Monday, Monday
Happy week start! I have no idea what is going on but today is one of those days where you simply cannot wake up. I got up, rode my exercise bike for 30 minutes half asleep, got ready half asleep, drove to work half asleep and am now sitting here since almost 8 hours and am still not able to wake up. I had coffee and Vault and instant espresso, but nothing helps. The fact that my day is still a little slow doesn’t help much.
I had such a nice weekend, the first weekend that was so nice and warm that we even had breakfast on the patio watching our cats who put on a nice circus act. If you think people are happy about spring, you should see a bunch of cats who have been cooped up in the house all winter long - it’s not like we make them, but during winter the little pussies just stare out the door expecting the snow to melt in front of their eyes. I also got to sleep at a reasonable time and still, I feel like I have been partying all night.
I mentioned it before, I have two classes this session, Global Project Management and Applied Mathematics and so far I have been able to coast, but that ends now. For GPMT we are using a tool called SimProject, where we are working on a simulated construction project. We have to hire resources, we have a budget and apparently the instructor can throw roadblocks into our way like a budget cut or a strike - very interesting. Unfortunately, we are having problems getting our group of 4 together. We tried yesterday at 6pm but only two people were “there” (in the project chat area) so I sent out an email telling them all to be there tonight at 7pm - not sure what to do if they aren’t because we have to make our first group decisions.
Unfortunately, I cannot even be too mad. If I look back at my own time at university, I am pretty sure a returning adult student would have been just as impatient. Well, we’ll see what happens tonight.
Back to the desk
Boohoo, poor me. All of last week I had been home with a really nasty sinus infection - one of those you just get when you are a kid. At least in my case, I feel that as a kid the flu hit me much harder. I don’t really get “stay in bed” sick too much anymore. On the other hand, when you are a kid the last thing you want is stay in bed - BORING. Anyway, I am back at work and chopping away on the pile of stuff that has accumulated over the last week.
The only good thing about being sick is that you get to catch up on a lot of TV watching, even if you are falling constantly. Yesterday, I actually got to watch The Linguist and it was a light-hearted, interesting documentation. Try to catch a re-run if you are interested in languages!
And on a different note, a new semester session has begun (I am taking accelerated 7 week courses), out with Server Side Scripting, in with GMPT350 Global Project Management and MATH200 Applied Mathematics.
The Linguists - Tonight (Feb. 26) on PBS
I just saw this in a magazine - tonight on PBS (10pm EST on my PBS station):
The Linguists is a hilarious and poignant chronicle of two scientists—David Harrison and Gregory Anderson—racing to document languages on the verge of extinction. In Siberia, India, and Bolivia, the linguists confront head-on the very forces silencing languages: racism, humiliation, and violent economic unrest. David and Greg’s journey takes them deep into the heart of the cultures, knowledge, and communities at risk when a language dies.
Before airing on PBS, The Linguists world premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and screened at more than 40 festivals worldwide. The Linguists is produced and directed by Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, and Jeremy Newberger of Ironbound Films, and based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grants No. 0452417 and 0438121 and by the Nonprofit Media Group.
Databases are boring
As some may know, I love computers, I love everything about them. I like writing and reading on the computer - the wealth of information is amazing, I like smaller programming tasks (for now), I enjoyed Java, HTML, CSS, my current excursion into ASP.NET and VB.NET, I enjoy working with images and video. But there is one thing that I could never warm up to and that is anything related to databases. Databases bore me - just the thought of gigabytes of data makes me yawn. Unfortunately, the ASP.NET class at Davenport also covers some database stuff. It makes sense I guess, most web-based programs are connected to a database somewhere be it an online shop or a customer list, a service list or what-not. Have I just not found the right approach to it to see the beauty of databases?
So far, I have enjoyed every single chapter of this book, but now I have to force myself through pages and pages covering SQL, ADO, ODBC, COM, OLE and I can’t seem to finish. What’s up with all the acronyms? I have to fight through at least another 50 pages going on and on about data connections and sources, queries and relationships, propertiessssssss - sorry, my head hit the keyboard when I feel asleep typing this. Can anyone help me? What am I not getting? Is there a way to make this more enjoyable? It’s not like I need much - heck, I have spent hours of my life watching my hard drive defrag and download progress bars grow.
Oh well, back to the ADO.NET model….
Captain Sully
I have been in love with this story since it happened, and while it’s not related to anything else, check out Captain Sully and the Crew on Letterman in case you haven’t seen it yet: