A Musical Showdown

Coming this Saturday I’ll be doing a bit of a musical ‘swap’ with my friend Keith.  Keith, for some illogical and useless reason, does not like trance music.  I’ve tried to help him come to his senses many times over the years, but he just won’t give it a fair chance.  I don’t fault him for it, he’s a few years younger than me so he probably just doesn’t know any better, but regardless the time has come for him to give this a shot.

After a lot of insistence that I listen to Jack Johnson for a while, I realized I had a golden opportunity.  This Saturday (October 3rd, 2009) he and I will be swapping music for a day, thanks to Slacker.com and the Firefox LastFM extension.  I will spend the day listening to a ‘Jack Johnson’ channel Slacker will create for me, and he will listen to the ‘Trance’ channel.

I don’t know if he’ll wise up or not, but you can be sure he’ll at least have had some exposure finally.

;)

 

- Andy

How Not to Take Ride Videos

I thought myself pretty clever that I’d be taking my digital camera with me today.  Clever beyond all compare, at least until I got onto the bike and realized just how horrible of an idea this had been.  Chris and I did a hill climb day on my favorite local series of hills, went up them 4 times total in an hour.  I’m thinking the only way I’ll get a decent video is if I grab a helmet cam, but I’m not that interested in dishing out the money for one.  Oh well, will just keep trying other things…

 

Heading northwest along the Susquehanna….

 

 

- Andy

An Experiment

I promised that I’d try and get some pictures and/or videos from today’s ride, so I did what I could to deliver.  I apologize for the quality, but it appears I can’t find my digital camera and am thus forced to utilize my cell phone’s camera and camcorder features.

 
Just one of the many straight sections we rode on.  My computer tells me we did a little over 20 miles in an hour and 42 minutes.

 
Chris did a good job making it through the ride.  Not bad for his second real ride since getting a bike.

I tried thinking of something witty to go here, but I’m experiencing the same lack of intelligence I was during the picture.

I have some videos that I took, but after uploading the first to YouTube, I’ve decided that one is enough with the poor quality that they ended up being.

 

More to come tomorrow, we’re doing hill-climbs!

 

- Andy

Back On The Saddle….Again

So after 2 weeks ‘rest’ from my injury, I finally got back onto the bike today for a somewhat serious ride that I could bear.  Chris and I did an easy 12 mile loop along Front Street and City Island in Harrisburg.  The ride felt good, and I was able to do some hill-climbing that I wasn’t even able to do when I was preparing for the Livestrong event.  Chris and I have a 33 mile ride planned for tomorrow afternoon to really give the legs a bit of a stretch, and to say I’m looking forward to it is a bit of an understatement.

Zibings projects are moving along at a good clip now as well, with my arm no longer restricting the amount of time I can type.  It even looks like someone is interested in helping to resurrect the Super Tech Help forums, which would be nice to see.  So much to do, so little time.

I’ll make sure I get some photos from the ride tomorrow, maybe even a video.

 

 
I got warmed up a bit too early for Chris and had to wait.  Turns out my Rally America hoodie is great for keeping me warmed up!

 

- Andy

Arm-Update

After about a week, my arm is still giving me trouble, but the amount of trouble decreases on a daily basis.  I am still unable to fully extend my arm, and putting more than 10-20 pounds worth of weight in my hand is more than it can handle.  Even so, I’m happy with the way it has progressed and can tell that it is indeed healing happily on its own.  I had some trouble typing this week because of the way I have to twist my arm to use my keyboard, but that is finally going away and I can get caught up on the various projects that fell behind.  I’m not in any amount of extreme pain (as long as I’m careful with the arm), so I’ll just continue on letting it heal itself.

I have my bike back with a (pretty neat) new back wheel/tire.  They even put on a higher grade set of cogs on the wheel for me, so hopefully this helps my derailleur out through the gears.  I’m anxious to get back on the bike and riding again, but I’ll wait until my arm is much more healed to be sure I’m not going to cause myself any more damage.

More updates to come on Zibings projects this next week!

 

- Andy

A Disappointing End of the Day

Today I participated in the Philadelphia Livestrong Challenge.  I set off around 8:10am with the rest of the 45-mile group.  The ride started off quite well, this of course being the first time I’d gone on any manner of group ride in my life.  I ended up making friends with a fellow rider named Bob who took me “under his wing” as a past participant to make sure I didn’t kill myself.  It was certainly great having a friendly face amongst the hills to keep me upbeat.

Even so, my day didn’t end even remotely close to how I’d hoped.  A little before mile marker 10, on a quick left-right turn series, I was involved in a bit of a pileup.  As far as I can tell I was the only rider who was tossed off of their saddle, but it didn’t really matter much in the end.  I flipped over the front bars, did some strange aerobatics that involved jamming my left elbow and head (with helmet) onto the ground.  I popped up immediately and walked my bike to the side of the road as police and other riders stopped to ask if I was ok.

At this point, I could feel that I’d hit my left elbow quite hard, but it seemed as though I’d be able to recover.  I calmed my nerves, hopped onto the bike, and gave it a go with Bob for some more distance.  I made it to approximately mile 22 before I couldn’t stand to put weight on my arm anymore and stopped.  I was picked up by a SAG (Support and Gear) vehicle, and eventually made my way through medical stations and to the start line, but I didn’t get to finish.

My arm is quite sore right now, but I don’t seem to have done any major structural damage that won’t heal on it’s own.  To say I’m disappointed in my inability to finish would be an understatement, but it is simply how the cards fell today.  I met a lot of great people and am looking forward to next year’s challenge in Philadelphia.  You can be sure I’ll be back, and next year I won’t be so kind to the course…

 

- Andy

2009 Livestrong Challenge - Philadelphia

I've been talking about doing this for a week or so now (basically since I was informed of it's existence), and finally I paid the registration fee and committed to participating. I will be riding my bike 45-miles for the fight against cancer on August 23rd, 2009 around Philadelphia. I only need to raise $250 in order to be allowed to ride, but I figured I might as well set my sights high. You can visit my 'fundraising headquarters' at http://philly09.livestrong.org/andym84/. After about 9 years of being off my bike, I'm going to do a 45-mile ride after only riding for about 3.5 weeks consistently. Am I crazy? More than likely...

At least it's for a good cause.



Click Here to Donate


- Andy

Weekend Recap: 07/25-07/26 2009

Since I seem to be doing fun things more often on the weekends, I thought I’d once again recap my weekend.  This weekend’s adventures took place again in Maine, but this time at my grandparent’s house.  The easiest way to describe what goes on when I visit my grandparents is to just say that I get to relax a good deal.  I had a great time and can’t wait to go back up there with my bike to give the hills there a try.

 
Looking out on the lake from the deck.  You can just barely see the boat at dock…

 
This is from one ‘end’ of the lake.  We were on our way to the country club when I asked my Grandmother to pull over for this shot.

It’s definitely a beautiful course.  If only I could learn to play beautifully…

My grandparents tell me I am some manner of Loon-magician.  We saw more Loons this weekend than they’ve seen so far all year.  Go me?

Grandpop at the helm!  We noticed that a lot of the ‘younger’ people on the lake weren’t even friendly enough to wave.  Damn kids.

We head towards the northern end of the lake.  The lake is much larger than you can see just from that earlier picture.

This house somehow fits on that little island.  It’s been there as long as I can remember, I’ve just never seen anyone in it.

More loons…  The lake is big enough that this is probably a different one from the other.

The woman who lives in this house just turned 100 years old.  I found this neat for some reason and asked Grandpop to do a float-by for a picture.

