IPOD
RADIO
Glad you're all here.
You may feel alone, a small island of green in a sea of rocky browns and gray...
You may look around and find nothing to which to relate. There may be ominous signs and portents that you are nothing and could easily be crushed.
You may feel truly alone...
But there is hope. There's a whole world of green. I can't promise that you or I will ever find it, but even if not... remember you are an outpost of that green in a sea of rocky browns and gray.
And the green is there...
Go to it, or spread it. Either way, it is there.
Then, perhaps, you are the gray in an ocean of blue. There's a purpose there, too.
but then, that's a story for another time.
Questions, to this point:
My answer to last time's question...
I don't believe in much of anything I haven't seen or that can't be proven. I don't say this with scorn, but more with a touch of sadness. I would never discourage anyone in their beliefs, because I do... believe... the world is an odd and flexible thing and may very well be different for different people.
And hope is a different beast than belief.
My question this time:
What's your question for me?
...and lots of reading. I've gotten a bit too much over into the experimentation side of things and wasted a fair bit of study time yesterday doing experiments. It's good to put what you learn into practice... but balance must be maintained.
Also on the schedule for this weekend: finishing watching the last few episodes of Full Metal Alchemist. I've enjoyed it, but I still have to say that I'd recommend Last Exile first if you're in an anime kind of mood. The opening song of Last Exile still gives me a little chill down the spine when I hear it...
So, what did I enjoy doing yesterday? My sister had my Mom's truck. My Mom had my sister's VW Bug (one of the new ones). I was elected to ferry cars betweens. So, yesterday, I drove the Bug into work. First, it's bright red. Second, it has bright pink and black flowery print seat covers (very, very obvious and easy to see given that the bug's upper body is really a big glass bubble.)
Ok, compare and contrast the car... with Grayness. Who was honestly looking rather Don Johnson/Bruce Willis-y yesterday, having decided not to shave. (Which I probably should this morning... *sigh*) Who rolled down the windows and blasted Queen on the whole drive in to work.
I had fun. And I very much like the car. (Unparalleled visibility for one thing! No blind spots!) Some day I might get one, but I need to research them, first.
Questions, to this point:
Oh- and I also really, as always, enjoyed my readers' comments.
So, question for today:
Do you believe in magic?
On the plus side, I believe I am well-rested today. On the minus side, I don't have as much time to write anything.
Questions, to this point:
My reaction to a single footprint...? I would probably view it as a problem to be solved- not in the sense that the person who left it was a problem, but rather in the "hmmm, how the heck did THAT happen?" sense...
Could the surf or wind have erased the other footprints? Could it be my own footprint from my last walk? Is it a footprint for sure, or could it just be something that *looks* like a footprint?
Once I was certain that it was actually an honest-to-goodness, not-my-own footprint, I don't know that I'd even think as much as I would act... the search would be on! [*]
After all, marooned on an island, one has to have something to occupy one's mind... and hide-and-seek is a traditional game. The last I played it, I was better at the hiding part- but things change.
Question for this time: What was something you did today that you enjoyed?
Yesterday I was reviewing exception and assertions, getting ready for my Java test. Today? I believe IO (Input & Output) shall get a visit.
See you all tomorrow. (Bet your bottom dollar... 
)
[*]
The questions of the Month of Study to this point:
On the "afraid" question-
To keep it relatively light, one thing I am afraid of is, I am sad to admit, heights. When I worked in an office building on the 10th floor or so (not that high, really, these days), I refused to go closer than six feet to a window. I always had visions of tripping and...
I can force myself to deal with this when I have to, but the basic rule is, "Higher than the roof of my house? Nope, not liking it." I enjoy going up on the roof, though. (About 40 feet up on the high side)
The new question for this day: You've been shipwrecked, stranded on an island for at least a year. One morning you are walking on the beach, and in the sand, you come upon one footprint. Yes, one. No footprints leading to it, no footprints leading from it. What is your reaction? (Bonus points if you choose to tell how it happened. )
The past few days my schedule has needed fine-tuning. Waking up too early (say at 3:00 AM) is actually worse than waking up too late (say 5 AM) because while I have more time to study and do things, my brain just does not work as well. I am hoping that 4 AM is the "Goldilocks time"- that is to say, "just right". We'll see.
