, Friday night I'd played around with a bunch of guitars the guy showed me, and was looking at a Taylor 110 and a Rainsong.

Rainsong makes graphite guitars. This particular model had a graphite top, wood back and sides. It's apparently a $1300 guitar, but this one was steeply discounted because it had been used for a few months as a demo instrument. The graphite top gives it a distinctive look, and it has a pretty good sound. Already had electronics built in, so I spent quite a bit of time playing it through an amp.

The Taylor 110 is a $700 solid-wood guitar. It has a really nice sound when played accoustically. It does not come with electronics built in.

So when we left Friday, I was leaning toward the Rainsong, but I wanted to go to McMurray and maybe a few other places.

Saturday, the guy at McMurray showed me a number of guitars, but none seemed quite as nice for the same money. (In retrospect, I think this is because, while the salesman was pretty good, he was showing me the wrong models. Some that were lower-end and didn't sound as good, some that were more expensive, but he seemingly passing over the ones that would directly compete with what I was looking at Friday. In fairness, he didn't know what I'd been looking at Friday...)

I told him I'd think about it. Headed back to Fazzio's expecting to play with the two guitars again and make a decision. They were, of course, much more busy than the night before. Took a while to get help, and I was dealing with a different guy because I'd forgotten the first guy's card.

I played both guitars again, this time making a point not to use an amp with either one. It quickly became clear that the Taylor was the better-sounding guitar. Apparently the Rainsong gets quite a bit of its sound from being plugged in. (I gather this is common with non-wood guitars and such. I played a couple Ovations (the guitars with the single-piece molded back; not sure what the back is made of, but I don't think it's wood), and they sounded dead until you plugged them in.)

While I want the ability to plug in the guitar, I don't want to have to rely on electronics to get a good sound. So, I decided to go with the Taylor. But, the salesman this time was a pain in the neck to work with. Was just quoting list price on everything. For the guitar plus a good pick-up system, I'd have paid close to $1000 (and waited 2 or 3 weeks for installation).

Since we'd spent a bit of time discussing different pick-up systems, I told him I'd have to think about that and I'd get back to him.

The plan now was two-fold: 1) Go back to McMurray, model number in hand, and see if they could compete. 2) Find the card from the guy I dealt with Friday. If McMurray didn't make a compelling offer, go back to Fazzio's but only deal with that guy.

McMurray does have the Taylor 110; the guy hadn't shown it to me because he knew I was looking for something with a pick-up. One nice thing about McMurray is that they actually mark their stuff with the discounted price they'll charge you (rather than list, as Fazzio's does), so you don't have to play the game with the salesman to avoid getting screwed. So they had it marked for $550; not a bad deal at all.

Plus, McMurray gives you two "set-ups" over the course of the first year you own the guitar. This includes a number of things, among them replacing the strings. Two sets of strings plus labor is a notable amount of "free" stuff.

So I bought the guitar, which came with a really nice soft-sided case (light-weight, reasonably thick to protect the guitar, has a shoulder strap; good for walking). Also picked up a nice portable guitar stand, a guitar humidifier (basic upkeep for an accoustic; won't need it in St. Louis except when the heat's on in my place...) Bought a $100 active pick-up system (which I'll have installed in the next couple days).

Been playing with the guitar for the past couple days. Very happy with the sound. Really want to hear how it sounds plugged in.

(Comment on this)

Saw the Blue Man Group last night at Riverport. We went to Kriegers beforehand. (They have a location in Earth City that I didn't know about. It's on the far side of the Riverport Drive loop from my office.) Food wasn't bad; service was awful. Still, made it to the show in plenty of time.

The opening acts were pretty good; Tracy Bonham (I think that was her name) played first, then Venus Hum. Their music wasn't bad, and I was somewhat impressed that Bonham could do a decent job playing a violin (or might have been a viola) and singing at the same time.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the Blue Man Group's act. Hadn't really seen them (other than in the P4 commercials a couple years back). It's pretty strange. Quite a bit of visual humor (fortunately we were in about the 6th row). A lot of unusual percussion. This tour seems to be centered on mocking rock show cliches.

Anyway, excellent show.

(Comment on this)

Cab driver this morning was having problems with either his computer or his radio. Couldn't get it to accept my credit card. So he says he can take me to an ATM. I said fine, so off we go. He takes the long way around to the gas station, apparently retrying the card along the way, and finally gets it to work as we get to the gas station.

He didn't try to charge me for the extra driving around, but I still wonder if I shouldn't complain. Maybe the problem is with County Cab's central system, but I'll bet its the equipment in his car, and I bet he won't bother to get it looked at. (He, of course, blames the system; many of the drivers simply Do Not Like taking credit cards.) Farking waste of my time.


Not wanting to take a long lunch break today (in a little later than usual, have to leave on time), I decided to take my chances with the cold food vending machine again. Sometimes I wonder about myself.