The middle dock is ours, however the dock on the left is also on our property, despite it not being ours.  Why my grandparents allowed this…I’ve no clue.

 

- Andy

100 Posts!

After getting back from a bike ride with my dad, I noticed that I’ve made 99 posts on my blog.  As I sit here and attempt to pretend that my legs don’t exist, I thought I’d just go over a few things that are happening in my life, with Zibings, family and anything else I can think to include.

Back In The Saddle
As I just mentioned, I’ve come back after a bike ride with my father.  All told I racked up about 18.4 extremely painful miles while Dad logged around 16.4.  The reason for the difference lies with how horribly out of shape I actually appear to be on a bike.  Within the first 2 miles of the trip, Dad lost me completely.  Oh well, it’s bound to happen when you haven’t really touched a bike in 9 years.

N2F Yverdon
After my busy day today I didn’t get to do this tonight, but tomorrow I am tentatively scheduling the debut of our RC (Release Candidate) for Yverdon v0.2.  We’re getting some new people to help with testing and are hoping to be out of RC with a new site before the end of next month.  Exciting for us!

The Zibings Network
We’ve been plugging away at a few milestones on the project as well as working on adding some new team members.  We have a designer coming on board, hopefully two new developers as well as some management switches.  All in all, we’re happy with the progress and will be even happier once we start having updates to show off to the world.

 

It’s been a pretty crazy month and it seems like months more crazy are coming up soon.  Thanks to everyone who’s been reading the blog, here’s to another 100 posts!

 

- Andy

Back To What Works

Every now and then we (as humans) need to go through a refresher course on being ‘us’.  When I was younger I used to love being outdoors, going for bike rides and just generally being dirty.  I loved camping, being scared to death by heights and walking through the woods.  This past weekend, I did some of these for the first time in years, and I have to say I’ve not been this happy in quite a while.

Last Thursday (07/17/2009) I met up with my good friend Brendon around 8pm.  We piled into his 330ci and started heading north towards Maine for the New England Forest Rally (NEFR).  After driving through the night, we arrived at Sunday River Resort around 07:30.  There was plenty of time before any of the rally-related events started, so Brendon and I walked/drove around the tiny town to get acquainted with the area and learn where to go for different parts of the race.

After deftly dodging the advances of two very drunk and very abrasive young ladies in a parking lot we eventually made our way to the service area for the cars and watched the first two stages of the day.  During those two stages, Brendon and I made our way into separate parts of the forest to try and pick a better spot for grabbing pictures.  Brendon was the braver of the two and got much better pictures, a common theme throughout the weekend.  Regardless though, I started to get comfortable again with being in the woods.

This is the service truck for Ken Block and Dave Mirra (just in case the writing doesn’t make it obvious enough).

And this is Ken’s car, he came in 2nd overall for the weekend because he had a couple problems (one spin-out and a flat tire).

Finally one of the sad attempts at a picture by me on the first stage.  There –is- a car in that picture, it was Ken Block’s wife Lucy Block driving an old VW.

 

Needless to say, I had a lot of fun on Friday.  We didn’t watch all of the events -- after driving through the night it turns out your perception of time passage is greatly distorted; nothing like believing it to be 7:30pm and noticing that it is in fact only about 2:00pm -- but the ones we did get to watch were worthwhile.  It was hot, we were sticky, but damn it we had fun!

Saturday was a little different.  Rejuvenated from a long night’s sleep we set off to Berlin, NH to watch the beginning of the second day’s stages.  We found our way into some really dangerous spectator spots, again because of Brendon’s fearless ‘leadership’, even finding ourselves standing on top of the finish line for one of the longer stages of the day.  I’m waiting to get some of the footage that Brendon snapped with his camera, I’ll be sure to link to them whenever he gets them up.

Kind of wish I’d had a decent camcorder for this shot as Ken was warming up his tires and scaring the crap out of some of the locals.

Whenever you see two cars coming down the road you have to wonder which one was going slow or got into an accident…

 

Finally, we packed up camp on Sunday morning and headed back into New Hampshire to climb Mount Washington.  I’ve been to the Rockies in Colorado, so I didn’t really expect to be very impressed with this mountain.  There are times in life when we get to feel really stupid, and this is one of them for me.  Regardless, we have a sticker for Brendon’s BMW and a certificate for me that serves as proof we climbed a very narrow and steep road for 8 miles to the summit of Mt. Washington.  It should also be noted that despite the 35-40F temperatures at the top, we did it with the windows (including sunroof) open the entire time, without the heat on in the car.  Additionally, I was in shorts and sandals in an attempt to win back some of the manliness I’d lost in the trips through the woods.

As a matter of fact, I –do- have a fear of heights.  Let’s DO THIS!

Not where we were going, but damn is it a beautiful view…

We chose the one day each year that they allow cyclists to go up the road, go us.

There’s a peak up there, I promise.

At this point, I was doing my best to just stay calm.

6,200+ feet above sea level, less than 40F in actual temperature, 30+ mph winds constantly making the wind chill very palpable…oh yeah, I was rocking the shorts and sandals.

And just for a bit of scale, that guy was standing down in the parking lot where our car was resting.

I don’t know if I liked going down the road anymore than going up, was all kind of terrifying in a beautiful/fun sort of way.

 

Hope you enjoy the pictures.  I’ll make another post once Brendon has some of his photos/videos up online to add to the Rally part of the trip.

 

- Andy

Food, Inc.

During my usual morning routine, I noticed a link to a YouTube video on Reddit.  The video was a trailer for a movie called ‘Food, Inc.’ and seemed interesting.  I’m not sure if anyone else was planning to see this, but if you’re curious check out their site at www.foodincmovie.com.

 

- Andy

Well That’s Interesting…

For a while now, I’ve been meaning to start dabbling with regular expressions in C#.  I’ve held off though, mostly because I just haven’t had the chance to really get into anything with C# in depth on top of work and family.  At this end of this past week, Zibings finally got started on a very long-awaited project which will be done in ASP.NET, and in starting I found myself needing to port my old (almost 11 years old) email validation algorithm from C++ to C#.  I ported this to PHP years ago, and it works beautifully there, but porting it to C# offered me the ability to tweak the algorithm to work with some new tools available in .NET.

I went through, and first did an almost exact port of the script.  It worked, but I thought I should check it’s performance.  It seemed to be slow, so I tried a version of it using C#’s List datatype.  This seemed faster, but I thought I could do better.  I asked for a bit of help from some nice people on FreeNode’s ##asp.net channel (specifically Kim^J) and was given a pretty blazingly fast regular expression version.

Even so, I felt that it was odd you couldn’t create something that didn’t use a complex system like regular expressions which outperformed regular expressions, so I went back and started tweaking my List and Manual versions of the validation routine.  After a lot of work, I actually have made both into something consistently faster (on average) than a comparatively accurate compiled regular expression.  Before I go further, here’s a sampling of the rather consistent results:

Also, you can view the entire source code of the .cs file here.

The three ‘algorithms’ are each enclosed in their own class.  The only difference between the List and Manual classes is that instead of using a List collection to store and search acceptable characters the Manual class simply traverses an array of the characters.  Otherwise, they should be identical in the logical patterns they use to verify that the email address and domain name are valid.

The regular expression is almost entirely based off of one readily available at this site, so if anyone out there has a pattern they know to be better/faster that should be tried I would love to hear about it, I am not a RegExpert in the least.

The above image was the result of the source code I’ve uploaded, and are derived from running three emails through a test 500 times, taking the average, and then running through again.  All told, the above test did validation of 15,000 email addresses (but of course they were the same 3 addresses).  I have run the test with a few as 5 attempts and as many as 50,000 attempts.  Regardless of the number of attempts or how many times I tell it to run the test, the order is always the same.  First and fastest is always the List version, second and mostly consistent is the Manual version and the Regex version ends up in last place by various margins.

