FeralBlog

This whole “blogging” thing seems to have taken off lately. My best friend, my sister, and her very good friend (and also a friend of mine growing up) have all popped up with their very own in the last few weeks. If my mom starts a blog I will officially eat a hat.

It’s great to see these blogs; Ryan’s especially. He just made a dramatic move from Philly to Providence (well, maybe it wasn’t dramatic, but people in his life made it that way. I

Well, I can’t believe it’s taken this long for me to start on a project using Ajax, but I finally got the opportunity with some new reporting changes at work.

If you don’t know what Ajax is you should just go read the Wikipedia entry above, but basically it’s a way to make changes to a page without having to reload the whole page. Think Flickr. Think Gmail. The whole application that I work on deals with presentation of data in large chunks, so the ability to use this technology is going to make for a much better user experience. Plus, it’s nice to be starting with something new. If there’s anything I hate, it’s feeling stagnant, which is why I try and do side projects whenever I can, but I’ve been pretty busy with life lately, so not much time for side ventures.

One thing about Ajax is that it can be a pain to set up, and a pain to debug when things don’t go perfectly. Thankfully people have already put out some code libraries to help speed Ajax development, and Microsoft is going to be including something in their next version of ASP.NET.

Today my manager asked if we could put some spell-checking on some of the free-form text entry pages of our web application. We had talked about it generally for a little while, but now I guess it’s a bit more urgent, and he also happened to catch me at a good post-release time with not a ton of crazy bugfixes and no time.

There are some home-brew solutions using Word, as well as a free component which has some promise, but the one I was drawn to was this one right here. It was a piece of cake to put into the form in question, even though it was totally dynamically generated (i.e. no textbox tags on the page at all.. everything created and inserted into a placeholder control at runtime). Just add a spellcheck control for each textbox, and a master one to pop the Javascript window which tests all the textboxes.

It’s one of those things where I certainly could have figured something out, but this solution was so easy and so flexible (and it helps that the client is so paying for it) that it’s just easier to send them a check and have something up and running in just a few hours.

... running out to grab lunch wearing your pajama bottoms. Well, maybe they’re actually shorts that I use as pajama bottoms, but the point is I slept in them and then wore them all day at work today! I love telecommuting!

Today is the first really warm hazy day so far this spring, which means it’s the first day that we are all learning just how fun it is to be just up the hill from the water treatment plant. It fucking reeks out there, in a way that puts the dead deer stink I rode past on the way in this morning (please please please someone come and get that before tomorrow morning) to shame.

So, that probably means no grilling today. That still means I need to step outside in order to go get something to eat, so maybe it’s a 6/half-dozen proposition.

So, we’re having some problems with our internal network this morning. Can’t hit the SQL box, which means can’t do any development right now. In order to pass the time, I send my coworkers these pictures of Britney.

Dan: Check out her fat ass.
Me: Yeah, she’s really let herself go.
Dan: She’s got that gunt thing going on.
Me: Yeah.
Pat: I’d still totally do her though.
Me and Dan (in unison): Yeah.

1. Only guys work at my office. Not like it’s a sexist thing, and women have worked there before, but at the moment it’s only us Y-chromosomes folks.
2. Any day that it’s nice we grill lunch out on the back patio. Yesterday was turkey burgers, today was hot dogs!
3. Another thing that happens on nice days is the portable hoop gets put out, and some hot 2-on-2 action gets going after work. I stay far, far away from the games because a) I have no skillz whatsoever (I was only able to make it to JV in grade school, and only made 2 baskets all season (although one of them was in the game against the teachers.. yay me!)) and b) the boys I work with play hard, and I’m just not that competative about sports stuff.
4. We’re talking about having the occasional low-stakes poker game at lunch. Wait until I clean out all those dead money guys!
5. We have a mascot. It’s actually our 2nd. The neighbors next door had a pet rooster, or at least we hope it was a pet and not dinner. Anyway, McNuggets (as we called him) disappeared, and was replaced by a golden rooster. We don’t like this one nearly as much, as don’t feed him like we did Nuggets.

Anyway, if this sounds like a fun place, then we’re hiring. It would be for someone who does ASP.NET programming at a high level (classes, complex user interfaces, lots of SQL queries, etc.). You probably also should live in the Pittsburgh area. If you are this person, or know this person, send me an email at mattcomroe[at]yahoo.com.