I've found it's hard to tell what some of the items in the machine are. They'll be at an odd angle, on the packaging will just be hard to read because it's printed in some weird, spiraling font designed by a marketing twit. My vision is, no doubt, a factor, but I don't have trouble with normal snack vending machines.

Anyway, I saw one thing that might be food I could deal with, and decided it was worth $2.00 to find out. I put in a $5 bill, typed in the code for the item, and it came back with "Use correct change". Fine.

So I put in a $1 bill, and then tried to put in another $1 bill. It can only handle one bill at a time. Looked for an "accept another bill, stupid machine" button, but there was none to be found. It appears that when the machine is being surly about correct change, you have to have coins.

I thought about it, and decided on this plan: Buy a soda with one dollar. Now I have two quarters. On the theory that I'll drink it sooner or later, buy a second soda (using another $1 bill). Now I have 4 quarters and another $1 bill. Put those in the cold food vending machine, and I have $2.00 credit.

So I type in the code again, and it turns out to be some nasty sort of sandwich much unlike what I thought I was buying. Ended up throwing it out and buying a bag of chips.


Meanwhile, I just moved a desktop machine belonging to the project into my cube. The boss said we didn't want to involve anyone in the move (as it would take forever), so I should just do it myself. So I did. Now it won't talk on the network, so I ended up having to call the support center. (Presumably the second network jack in my cube isn't active.)
They put a ticket in, and someone will be here eventually to look at it.

(Comment on this)

You know, there's stupid, and then there's stupid. I have to agree with the Democrats on this one. Has the Pentagon not thought of the ways this scheme could go wrong?

For a minute, set aside the ethical shock value of gambling on terrorism. I'm not terribly familiar with other futures markets; I understand that some people regard them as investment (akin to the stock market?). This one, though, is clearly about gambling. Not that I'm anti-gambling, but is collective gambling really a useful tool in national security? And wouldn't the people in the best position to profit from this -- the few people who could use it as an investment medium -- be terrorists?

Government never ceases to amaze.

(Comment on this)

Article on cnn.com about the legal fight over the sex.com domain name. A judge ruled that Network Solutions can be held liable.

Thing is, I agree that NS should bear liability, but in every other respect it seems I disagree with what the judge, according to the article, said.

First, the ruling is based on the premise that a domain name is property, just like a plot of land. I find that highly questionable. I'd view it more as a license (although that just leads into the modern blur of the line between intellectual "property" and real property). A domain name owner's rights should derive from their license and/or contractual agreement. The property analogy just doesn't hold up.

Second, the judge implies that all of the real liability lies with Cohen, but that because of circumstances it's "fair" to transfer some of that liability to NS (leaving them to try to get compensation from Cohen). This is total nonsense. NS should have its own liability in this matter, arising from negligence in executing its business agreements; it should not inherit liability from Cohen for his fraudulent actions.

(Comment on this)

If you're running an Access application and click a button that opens/runs a report, you may get an error. It will likely be something incredibly useful, like "The expression was typed incorrectly or is too complex". There will be an 'OK' button, and that is all. It will not mention which expression has a problem.

(A report might easily have a few sorting/grouping/summary expressions, a few dozen data-related controls (each containing an expression), and a "record source", which is typically an SQL query with lots of expressions in it. There may also be one or more subreports, each of which can have similar elements. If the record source is a query, it may reference other queries. Recurse till it hurts.

If you step away from the application forms and run the report directly, you will get the same error, but now it has a 'Help' button. Actually, it's a 'no Help whatsoever' button, as it brings up a window that says "This error may have the following causes: 1) You've mis-typed the expression. 2) The expression is too complex."

So now you get to start ripping the report apart to look for the problem expression. Perhaps it's in the query. Usually it's easy enough to run the query and see what happens. Of course, if the problem is in the query, the error still doesn't tell you which expression(s) contain the problem. If you have subqueries, you'll have to manually descend the structure to find the lowest-level query (or queries) that fail.

Once you find the offending query, it can be helpful to replace any subqueries referenced by that query with tables. (Run the subquery; store the results in a table; rewrite the failing query to reference the table.) You then might get a more descriptive error message, such as: "Overflow." (Yes, I'm being sarcastic.)

So, where is there an overflow, and what is overflowing? Well, it could be Access's type-casting functions. If you use CInt on a numeric column, it'll work fine. Except if it finds a value of 2^15 or greater. (Or, I suppose, less than -2^15.) So whether the query completes depends not only on the column types being as expected, but on the current data being as expected as well. It's not the worst behavior I can imagine, but a meaningful error message would be nice. A trivial data-type problem should not take over 2 hours to track down and diagnose.