I’ve always known it to be general knowledge that doing things by hand are faster from a computer’s perspective.  Interestingly enough though, this actually proves that at least in C#, that’s not always true.  The List approach uses a supplied method, the Contains() method, to search for the existence of a character within the List instead of looping through the entire list and bailing out when the first match is found (as the Manual approach basically does).

It should also be noted that just because the computer has an easier time handling the List/Manual methods, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily faster.  Most people are not going to be trying to validate 50,000 email addresses in a few seconds regardless of what they’re doing, so the time that I took writing this algorithm all those years ago (and today) were really wasted in a sense, as it would take a very long time to make up the time in saved milliseconds.  Regardless, I had a lot of fun working with Kim^J to look into the possibilities here.

If anyone finds anything that could help any of the algorithms become faster (and remain accurate), I’d be really excited to hear about your ideas.  Thanks again to Kim^J for the help with the regular expression version and with the test code.

 

- Andy

A So-So Dinner

Last night’s dinner (Pomegranate Chicken) was a decent adventure into the use of pomegranate as a seasoning/marinade.  I did enjoy it, but not as much as the salmon or the grilled sirloin.  Oh well, I did take a picture though (as usual it looks awesome).

 

- Andy

The Fat Resistance Diet: Day 1 Complete

I promised I’d do updates for this as often as possible, so here’s one to recap my thoughts on the first day.  This diet is quite possibly the most delicious diet I’ve ever seen.  For dinner I had Green Tea Crusted Salmon with Lemon Ginger Salsa and Baby Spinach Salad with Apples and Roasted Walnuts and a Pomegranate Lime dressing.  Most of the things I’ve just listed, are items I do not eat, because I believed I did not like them.  I’m wondering if I’ve just been fooling myself all this time…

 

- Andy

A New Diet

In looking for a good accompaniment to the P90X program (which I will be starting again on June 22nd), I found some talk of something called the “Fat Resistance Diet.”  I have had chronic respiratory problems for the past two years and haven’t ever really found an answer.  Several people claimed though that this diet, created by Dr. Leo Galland, went a long way to resolve things similar to my problem.  The book doesn’t cost much, so I decided to order it and give things a try.  I am not really trying to lose weight, though I wouldn’t be hurt if I did lose a few pounds.  The interesting thing about this diet seems to be that it approaches weight loss from a different direction, so instead of counting calories I’m eating some pretty sweet meals.  So far, I’ve had my first breakfast and am sufficiently impressed with the dish.  It is called “Tuscan Frittata” and has egg whites, basil, tomatoes and minced garlic on top of a bed of baby spinach.  Here’s a picture, though I don’t think it does it justice…

As usual, I’ll keep you posted as I go through the diet (and I’ll keep trying to get pictures of what I’m eating as it appears they’re all going to be amazing).

 

- Andy

Trying Twitter…

Most people who know me also know that I’m not a huge fan of most of the popular “social networking” sites that exist right now.  Even so, after several months of mild campaigning, Cassandra has convinced me to give it a whirl.  For the next week I’ll be "tweeting” updates to http://twitter.com/AndyM84/ so that I can get a feel for the service.  Having done it for one day so far, I can say that at the least it’s easy to work with, but I feel like I’m just pretending that my life is important enough to give out status updates.

Regardless, I’ll keep at it until Sunday at the least.  If I get used to it and don’t have too many major annoyances, I’ll keep it running.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go attempt moving for the first time today…

 

- Andy

The Oldsongious Effect

After hearing a few ‘old’ songs I loved today, I’ve decided that the ‘Oldsongious Effect’ is indeed a provable effect on music lovers.  The effect occurs when one listens to a song (or group of songs) to the point where it no longer excites the person.  After an indeterminable period of time, said person will experience nostalgic and renewed excitement and/or emotion upon hearing the song(s).  The effect is amplified and it’s timeline shortened when the person is within a group of individuals who are also susceptible to the effect on a particular song.  For the best example of this, please proceed to your local club and note the crowd’s reaction when an older song is played.

 

- Andy

P90X: Days 19 & 20

Still having some issues with time, but today marks the end of week #3 for us at Apartment 307.  There is one more week in the first phase of the program, but it is labeled “Recovery Week” and seems to have no strength building routines schedule.  Having made it through three weeks, the only noticeable results are in the form of things such as increased energy levels and the usual feeling of power that comes after having lifted weights.

Even so, we’re extremely satisfied so far, and Kenpo X on Sunday turned out to be the perfect stress reliever.  My foot seems to finally be having an easier time with the cardio workouts, which is a welcome thing given how much of the program is left.  I hope that Kenpo X continues to be a part of the schedule as it is a very fun and rewarding workout.

Week #4 looks to be a Yoga-filled week of rest, at least compared to what we’ve gone through the past three weeks.  As usual, I’ll keep up with updates as much as possible.

 

- Andy

P90X: Days 13-18

Due to some time constraints I’m having trouble keeping up my normal daily postings about the workout.  I have NOT stopped the workout, and in fact that’s one of the main reasons I don’t have enough time to post.

The one thing that is becoming very clear about this program, is that you only get out of it what you put into it, meaning that if you are not sore from a workout, you did that to yourself.  I am getting into the habit of pushing myself harder and harder with each workout, despite how painfully sore I tend to be from the previous day’s workout.

I will hopefully be resuming my daily posts on day 19 (this upcoming Sunday).  Until then, thanks for the patience!

 

- Andy

P90X: Day 11 & 12

Yoga on Day 11 was just as horrible as it was the first time through.  As the folks on the video go through each pose with what can only be described as ease, we attempt to contort into the positions as though we are a pair of elephants.  Even so, we both lumbered through the routine, and both of us felt a bit more nimble as a result.

Legs & Back (and the lovely Ab Ripper X) were on the Day 12 schedule.  I feel like I didn’t get a good workout in today, so I’m not entirely sure what to write.  Matt and I are working with a coworker all weekend to try and make headway on a very important project that needs to be completed.  As a result, I haven’t been in the best mindset for working out, but I still managed to do the workout.  I’m hoping that half of the challenge of P90X is just forcing yourself to do the routines.  After all, how can you get any results if you don’t dedicate yourself to the workout?

 

- Andy

P90X: Day 10

We’ve completed 10 days!  I know Chris will agree with me when I say that so far we are very pleased with the program.  On top of that, we both have more energy and are starting to feel a bit more powerful.  Whether or not that’s true is probably up to interpretation, but at least we feel good.

Today was the second day of Shoulders & Arms (as well as the normal Ab Ripper X).  For whatever reason I found myself having the ability to power through this workout like I couldn’t last week.  The easy answer is that my body is adjusting, but I am pretty sure that there’s more to it than that.  I was pushing higher weights longer than I thought I could, and I was enjoying the pain.  I’ve always had trouble getting over that initial hump, so I’m actually very happy with my workout from last night.  My arms are not so happy with it…but it occurs to me that they aren’t supposed to like it.

Later today I’ll be doing Yoga for the second time in my life.  I’m not sure if I’m looking forward to it, but I will be curious to see how I manage some of the poses now that I’ve gone through it once.

 

- Andy

P90X: Day 9

The one difference I’ve noticed so far this week is that instead of being excruciatingly sore in one or two places on my body, I am just generally sore.  I think I prefer this to being sore enough to restrict movement, but I also wonder if I’m not pushing myself hard enough with the workouts.