I have another glucose curve scheduled for Fearless, a week from tomorrow. Meanwhile, while his attitude seems quite good, fortunately, but I am trying to get him to eat more. He has shown contempt for the canned diabetic food, so I am just feeding the dry diabetic food, and supplementing it with chicken. I've got a meatgrinder now (old family one, I've been washing it carefully for a day or so- it was in storage for 20 years or so, and was... rather dusty) and I will start making proper food in the next few days.
Meanwhile... Claw has the best spot in the world, apparently.
Lesser men might sob, and cry like little babies. But no, I am made of sterner stuff. And I shall not fail my readers! This is the Month of Study where the stern, stern steel of a true programmer/blogger is forged in the fires of adversity! Do we flinch from those fires? No! We welcome them! And then we put them out with lots of water, laughing at their vulnerability to something that covers 75% of the surface of the earth! HAHAHA silly little loser flames of adversity! YOU SUCK!
...and then we have another cup of tea, pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and start all over again. This is already looking totally different than what I wrote before. Heh. Funny, how one small chance event causes larger unintended consequences.
Essentially, and rather ironically, I was declaring that my bane for this week was careless errors. That point was driven home when a careless error (and I'm not sure exactly what it was) cost me about 30 minutes worth of journal entry writing. *sigh*
So, Grayness, slow down, relax, take your time... and be careful.
Turn down the volume of that little screamy voice saying "hurryhurryhurryhurryhurryhurryhurryhurryhurryhurryhurry!" This voice is not your friend. It's not necessarily your enemy, and not something you can necessarily ignore for too long- but you have to be the boss of it, not it, you. Especially when taking tests.
See? Sometimes these little events just give you something more to write about.
Ok, geek alert. I want to show you something kind of cool, but you may not think it's as cool as I do...
Question from last time... my handwriting? It's an odd cross of cursive and printing, more on the printing side. I can have fun with it, and it has its moments, but its not as pretty as it is functional, sadly. I get handwriting envy very easily. And I also get handwriting lust occasionally...
My handwriting is also, very obviously the cross of my mother's and father's style.
The questions of the Month of Study to this point:
Question for this time: What's something of which you are afraid? Doesn't have to be your greatest fear, just something that scares you.
It's funny that this is the last chapter in one of the books I am using to prepare, and very late in the other. I'd think it would be one of the things you'd get out of the way, early.
Guess that just means I'm going to have to be good enough to write my own study guide, some day.
So, questions to this point:
Answer any, all, or none- heck, you know the drill by this point.
I was born on a Wednesday. So far, I'm the only Wednesday's child I know on here.
And as to the other question- I've no opinion, yet. I'm just curious what others think.
Well, it's (past) 5:30 already- I need to get my butt in gear, read a bit, and get ready for work.
Question for this time: What's your handwriting like?
[Better entry tomorrow, I promise- I'll get up at 4 and allow more time for it.]
So, questions to this point:
As I have said before- Answer any, all, or none, as you like, at any point. Or even make up your own question and answer it, or throw it at me.
What scares me as I learn more... is always, how much I have to learn. I'm left wondering at what point I know enough to be worthwhile. I'm not there yet.
Meanwhile...
Question for today: what's the one greatest bit of wisdom you can offer me?
Answer any, all, or none, as you like, at any point.
So, to the vet yesterday with Fearless, to get another glucose curve done, to see how the insulin is doing in treating his diabetes. The news is good, in a lot of ways. The low point on the curve was down in normal ranges this time; the high point was still (quite) too high; they did a blood chemistry check and that looked good.
So now I will be doing shots twice a day, smaller dose each time, larger (by 50%) overall dose per 24 hour period.