(Comment on this)

The pro shop at the bowling alley sells rolls of a type of tape designed (IIRC) to protect your fingers from the ball. I decided to try it in place of mole skin to protect my hand from the brace I use. It works pretty well, and while a roll is a bit expensive (~$11), it should last a while.

One thing about bowling: There are a number of things you have to do right to throw a good ball. I have a tendency, when I've just solved a major problem, to see initial positive results, then start to get complacent and do something else wrong. So, yesterday's series was above average, but only a little. I'll have to keep working on it. I definitely had better control and better aim through most of the series.

(Comment on this)

Played a few songs in a jam session at a local bar. I know the guy who runs the sessions so I've gone to a couple of them.

There's a couple guys there who apparently like to think of the sessions as their personal rehearsal time for other gigs. They haven't been too obnoxious yet, but they're getting there.

Went to dinner and then to shoot pool with Heather, Dianna, Chrsity, Rich, Scott, and Jason. Scott knows the owners of this pub that's been around for a year now (can't remember the name), so they were having some big event with free food (which I didn't try; we ate at Fridays) and door prizes (mostly, it seems, weird red-polka-dotted bandannas or something like that). Had a really good run going on the pool table for about a game and a half, then returned to my usual skill level :)

Chris showed up with his girlfriend (Liz) and a friend of hers (Michele). So we finally met Chris's girlfriend. We'd actually met her briefly once or twice before, but this was the first time she actually hung out with the group.

(I never am sure if I'm spelling people's names right when I talk about people I recently met. Even if I were sure of the common spellings of the nemes, I wouldn't know if that's how they spell it. Not generally a question I just throw around when I'm introduced to someone. Not that it matters; it's a near-certainty that nobody who'd know any better reads this.)

Heather drove to the bar. She decided to leave a little early. Since Christy had left her car at Friday's, I figured I'd ride back with Heather. Chris offered me a ride, which I initially would've declined (figuring four people in his car was a bit much), but he told me they had Michele's car. So I stuck around, we had another drink, then we went to Denny's to sober up.

Turns out her car had enough stuff in the back seat that it was only slightly better than putting four people in Chris's car.


I have the two "Legend of Zelda" games for the N64; got them a while back. I don't play video games much, but this series has always been addictive. So I hadn't played in a long time, but I started in on the first one again over the weekend. Didn't start over, but maybe I should have; spent quite a bit of time trying to remember stuff from the last time I'd played.

There's a character always following you around nagging you about the next major plot point, trying to keep you on task with the main quest. It's annoying, and I think it runs against the grain of the game. I suppose as the games have developed more story line, they were bound to become a little more linear.

(Comment on this)

Access gives really lousy error messages. You try to run a query or a report, it tells you that there was a problem, but it rarely tells you anything useful to diagnose the problem.

It turns out there's no problem using a pass-through query in a subreport, as long as the subreport doesn't reference values from the parent report. (A few of our reports use subreports just so we can have data from unrelated sources on the same report.) The reason the one report wouldn't run was because the subreport had a typo in its sort conditions and was quietly linking to a control in the parent report. Not that Access helped us figure this out; I was just lucky enough to spot the problem.

(Comment on this)

Scott brought a tape of a show called "Dead Like Me" or something like that on Monday. Pretty good. Funny. Bad ending for the first episode, but we'll probably keep up with it for a while.

No league play this week. Four Seasons has some special tournament or something going on. So Dad and I went to Kingpin Lanes to bowl a practice series. It's a smaller place. Hasn't suffered a lot of the "improvements" of bigger bowling alleys, so it still looks like a bowling alley from 10 years ago (which is as it should be; the only true improvement I've seen at Four Seasons is when they finally brought in Noble Roman's pizza, and even that, while good, isn't quite what it was years ago).

So anyway, games were pretty cheap (though of course our league discount makes bowling at Four Seasons even cheaper at the moment), the place wasn't over-crowded. On the down side, the bar was closed, which interferes with beer frame.

My game's been off for a few months now, and I've been thinking about why. Lousy control. Decided it probably is because I stopped using a wrist brace. Never needed one with a 12lb ball, but even then it helped. Really had to use one at first with the 15lb ball, but I got to the point where I could throw without it.

The reason I stopped using it, though, is just that I ran out of mole skin. The brace I have is designed for a narrower hand, so one of the straps digs into my skin between the thumb and index finger. Easy enough to just put a patch of mole skin under the brace, but I ran out. So I quit using the brace, and never bothered to do anything about it (because, like I said, I'd gotten to the point where I could basically throw the ball).

So I thought, you know, I'm not sure I can throw a 15lb ball accurately with no brace, so I went ahead and used the brace yesterday. (And again it cut into my hand; I need to either get more mole skin or find another solution.) Much better control. Much better first-ball average. Even through I didn't get a lot of marks (which I attribute to bowling on unfamiliar lanes) my score was up 10 points or so from my recent league average.

(Comment on this)