Plyometrics was not a place I could test out that theory however, as I am still having minor pain in my foot.  Even so, I stuck it out and got more of the workout done this time than last.  I was just as exhausted and unwilling to move afterwards, and this morning I feel just as good for it as I did last week.

Chris and I have discussed the lack of pain, and we think that it may be possible the first week served only to re-introduce our usually dormant bodies back into the routine of being physically active.  Even so, we will work harder to push ourselves in each of the routines to see if we can get the most out of the program as possible.  As our fearless leader Tony always says, you just have to “Bring It.”

 

- Andy

P90X: Days 7 & 8

Day 7 of the P90X program is a “Rest or Stretch” day.  Chris tried the stretching routine they provide, and I decided to rest.  We’ll see how this affects us as we move forward, hopefully it turns out to not matter much.

With the beginning of week 2, Day 8 provides the start of the same schedule as the week before.  We stay on this schedule for the first three weeks of the program, have a ‘Recovery’ week for the fourth week, and then move on to Phase 2.  The premise of P90X is that it keeps your muscles from acclimating to a single routine, thus maximizing the benefit you receive from that routine.  I’m curious to know what study they are going off of that allowed them to choose a 3+1 week range for a phase of the program…

The second time around with Chest & Back (and the 4th time around with Ab Ripper X) proved to be actually somewhat satisfying.  Gone are the aches and pains that accompanied the first attempt a week ago, and now we have mild soreness and that wonderful lack of power that can only come from working out.  It would almost suggest that the program has been working for us already, though much of that may be from our low level of fitness upon starting the program.

I have been informed by a friend however that I have a noticeably higher energy level since starting the routine, and this is comforting to hear.  It also looks like my gut has been pushed out further than it was before, which tells me my abdominals may already be benefitting from the intense Ripper workouts and therefore are pushing out what gut I have to new widths.  I have been eating well and not overeating, so I find it hard to believe that I could have added so much girth in the course of one week.

All seems promising, but there is still a long way to go.

 

- Andy

P90X: Day 6

Today was Kenpo day at Apartment 307.  Chris went through the routine earlier in the day (as usual) and seemed rather unimpressed by the workout.  As such, I went into the routine with a bit of trepidation.

Tony spends a lot of time stressing that he doesn’t want you to hyper-extend your joints while doing this workout.  Knowing what I do about my arms and legs, I decided to concentrate on two things for this workout; 1) Form  and  2) Flexing my muscles throughout.

By doing this, I find that I am just as wasted as ever, and satisfied that I am working on punching with equal power from both of my arms.  My kicks will take some time to look pretty, as my legs just aren’t that flexible, but it looks like I’m going to have a lot of fun with the Kenpo routine.

 

- Andy

P90X: Day 5

Legs & Back, and of course Ab Ripper X.  I can honestly say that Ab Ripper X is becoming my favorite routine of this part of the program, but we’ll see if that holds up after tomorrow’s workout…

Legs & Back was a nice way of saying that we’re going to make you do lunges, and then pull ups, and then lunges again, followed by pull ups and we’ll even throw in a wall squat or two.  For anyone who is not familiar with wall squats, they are better experienced than described.  Walk up to the nearest wall, put your back against it, and then squat down to make a 90° angle with your legs.  After that, just hold it until you can’t, it should explain things pretty solidly.

I tried doing all of the pull ups using only the chair as support while I grunted at the pull up bar.  Another option (which I believe Chris used) was to kneel and utilize some power bands, but it seemed to me that we wouldn’t have something that weighed enough.  The workout was tough and I’m feeling pretty limp in my arms, back and thighs.  My abs are also a bit wobbly, but that’s just what Ab Ripper X does for you!

I have one more workout this week with our Kenpo X tomorrow.  Monday is a rest or stretch day, which means I can almost make a summary post about my first week on the program.  I’ll be back tomorrow with that and with a description of Kenpo X!

 

- Andy

P90X: Day 4

As another morning began, I lay in my bed afraid of what sensation awaited me upon trying to move.  Thankfully, I was rewarded with a minimal amount of soreness in my legs and abdomen, though it appeared that my arms were still somewhat asleep.  The same sensation stayed with me throughout the day in my biceps, but otherwise I feel good.

Today’s routine was ‘Yoga X’, which sounds a bit ominous really.  In reality, it was a challenging but rewarding routine to get through regardless of how many positions you were actually able to contort yourself into.

To say that today was a day off would be incorrect, as you still find yourself sore after the workout.  It was today, of all days, that I found myself coming close to pulling muscle during one of the poses.  This was an interesting feeling that makes me wonder just how much other effort I didn’t notice while performing the poses and doing some deep breathing.

Tomorrow is ‘Leg & Back’, as well as another installation of good old ‘Ab Ripper X’.  Chris and I both wonder how our bodies will respond to the stress, but we’re starting to feel better overall as a result of forcing ourselves to do the program every day.  Till tomorrow…

 

- Andy

P90X: Day 3

If you are noticing that I’m late posting this blog, there is a very good reason for that inconsistency.  That reason goes by the name of P90X too.  Yesterday (Day 3) was one of the most excruciatingly painful days I’ve been through in my life so far.  Tony, our instructor, can tell us that we have to “Bring It” as much as he wants, but when you are so sore that standing up is painful, you have to tone things down a bit.

Even so, with a bit of Advil and lots of water, I was able to complete the two routines for Day 3.  The ‘Shoulders & Arms’ routine was a pretty rough one, I can say without a doubt that I have never tried harder to work on my biceps and triceps.  The only results I’m feeling at the moment is the same “sausage” sensation that I’ve gone through with both my abs and legs before this.

The second routine of the day was again Ab Ripper X, and for the second time this week I have been horribly incapable of keeping up with the routine.  Sure, it didn’t help that my abs were still painfully sore from the first time, but I did my best and tried every single workout on the routine.

I feel as though this day was a bit lackluster, but I did the workout despite every protest my body offered.  I think that continuing with the routine will be the hardest challenge in the end, so with that in mind I’m still doing great.

 

- Andy

P90X: Day 2

It was an interesting morning.  I got up a little later than usual to compensate for the late evening last night.  I also worked as hard as possible to not move my abdominal muscles.  Any effort with that goal in mind was in vain however, as I soon realized just how many actions I do that involve my abdominals.

Chris got to do his workout before me again today.  I watched what he was doing this time when I could afford a few minutes away from work.  This turned out to be a bad idea, as I ended up psyching myself out before even getting to my workout.

This second day involved what they call Plyometrics.  I don’t have the energy to go look this up, but I can tell you that whatever it is, it involves lots of jumping and generally attempting to strain every muscle in your legs.

Within a few routines, I had to switch to an old pair of shoes.  It seems to be that my nice new $90 shoes aren’t doing a good job of supporting my feet.  All the jumping brought me close to re-injuring my foot, which certainly hampered the rest of my workout.  Even so, I find myself in extraordinary amounts of pain as I try to walk around and function like a normal human being.

So far, P90X is delivering on it’s promise that it will take commitment to finish.  This program is for crazies and those among us who are physically blessed.  I don’t fall into either of those two categories completely, but I’m definitely feeling like I will be getting some good results if I keep up with the program.

 

- Andy

The Adventure Begins…

In a fit of psychotic rage, the roommate and I have obtained a copy of the P90X workout program that runs infomercials on TV.  It took us a little while to get things setup, but we’ve embarked upon the journey.  Since a lot of people have asked me to tell them how it is, I’m going to chronicle the experience here on my blog.  We begin…with day #1.

 

Day #1
Got home late today, so starting the workout was significantly later than it will usually be.  Regardless, after several messages from Chris along the lines of “P90X is destroying my life”, I knew that I would have my hands full making it through the two workouts that night would provide.