I don't think I've mentioned it, but I really like my new vet. She's a serious sweetheart, as well as impressing me as knowing her stuff and having a solid approach to matters. She had to leave to pick up her daughter before I could pick up Fearless (it's an all-day stay on the glucose curve), but she called me later yesterday evening,- despite obviously having quite the handful with the daughter going on. Generally, she pretty much rocks.
Ok, I was lazy today, and slept in until 4. This means I better get my butt onto studying- it's a review day, no new ground, just refreshing my memory on Collections- things like lists and sets and maps and queues. Those are actually some of my favorite things from this pretty awesome Java language I am learning.
Ok, off to get it done!
Question:
Pick a figure from history. Pick one major event in their story. Tell how you would do things differently, and what the result would be.
Later, folks...
First, you ask, "Why are you, Grayness, up at what would be termed 'zero dark hundred' in military parlance? Don't you have work tomorrow?".
Well, thankfully, yes, I do. But this is what happens when you get home a bit early (5:30- I was on the road and my bosses let me go home from the client's site, rather than come back to work- sensible since I would have been back around quitting time, and it would have doubled my mileage) and almost immediately crash. I'm going to take a nap in a bit. But I've already done my studying for the morning...
And today's topic was... HOW TO CREATE VAST ZOMBIE HORDES! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHA
HAHA
HAHA
HA
*koff*
...
Hmmm, now where was I?
OH, THAT"S RIGHT, HOW TO CREATE VAST ZOMBIE HORDES!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
*koff*
Damn. Just can't crank out the maniacal laughter like I used to.
But anyway, VAST ZOMBIE HORDES!
Well, not actually. Today, I learned how to harness the power of threads. So, you ask, what does that have to do with VAST ZOMBIE HORDES?
Well, it's like this- you write an ordinary program, and it does task A, at which point it moves on to task B, and then to C and D. That's fine, if a bit single minded. But what if B didn't depend on A being done, or C on B being done, and so forth?
Well, you can spin the tasks, the processes, out into separate threads. Suddenly your one program is a host... a HORDE... potentially a VAST HORDE!
"So, the ZOMBIES", you chime in," where exactly do the ZOMBIES enter the mix?"
Good question. You see, threads aren't exactly the brightest little dears. You'd think if you tell a first thread to do something, and then a second to do something else, and then a third thread to do something else entirely, that they might take turns in a nice, neat fashion, or you could predict the speed at which thread one will do what it has to do relative to threads two and three.
They don't. You can't. You can try to control the little darlings, and you may succeed- to an extent- but there ain't no guarantees.
However, there are ways to make sure the VAST ZOMBIE HORDES cooperate to DEVOUR ALL THE HUMANS!
BWAHA *koff*
dammit
Ok, no more maniacal laughter this morning. I'll talk about how to coordinate VAST ZOMBIE HORDES another time. Until then, the world slumbers in unknowing bliss...
Anyhoo, Taz. Said I'd talk about him. So as not to make a liar of myself...
I've always felt a relation to Taz. Down a few layers, I have much the same temper, but fortunately, up at the top layer, I have a snarky little voice that asks, "And the point of this would be...?" Which is a good question to ask- saves you from leveling mountain ranges and spawning tornadoes unnecessarily. (Because, trust me, those mountain ranges are a serious *bitch* to put back if you decide you really wanted them there, after all. And once the tornado is out of the bottle, it SO isn't going back in...)
I (very much) prefer the kinder, gentler Taz of Taz-Mania (one of my favorite cartoon series, ever, if not the favorite) to the original. I'm just not so much a predator. A hot head underneath, sometimes pretty unevolved? Yeah. Guilty.
But then, we may be humans, with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can say, we're just not going to kill- today.
Major bonus points if you know where I stole/paraphrased the last paragraph from, without looking.
Today's question: A plain box, two feet long, one foot wide, one foot high, arrives in your mail. There's no return address, but it's definitely addressed to you. It gives you no reason for alarm, so you decide to open it. What's inside?