In order to liven things up, we’re having a drinking contest here at work today. Not the alcoholic kind; water. We all will have our measured containers, and whoever downs the most during the course of the day wins. I will update throughout the day with current tallies, because I’m sure you’ll all be on the edge of your seat.

Dan: 0
Matt: 0
Pat: 0

Update 9:52 AM
Dan: 36 oz
Matt: 64 oz
Pat: 34 oz

As you can see I’ve taken a commanding lead, and have yet to “break the seal”, although that’s about to change in the next few minutes. Pat’s comment was “So, what are we going to have for lunch, salt?”

Update 10:48 AM
Dan: 90 oz – 5 bathroom breaks
Matt: 96 oz – 2 bathroom breaks
Pat: 68 oz – 2 bathroom breaks

Dan is catching up, but he claims he’s going to be slowing down soon. I’m feeling good; loose. I also started tracking bathroom breaks… that’s not part of the contest; just more of an informational thing.

Update 12:44 AM
Dan: 126 oz – 8(!) bathroom breaks
Matt: 128 oz – 5 bathroom breaks
Pat: 136 oz – 6 bathroom breaks

A few things become apparent, midway through the day. First of all, Dan has a bladder the size of a walnut. Second, when you have a little bit of a headache it’s a good idea to back off a bit. Third, Fritos are my friend.

Final Update 5:oo PM
Dan: 284 oz – 16(!) bathroom breaks
Matt: 160 oz – 7 bathroom breaks
Pat: 306 oz – 11 bathroom breaks

Pat takes it, and in fine style. I pretty much gave up at lunch; it was giving me a headache and in general making me feel like poo. In total, we drank almost 6 gallons, or 22 litres. Crazy.

I’m at work.
I ate my lunch maybe an hour before.
Psyllium husk is kicking in; doing its job.
I hit the head.
Normal size, normal amount of TP.
Flush.
Gurgle
Uh-oh.
Water rises.
Oh, please, please, please no!

Almost on command, the water obeys… cresting at the lip of its porcelean cage, and then reluctantly lowers itself back down.
Phew.

You know that still, small voice in the back of your head? The one that gently whispers things to you that you should probably listen to? The one that told me “Go find a plunger, Matt… trust me….”? Yeah, well… I didn’t listen. The water goes back down to normal pre-flush levels, and I’m left with two choices: just sneak away and leave it so that when the next guy comes in to pee, he gets one hell of a suprise, or try to flush again. I’ll take door #2, Monty!

Whoops.

No stopping it this time… no prayers will be answered.

As casually as possible, I step out into the hall and check the janitor’s closet. No plunger. What the heck kind of crackerjack operation are we running here anyway?!? Alright… so how bad is it? I peek back in to the bathroom, and there’s water everywhere. Sigh. I get the bucket and mop and get to work. The mop is an utter piece of shit, so I have to resort to paper towels. Let me tell you, I think I’d rather muck through old code than be mopping and wringing toilet water. I got most of the water into a small bucket, and then thought that perhaps by just pouring the water into the toilet, but without adding the flush factor, I could control how much the level rose while trying to exert enough downward pressure to free the clog. That probably would have worked great, if the handle of the bucket hadn’t broken right when I was trying to pour. There goes half my water! More mopping/squeezing ensues.

A trip to Home Depot to buy a $5 plunger, and then a bit more floor wiping, and I think the room is pretty much back to normal. Damn, that sucked!

The move all went fine on Friday, so yesterday was the first day in the new offices. I was excited to try out the new shorter bike commute, so I met up with my coworker Tom, otherwise known as TK Stack Money, at the end of the 62nd st. bridge and showed him the ride in. TKSM has been cycling for around 6 years at least, and has a really sweet Cannondale road bike, so he completely kicked my ass on the way in. I was pretty sure I was gonna die, but didn’t, so if we ride in together more often, I will probably get a pretty good workout out of it.

The new offices look really good, and I think the space turned out pretty well. There’s still some glare issues to be worked out, and right outside the window is a radio station transmitter tower that’s kicking out so many watts that it forces itself as our on-hold muzak, as well as filling up cell phone dead air. Kinda makes me wonder if I’m going to have a brain tumor in a year. But, my new desk is comfy and ergonomic, so everything else is a pretty minor quibble.