After dealing with some extra work issues when getting home, I threw on my workout clothes and headed into the living room.  In goes the ‘Ab Ripper X’ DVD, which tells me that I will be doing over 300 core workouts, or something like that.  The journey has officially begun.

After three routines, I had to stop.  This became a common theme for the night with both the ‘Ab Ripper X’ DVD and the ‘Chest & Back’ DVD.  At this point, I can only offer one piece of advice to anyone considering getting the P90X program, and that advice comes from Chris:

Don’t, it will destroy your world.

 

- Andy

PS – For a bit of comic relief, Chris and just attempted to do one sit-up each.  It is difficult to explain how it feels, but imagine if you can having no control whatsoever over your abdominals and you will be imagining what has happened to the both of us.

PPS – The program tells us to take “Before” pictures of ourselves so that we can chronicle our results throughout the course.  After Chris gets the pictures onto his computer and into my inbox, I will post them here despite how embarrassing they are for both of us.

Some Interview Questions for Developers

While reading through links this morning I came across this blog post making fun of how managers interview developers.  Having been a part of several interviews recently and being a developer myself, I thought I’d lend a few good questions to those managers out there who are looking for some tips.

I’ve used each of the following questions in various interviews with mixed results, but each one was effective in giving me some insight into the potential developer’s tendencies and personality.

1. Have you ever had to work on a project that has fallen behind schedule?  If so, how did you manage the pressure of catching up without sacrificing quality?
2. Would you call yourself driven?
3. Why did you decide to get into programming?
4. What project were you most proud of that you’ve completed?
5. What is your weakest area in the development process?
6. What is your strongest are in the development process?

As usual, don’t think that I expect my questions to be the ultimate solution or anything.  These are ones I use, I’d be curious to find out what other people use for similar situations.

 

-Andy

How To Reorganize

Anyone that knows me is aware that I’ve been sick for the past few weeks with all manner of disease and suffering.  I haven’t stopped working once, but a good indicator of how I’m feeling can be seen in the state of my office and living space.  As things stand currently, both are entering the ‘disarray’ phase of organization very clearly.

Fortunately, I am finally overcoming whatever bug(s) I’ve been enduring, and I won’t be letting things go much further down the slope towards ‘mess’.  As always, I’ll offer a disclaimer before I continue.  I am no expert, and I’m certainly not sporting a proven record of achievement in the category of self-improvement.  This is a bit of insight into a method that has worked for me before and I hope will work for me again.  Poorly-constructed legal disclaimer stated, let’s get to the meat of the conversation.

Steps To Success

1. Get Better – This one goes without saying for me, if you are depressed or de-motivated, figure out what it is in your life that’s bothering you and take steps to resolve the issue.  For some people this involves consulting a doctor, for others just a good punch to the face.  I believe myself to be in the latter category.
2. Clean Your Space – Another that seems pretty self-explanatory.  Call it managing your Fung Sh…well whatever it is that they term it, the point remains the same.  Mentally, people work better when they’re comfortable with the space they’re working in, and this is not just a tactic for your office.
3. Set Organization Goals – One thing that I started doing last year was creating a schedule for myself.  I opened up Excel, laid out three different types of days for myself (Weekday, Weekend-day and Vacation-day), broke down the day into time slots, and decided what I’d like to be doing for those time slots.  This was helpful for me, and my immediate goal at that point was to follow my schedule.  Make this suit you (same as the with your workspace/livingspace), some people find it easier to have a goal such as “Clean room once a week”.
4. Reward Yourself – When you achieve a goal, reward yourself.  I built reward periods into my schedule that allowed me to watch a movie or play a video game for an hour.  Do something that is meaningful to you and it becomes a part of your newly organized life to get that time to play.

There are plenty of tools online to help you plan and build on your successes.  One tool shown to me by a friend was something called Joe’s Goals.  I tried using it for a bit and found that my spreadsheet was more effective for me, but give it a whirl to see if it’s your kind of thing!

 

- Andy

Why Not To Make an MVC Framework

As I think about what I’m hoping to convey with this post, I’d like to make two points very clear.  First, I am sick right now and very possibly am loopy beyond compare.  Why I decided to write a blog post in this condition is not a question I could ever answer.  Secondly, I have nothing against MVC beyond its status as an apparent fad in the web development industry.  It is a good design pattern that helps many people follow some great coding practices.  With that out of the way, lets get into the reason for the post.

The other day I was preparing to make a presentation on N2F to my local PHP Meetup group.  I remembered that a good many of the other members in the group were proponents of MVC, and figured that there would be no harm in creating a simple MVC extension for N2F that would show how flexible we made our framework.  Quite simply, this was the worst idea I’ve had in quite some time, but at least I got a bit of a chuckle out of the whole process.

I would never claim to be any kind of an expert on MVC.  I know the basic concepts, and attempted to build my extension based on that understanding.  The following file will give you everything I did to make N2F an MVC-ish framework.  The file mvc.ext.php is the extension which overwrites two system events to allow the change in structure.  The rest should be fairly self-explanatory, but should never be used on any kind of server…ever.  Enjoy!

 

Download N2F-MVC.rar

 

- Andy

Andy Goes Clubbing

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m not the type to enjoy a club.  There really aren’t too many situations where I’d have fun at one, where I could stand the noise, etc.  However, there is one way that it’s possible to convince me to go, and that way is techno.  For better or worse, I am a fan of techno/trance music, and a big enough one that I’m willing to put aside my differences with the club scene.

With a bit of string pulling, two great friends in the DC area got myself and two friends VIP passes to Ferry Corsten’s live set this  past Saturday night at Glow.  I’ve been having difficulty coming up with words to justify how amazing the set was, but suffice to say it was just that…amazing.  I had a great time, as did my friends, and what more can you ask for really?  I’ll be looking forward to working a trip down there into my schedule from time to time, it was a great time and I recommend it to anyone.

 

- Andy

The End of One Era, The Beginning of Another

Don't let the title fool you, I'm actually not about to embark on another journey down my twisted political mind.  Instead, I'd like to pay tribute to a piece of my development history that has served me dutifully over the past 4.5 years.  Most anyone who reads this blog will at least be familiar with the existence of ZSF, and some may even use it for their own purposes.  Regardless, tonight we celebrate all that it was and respectfully retire it into the software heavens.  (For anyone not following, this means that I'm not doing anymore work on ZSF, just to be clear)

Now that we have the emotional part of this out of the way, we'll get to the good news.  In lieu of the loss of ZSF, I have been working with some good friends and new colleagues to create 'ZSF Reincarnated', which we have called The N2 Framework.  The specifics of the plan for N2F are somewhat complicated, but for the moment we are working on one particular strain of the framework code named Yverdon.  Yverdon is the evolution of 4 and a half years of experience with ZSF bundled into one system.

Yverdon intends to be both simple and flexible for developers, on top of offering top performance and extremely low overhead.  The system is currently modular based, but is flexible enough to be overridden into most other popular patterns (including MVC).  Yverdon has been tested with PHP 5.2+ and should work with earlier versions of PHP 5.  Since the PHP group has been working to end it's work on PHP 4, we have opted to not make the framework PHP 4 compatible.  The system is currently being tested on both Windows and Linux environments to ensure that our code truly embraces PHP's cross-platform goodness.

Keep in mind that this is a very early release of the system.  Though we have worked hard to make the release functional, we can not guarantee that things will not change moving forward, nor can we assure you that there will not be bugs.  Our web site is in development and will provide easy ways to submit issues to the development team so that we can work them out.  We're looking forward to building a community around this framework and will rely on community feedback to shape the direction of the framework in the future, so don't be shy.

When the web site has been finished, I'll make sure to mention it at this blog.  Special thanks have to go to Chris, Matt, Patrick, Clemens and Javier for their various efforts towards this first release.  Working with each of them has been great so far and I think we're all looking forward to coaxing the true potential out of Yverdon in the months (and hopefully years) to come.

 

- Andy

Another Zune Update, Another Set of Features

The Zune Team at Redmond has been at it again, and I have to say I'm really excited about what's coming on September 16th.  Among other things listed in the article, they are adding the capability to tag and download music automatically from your FM receiver, as well as the ability to finally shop from your Zune wirelessly.

It's obvious that once again they've wasted no time between updates and as an early-adopter of the Zune I have to say I'm thankful I took a chance on the little MP3 player that could.

 

Andy

Tools For Shared Life

As most of you will know, I am currently living in an apartment with a longtime friend.  First and foremost, you should all know that it's going very well and he and I haven't had any big issues beyond how picky I am about he and his girlfriend keeping the kitchen clean.  He can't help that I'm neurotic sometimes, so I don't hold it against him in the long run.

Even so, I have been in living situations before where it would have been nice to be able to keep track of things like rent payments, grocery receipts and utility payments.  Those memories, and my newfound desire to get back into desktop application programming, have led me to decide I am going to create a set of tools that will help in keeping track of the aforementioned.  I have no specific roadmap or set of features that I've decided on, so suggestions would be welcomed.

As I get around to finishing the applications, I will release them here via my blog so that all may benefit from their existence.  I'm looking forward to working on these, I just hope that someone else can find them useful.

 

Andy

A Fit Lifestyle

As I've been adjusting to life away from home again, I've noticed that I'm actually putting on a bit of weight.  I am by no means obese, however I could stand to slim down in a few areas as well as get back into shape.

The first thing I'm going to do is dedicate myself to working out at least 3 days a week.  A workout will entail running at the least, with lifting being optional.  I splurged a bit and bought myself a pair of Mizuno Wave Rider 11's, costing me around $90.  They are great shoes, at least they have been for me.  Very breathable and extremely gentle on my feet and knees.  As long as I use these when I run, I should have a much easier time recovering from the run, which will make it easier for me to get three runs in each week.

Secondly, I'm going to start being more strict with when I eat.  One of my biggest problems is that I will eat if I am bored or feel like taking a break from work/play.  The former of the two can happen often with me, so I will need to try harder to resist the urge.  Eating more regularly falls into these categories as well, and my goal would be to eventually switch to a nutritional plan that has me eating 6 meals a day to keep my metabolism high.  First thing is first though, I will begin eating at 8:30, 12:30 and 5:30 everyday, or as close to those times as possible.

For now, those two goals are great starts for me.  I've been improving my lifestyle immensely since I left Technisource, and this seems like the logical next step.  If anyone has any other great ideas for things I (or anyone) could do to improve their physical fitness, post a comment and let me know.  My mom has been a personal trainer for several years, so I might even get her input on a few things and post them on this blog.  For now though, I need to go take a jog in the rain.

 

Andy

Three Cups of Tea

Over a month ago, my grandparents suggested that Mom, Ashley and I read a book called 'Three Cups of Tea'.  The book chronicles the travels of a man named Greg Mortenson through areas of Central Asia (particularly Pakistan and Afghanistan).  The book was a wonderful read which I finished in a matter of 2-3 days.  I found myself very involved with the book throughout, never once finding a section boring or not worth reading.  Mortenson's proves that there are other ways of spreading peace in the world than through the point of a gun, a point this Ron Paul supporter can happily endorse.

If you're looking for an emotional and motivational read, I highly recommend this book.  The writing is plain, but captivating, a combination rarely seen in today's world of literature.  When you've finished with the book, go ahead and make a donation to Mortenson's Central Asia Institute.

 

Andy

What Election?

Super Tuesday has come and gone, and with it a large portion of hope that we Ron Paul supporters would receive the brokered convention we have hoped for all along.  By no means is it impossible, but the odds have been stacked against us in a way that is truly daunting.

I've seen a lot of negative attitudes pop up ever since the passing of Super Tuesday, and I have to say I'm somewhat ashamed of those bearing those attitudes.  For those of us who were willing to listen, we know that this was never about the election.  Dr. Paul, without question, ran to win the presidential nomination, and he still continues to do so despite what most of the media would have you believe.  However, now we see that with the thousands, if not millions of newly active citizens in this country, the long and difficult fight to take back the country has never been more important nor closer to success.

I hope nobody gets the wrong idea.  I will soon be ramping up my own volunteering for the Paul campaign in my area, hoping to help him secure Pennsylvania's delegates.  This election is far from over and there is still a decent chance that our beloved brokered convention will rear its beautiful head.  We'll be ready if it does, as will Dr. Paul.  The real question is, will you be ready to defiantly raise your fist and fight back even if we end up losing the convention?

Lose the election?  What election.  This isn't about an election, this is about my country, and I won't ever forget that.

 

- Andy

Wash Your Hands Less...Seriously

I was taking a break from cleaning today, and decided to peruse Digg.com and see what was 'news' at the moment.  I saw a link on the front page that led to this article:

Keep It Clean, Boys: Why You Should Be Washing More

I'll start by saying that I normally do wash my hands when I leave the bathroom, mostly because it's polite.  After reading crap like this, I'm half considering washing my hands even less than I already do.  Why you ask?  It's a very simple principle...

Whenever you wash your hands, especially with anti-bacterial soap, you are killing lots of bacteria, that's a given.  However, let's think about this using the education most of us received when we were in elementary school.  Whenever your body encounters something like bacteria or a virus, it creates antibodies which help your body dispose of the bacteria/virus.  Wouldn't it stand to reason then, that in order to keep your body well protected against germs and the like, you'd be better off getting dirty and using less anti-bacterial soap?

This guy thinks so at the least.  Though I doubt I'll stop washing my hands after I've been to the bathroom, I will certainly work harder on being less concerned with how dirty things are that I come into contact with.  When you all have no immunity and are sick from the super viruses, I'll be sitting in a hammock somewhere enjoying a virus-free nap.

 

- Andy

More ZibNet Updates Coming!

We're quickly approaching our goal for initial release of ZibNet.  We'll be cutting it close depending on a few things and are intending on taking another week or two in order to do some solid security enhancements and testing...  But!  That does mean one good thing for all you beta testers.  We're going to be throwing out a few new features over the course of the next week and will be ready for major testing.  There are three big features slated to come out this week that are all comfortably on schedule.  Also, we'll be seeing our new design come out in short order as well.

Hope you all are looking forward to this as much as I am!

 

- Andy

Dad in Providence Business News

Just thought I'd throw out some 'kudos' to my father (who is now President of Zibings Incorporated). He was recently interviewed for a short article in the Providence Business News magazine. Doesn't have that much to do with Zibings (or me for that matter), but it gives a taste of the level of professionalism that he'll be bringing to the company.

Full Article @ www.pbn.com

- Andy

Ron Paulapalooza

Once again, I've gone a while without talking much to you all.  I do apologize, but as compensation for my absence, I'd like to introduce you all to a new project that I've been working on.

As you can see from my various posts, I am a Ron Paul supporter.  I am a believer though that regardless of how he finishes in the Republican primaries, we (his supporters) need to continue our activism with our federal and local governments.  In the spirit of that, I've joined on board with a festival by the name of Ron Paulapalooza.

The event, which is planned for the July 4th Weekend this year, looks like it will become a very entertaining concert.  We've selected our location and are seeking sponsorships from anyone and everyone so that the event can be a success.  If you get a few moments, check out the web site and let me know what you think!

www.ronpaulapalooza.com

 

- Andy

Thanksgiving Week

I'll be spending the next week up with my family in New England.  As a result, most of the rest of the team will be taking off for the next week as well (I guess this just goes to show how much of a slave driver I really am).  We'll resume the following week and have a good solid stream of updates coming through from that point on.  Till then, Happy Thanksgiving!

 

- Andy

The Ron Paul Movement

First: The Plug
On November 5th, 2007, Ron Paul supporters around the country raised $4.3 million in a 24 hour period.  It has created more buzz for him in a week than he's received in almost the entirety of the past year.  This was an amazing accomplishment, one that all Ron Paul supporters can be proud of.  We can't stop there though, and a new movement has been planned on the anniversary of The Boston Tea Party.  On December 16th, 2007, we will be trying again to break the $10,000,000 mark in online/phone donations in one day.  To pledge your hand in this, please visit www.teaparty07.com and pass it on to everyone you know.

Second: A Response
I've had quite a few people make comments to me recently that one of the reasons they don't think they'll vote for Ron Paul is that they think he will have no power to do anything even if he is elected next year.  Congress does make the decisions, but I think we can easily overcome this fear that Congress will stop him from getting anything done.  It all begins by taking a step back and viewing our political situation.  Our representatives often thrive on the fact that we as a people are apathetic towards our government and it's inner workings.  Our government, which was created to be 'of, by and for' the people, is no longer run by us, the people.

Voting in Ron Paul, a candidate who stands for those things held so dear in our constitution, if nothing else is a way of sending a defiant message to those currently in power.  It sends them a message that the time has come where we won't put up with their purposeful ignorance towards what we want as a people.  If you can believe this, and I don't think it should be a stretch, that should be all the reason in the world to vote for Ron Paul.

Finally: A Finale
I have pledged to donate $100 of my money on December 16th.  I hope that many of you will join me with a pledge of your own, even if you can only pledge $5, it is helpful.  Tell your friends, tell your family, and most importantly, stand behind something we haven't had for as long as I can remember: A Truly Good Choice.

 

- Andy

She Strikes Again!

Some of you may remember when I posted a video of a girl dancing to Daft Punk's 'Harder Better Faster Stronger'.  Well, that same girl has recently posted another video, this time to Justice - Phantom.  So, without further adieu...

 

Laughing Yoga?

I've been a bit sick over the past couple days, and though I'm recovering I have to admit it has had me feeling a bit down in the gutter.  By complete random chance, I came upon what really seems to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in my life.  I won't shy away from saying that it did the job of cheering me up though!

 

 

- Andy

What A Week...End...

So what started as a small idea for a side project between z|Casey and myself has turned into one heck of a plethora of changes.  I'll go straight into the breakdown.

The Zibings Network
This was meant to be the side project.  We were going to create a new site for the Zibings Network, one that allowed us to provide a good centralized location for registering with the network, logging into the network as well as getting general information about the network.

What happened instead, was the birth of a whole slew of upgrades to the network infrastructure.  While doing the upgrades (which include things such as friends lists and private messaging), I was faced with the necessity of having to change the way ZSF worked.  And that is why, the second part of this is...

The Zibings Site Framework
Yep!  And as with the ZibNet updates, this one started out small as well.  I just needed to add one capability to one section of the framework.  In adding that functionality though, I realized that just throwing the feature in its place wouldn't do much good in the end to help the framework grow.

After a few hours, I'd completely rewritten the framework, and we now have a few bug fixes thrown in as well as a new event system (that was the feature I needed).

 

Either way, its been a lot of programming, and this forces us to do some major updates to ZTC soon as well, so keep an eye out for that.  We're flying around like little bees as usual, this time just a few more fun things are on the way for you the user.

 

- Andy

RIP: Jake

On Thursday this week, a great friend of mine and my family died.  Jake was 9 years old and was battling cancer for a short while.  He was a great dog and we will always remember him.  May he rest in peace wherever it is that dog's go.  I guess that smoking habit of his finally got him.

 

- Andy

A Ron Paul Milestone

I thought I'd write something about this here.  First, the back-story...

Ron Paul's campaign posed a challenge to his supporters on Monday September 24th.  The challenge was to raise $500,000 for his campaign's 3rd quarter postings.  Within 2-3 days, they had raised the $500,000.  As a result, the challenge was changed, and we (the supporters) were told to try raising $1,000,000 by the 30th on midnight (the end of the 3rd quarter).

Needless to say, the group of people who keep 'spamming' the debate polls, have done their part in showing just how cunning they are.  Through almost 12,000 donations, by 10:31pm on Saturday September 29th, 2007, we had raised $1,000,000.  As of the writing of this post, there is still some more time left before the deadline arrives, and the total count for the fundraising is well over $1,025,000 and never stops rising.  To 'capture' history, I decided to take a screen shot right when my screen showed me we'd gone over the million mark:

 

- Andy

A Small Vacation

Well, I've been working quite a bit recently, and had somewhat taken a half-break the past 2 weeks or so.  To conclude this break, I will be leaving on a 4 day weekend trip up to see my father and my grandparents.  I'm looking forward to it (even though I'm leaving -after- work tonight at midnight) and hope it will give me a chance to both relax and sweat out some stress.  Keep thinking of those names and sending them to me!

 

- Andy

Car Work

It's been a while since I've posted anything about my baby doll, but this weekend I did a bit of work on it with Zac and Big Hoffman.  A lucky trip to a junkyard rendered some pristine condition parts for the Bimmer and a lot of happy moments ensued.  My sunroof is now fully functionaly (and better than it was when I received the car), the front bumper has been replaced/repaired from its stint with an unknown car, and the distributor cap/coil and spark plug wires have been replaced.

Needless to say, she's a happy Bimmer at the moment, and I'm a happy owner.  ;)

 

- Andy

Quite A Few Updates

Alright, so its been -quite- a long time since we've last spoken.  I won't apologize for it as the reason I've been so flaky with this blog is due to my excessive amounts of work towards adding features for little old you.

ZibTech Computers
A ton of work has gone into the ZTC web site, there's more details on that if you go to my news post.  What it comes down to, is that we've finally finished the inventory system and its in testing phases.  Once it leaves that, we'll be putting together things like our product listing and configuration.  Very exciting stuff!

Zibings Network
The Zibings Network updates really come in the form of two things.  First and foremost, we've sorted out a ton of bugs in the connection code and are now testing it on the ZTC site.  So far, its been running almost flawlessly, so we're happy.  Secondly, we've begun recoding ZibNetBot, which you all know and love.  He'll be redone in PHP and run as a Windows Service on our dedicated server, and from what we've done so far I can honestly say I'm looking forward to getting it done and seeing him in action.

Zibings Technologies
With the addition of someone to the Zibings Incorporated team, some new life has been breathed into Zibings Technologies, or as it was once named...Zibings.com Web Services.  I won't go into too much detail, as that would be giving away juicy secrets, but I will say that we're working on something useful for ourselves and for the company.  All of it is aimed at bringing something to life that should've been alive for years.

Epoch Gaming
Ahh, Epoch Gaming, my favorite little thing to forget about, how I do love thee!  For once, Epoch has taken a large step forward on a few fronts.  The web site has been resurrected and is being tweaked to work with the current version of ZSF.  Also, we're preparing to plug in the ZibNet connection code so that it works properly with the network.  Add onto that the fact that we've begun having development meetings for Forgotten War...for once I can gladly say that we haven't forgotten about good old Epoch.

Zibings Incorporated
We've recently added a new Director of Marketing.  Though his name is also Andrew, it is not the same person as me, which means the world to me.  He's already proving to be a very effective and motivated addition, so I think I speak for everyone when I say that his joining us is a welcome event.

 

That's about it for now.  I'm still out campaigning of sorts for Ron Paul, but its been hard to get much done with all the work being done on Zibings.  I'll make another entry when I can, and maybe someday I'll be caught up enough that I can fulfill my dream of blogging on a daily basis.  Until then...take it easy!

 

Andy

Ron Paul...Enough Said

Those of you who are close to me have probably noticed as of late that I've been becoming increasingly upset/disgruntled with our government and even to an extent my religion. All of the specifics aside, Zibings' new Director of Marketing (who is a Democrat) pointed me towards a seemingly little-known Republican candidate for the presidency in 2008. His name is Ron Paul, and I must say that this man has quickly and completely sealed my vote for the 2008 Presidential election. I respect people who are willing to put their neck on the line to stand up for what is right, and never before have I seen a politician do just that. I could go on and on about my respect for this man and the words he speaks, the ideas he has...but for now I've decided to let a video give you some excerpts of what it is he stands for. Oh how I'd love to be proud of my country again...





- Andy

Crazy Girl, You Take Me Around The World

Jon, Zibings' designer, sent me a link today to a video that I have yet to be able to stop watching.  I'm not sure who this girl is or where she lives, but she is mesmerizing and one of my idols now. Thank you mystery girl, for being so cool...if you ever want my number, just drop me an email. ;)

Into The Future

For those few of you who've been watching my blog, you'll no doubt have noticed a recent lack in posting.  I haven't disappeared or given up on my blog, quite to the contrary in fact.  I'm considering moving away from blogger in the near future, but for now I'll just be moving the blog to being a part of a greater site for myself.

The site will serve to outline a few of my personal interests as well as be a bit of a portfolio for myself and some of my friends.  I'll still have a blog, and for the time being at least it'll still be based with Blogger, but the eventual idea would be to move over to a new system based on my Zibings Network.  It'll be quite an undertaking, but therefore fun for me and hopefully fun for you.  I'll keep you updated when I start making progress with it!

- Andy

PS - For those of you waiting for my post about my vacation, I'll be waiting a bit longer to do it.  I want to see if I can shoot off an quick version of a new site with it in it as opposed to just making some kind of strange blog post with pictures riddled throughout it.  If it will take too long, I'll just post them on here, no worries!

PSS - I also intend on revisiting my PHP tutorial on STH soon, but have to finish a few other projects within the company before that's really possible.

Windows Live Writer

I've given in and downloaded Windows Live Writer (Beta 2) to test it out, see how it works with Blogger so on and so forth.  So far, I'm pleasantly surprised.  It took me a moment to figure out what the program wanted during installation, but once I'd gotten past that point it has seemingly changed itself for my blog.  If you're thinking of using a third party application to write to your blog (and it is a compatible blog), give Windows Live Writer a try, I know you'll like it.

Andy

Meebo Me!

For any who are interested, I've added my 'Meebo Me!' widget onto the bottom of the sidebar. If you see I'm online, feel free to send me a message. If you're curious about what Meebo is, its best to just let you go find out for yourself:

Meebo

Focus: Your Only Weapon

The "Day of Great Expectations" came, and it flew by. We are now finalizing paperwork on our warehouse and office, sending out employment flyers wherever we can, and doing all of the other things we've been planning endlessly since the bidding process began.

As easy as it is to hoop, holler, and jump for joy, one thing that everyone on the team has been amazing about doing is focusing. Within minutes of hearing the news, we were already into full speed ramp-up. The order is huge, and is no small undertaking to fulfill, so it isn't hard to think of the urgency a small company like ours has to use when working towards this type of goal.

It would have been easy to sit and think about the money, to think about the change in lifestyle, to think about any of the changes really. We could have all taken a day or two, and simply celebrated. Instead, we all got to work, and as a result I have every confidence that we will not only fulfill the order in the time span we were given, but we will more than likely beat our schedule by almost a week.

This brings me to the title of the post, "Focus: Your Only Weapon". As I've made clear, its easy to celebrate your victories, but you should never forget that a victory isn't complete until the entire war has been fought. When you hit a milestone with a project or with your business that is a huge victory, but only part of the puzzle in the long run, do everything in your power to focus your 'troops' on the tasks yet at hand. If you can do this, you will always come out of the war with a victory on all fronts.

Forget it, and you'll have fun for a while, but end up regretting it in the end. Reminds me of what my dad always used to say to me, "Work hard now, so you can play your ass off later." So true dad...

Time Apart

Its a scary title, but in reality is something that isn't even remotely scary. In recent months I've been constantly trying to find ways to help myself 'stay fresh' on my various programming projects. One of my biggest downfalls has always been overzealousness, meaning of course that when starting a project I put so much time and effort into it that I just can't bear working on it after a while and I fall behind schedule after dashing ahead.

I've slowly been developing a method of working on projects by taking advantage of the realization that when I don't allow myself to concentrate too much on a single project through the use of other smaller projects, I rarely burn out on any of the projects and have a much better chance at staying on schedule (and sometimes even beating my schedule). I've begun to call this the 'Time Apart' method, as you can guess from the title.

Each day I seem to find new ways to take this method a bit further. I've started using a time tracker on my computer to track how much time I'm spending on each of my projects. This in conjunction with Base Camp (which my good friend Cassie introduced me to) are helping me keep my project-schedule a little bit more organized. It works for me, and who knows it might even work for you. ;)

- Andy

Free Hugs?

I've been continuing on my personal mission to constantly broaden my horizons through reading and discovery, and today was perusing through random blogs on blogger (you can do the same using the 'Next Blog' link at the very top of my page). I came across a mostly quiet and short-spoken blog from a girl in Texas, but for some reason decided to look at it. There was a picture of a dog lying across two seperate parts of a lounge chair or couch of some kind, it just amused me for some reason.

After studying the picture for a little while, I scrolled down through the page and saw a post about something called 'Free Hugs'. I started the YouTube video and was soon smiling. I haven't had a particularly rough day, but it was nice to see something this heart warming. You can view the official site for what turned into a whole movement at www.freehugscampaign.org. Here's the video that I saw (which apparently won one of the YouTube Video of the Year awards!):

Motivation From Within

In the past few weeks I've had more than one person ask me how I "do it", meaning of course how I keep my attitude up and my energy up farther day in and day out. As to why they asked me, I may never know, but its not my turn to ask a question at this point. Instead, I've opted to put it down here so that I have a record of my ramblings to refer to should I ever be asked the question again. The easiest way to answer the question is to say that I get it all "From Within". Its rather vague on the surface, but here's the best I can do to explain...

When I say I pull my energy and what not "from within", I am literally revealing the entire process through which I find the limitless amounts of energy I appear to have on a daily basis. There's nothing special about it, I just notice myself getting angry or depressed and stop for a moment. I tell myself that I'm better than this, and that as a result I can do better than I'm doing.

From that point on its just a simple tug of war between my feeling of motivation to "do better" and whatever emotion it is I'm battling with at the moment. I don't know if this is unique, I don't know if its the most effective method either, but it works for me, which is the real point isn't it?

I apologize to anyone that might find this post to be very short, but then again I never did promise that it was an extraordinary thing which I did to motivate myself. Just remember though, the only reason this works for me, is because I found out that it works for me. I have no idea if it would work for anyone else, so this is not an advice column. Figure it out for yourself, and if this helps you in anyway, I'm glad.

- Andy