What a week!

Today is Wednesday, September 17, 2008.

On Sunday Lehman Brothers filed Chapter 11 and my brother in law lost his job of 15 years. Basically it was his life because he works like 15 hours a day and loves every minute. Whatever, not my work ethic, but it was his and the POOF, gone. Yesterday Barclays announced that they'd pay $2B for the investment banking division and POOF, he had a job again. For now, all I'm saying... Meantime, my sister who started a fancy pants new job four months ago at a fancy pants bank got "let go" because the company has decided to "take a different direction" and POOF she is unemployed.

AIG the worlds largest insurance company just got a government bail out for $80B.

What does it mean when two of the largest institutions on the planet take dives like this?

And there is a good chance that Creepy McCain and Scary Sarah will be in the White House come January.

And David Foster Wallace hung himself last Friday.

And my payroll did not go through on time so I had this avalanche of fees charge my account. Fuckers. I hate banks. Greedy Lending and Stupid Lending are the reason we are in this horrible mess.

Bank of America just bought Merrill Lynch, stay tuned, Bank of America could be next.

I had started that SQL Admin class and had to drop it. I just do not know enough Unix right now and do not have the time or inclination to learn it as I go. I would rather learn it first, take the class and get an A. I feel crappy about it because I do want to continue this vein of learning. I made myself a promise to dust off my Unix skills and get better at it so I can enroll in that class next semester. Though honestly I might have to get a different instructor. He was a bit too much of a dandy for me, horribly full of himself and narcissistic. But I do feel sorry for him too, I think he may be a bit lonely but so full of bravado, that he would never let it show.

Challenges for the week include running a simple script and actually understanding what it is I am typing, yard work, sushi making and creating a vlookup that will run across many many columns and output criteria based on user entry as well as a description of the output. This is wonky. I would rather do it in Access but the client insists on Excel.

Oil drops to $111 a barrel and my Mom's house is still for sale

Both of these tidbits are good news. But first, a recipe:

Lentil Tabouli
1 c. French lentils
1/3 c. dried chick peas
4 c. water
1 c. parsley chopped well
1/2 c. fresh mint chopped well
6 T. fresh lemon juice
3/4 c. olive oil
1 med. yellow onion chopped fine
3 cloves garlic chopped fine
Salt and pepper to taste
(1 t. curry powder, 1 t. cumin)

Boil the lentils and the chick peas in the water until soft. Drain well.
In a big bowl, mix the parsley, mint, onion and garlic
Add the lentils and chickpeas
Add the oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper and optional spices
Mix well and refrigerate for at least three hours before serving.

So yes, now a tank of gas costs roughly $55 instead of $75 as it did three weeks ago. That was brutal. But since we are heading to the election the gas prices need to drop so the candidates can build confidence for the consumer, even though they have nothing to do with the price drop. One of those funny bits of psychology. I don't really care, I just want Obama to win and the price of EVERYTHING, just about, to drop.

My Mom's house not selling is a good thing because a. they do not own it and b. they do not want to move. Nobody wants them to move but the reason it is not selling is because all the other houses around them that are for sale are foreclosures. It is ugly out there in real estate-landia and it is not going to get better anytime soon. All that carefree lending has caught up with us. Can't pay your mortgage, can't do a refi, can't buy anything else. I feel sorry for everyone who is losing their house, but I might have said it before, once or twice, but you signed the papers and made the commitment, didya think maybe they would hold you to that promise, huh? You are not buying a house, you are buying a mortgage, it helps to know the difference.

Databases. Not a ton to report there. Just delivered one I built a year ago and have been feeding and nurturing since then. Not a problem, just a client who kept putting off the ultimate delivery, she's been busy. It, the database, is two mostly complete seasons of wet weather flow into certain select places to measure for overflow and ultimately pollutants into the system. Actually a useful database and shit howdy, did I learn a lot. Now, waiting for feedback.

The current database is being built. I should be ready for a first pass review by the end of the week. The scope changed a little or a lot depending on who you ask. Ultimately the larger/global effort of this thing, also related to a sewer system, but pipes this time, will be good.

More sooner or later...

Wildfire Corn Parking Database

Recently I was handed a new "database" project. The plate it was served on was dirty, it did not have a garnish and it was covered in a heavy brown, lumpy sauce. I thought about eating it before the maggots came but I took the plate to the sink instead and consulted the chef. Turns out, after many turns, that some mucky made a version of a database in Excel, stay with me here, and needs monkeys to provide data and meta data, GIS layers and maps. Oky-doky. The chef is a good sport and intimate with data, and has devised a global and useful project we can make from this silly endeavor. The mucky can have the fodder for his busy work. Happy Ending, eventually. I plan to learn more than politics with this one.

Do I need to go on about crude being $148 a barrel. My little car costs $70 to fill up. And I keep getting this: well if the price of oil goes down the investors lose. Fuckers are making billions and us stiffs still have to get to work.

There are 1,400 wildfires burning in California.
The Midwest is under water from recent major storms.
Corn crop decreased by 7%, I don't care but it is will be justification to raise food prices.

Ride your damn bike!

It is grim out there. But we have to buck up and one way to do this is to make pie.
Peach pie is good. Also strawberry. It makes a person happy, this pie. And it brings people together for a very simple reason; the love of pie. In order to achieve a good crust, get a kid who is around 11 - 15 years old, preferably skinny and with cold hands. Give the butter, flour, ice water and recipe to this kid and have it make the crust. Tell it to stick the crust in saran and in the fridge for a few hours. Make your filling, roll out that fine fine crust, fill it and bake it. The reason for the skinny kid? The smaller, colder fingers are key to the finest crusts. Seriously I have tried sticking my fingers in ice water, which hurts after while, and it is not the same. I don't have fat fingers but they are warm. Also, my pie crust maker insists on cold butter so leave the butter in the fridge until your maker is ready. Remember, you have to share the pie with the maker, they cannot be paid off. They want pie.

When the pie is done, call your friend and tell her to bring over some ice cream and a bottle of wine. Invite a couple of others too, fresh pie is good and your pets will not beg for any, they don't like pie unless they are weird that way, in which case take them to the vet immediately.

The proverbial whip cracketh.

When you do not know the answer

Client emails me last week: "thanks for coming over on such short notice this morning. I forgot to ask you if there is a way I can tell from my AOL mail if someone has received my email"
My fantasy answer: No and I don't care.
In reality I used an actual AOL account (my Mom's) and could find no where to affect a read receipt. Pundits say it is possible but that AOL ignores read receipts to non-AOL addresses.
What a surprise!
I kindly suggested my client go to Outlook with her AOL address, if she would like that feature.

So far all A's in MySQL. I like it, I sort of get, the teacher is super lenient. The teacher now, though is off on the integrating MySQL into Php, which is great but I would like to learn a bit more about MySQL, like report writing and more complex queries. I will definitely take the next class.

Workwise, if you hire someone to spruce up the database you have been juggling around, as well as do the things you are unable to do, and that database does not work, should not they fix it and not leave me in a bind?

GRRRR.
I should get to work.

condiments and gas

The Condiment
12-15 cherry tomatoes
2 oz. feta cheese crumbled
juice from 1/2 a decent sized lemon
few tablespoons of olive oil
pepper to taste
you can add salt too, but feta is already really salty

Mix it all together in bowl and let it sit for 20-30 minutes to let the flavors meld.

I have put it in a sandwich, had it with salmon and scallops, in tacos. It is pretty good with just about anything...going to mix it with rice for lunch today.

CNBC stated that Saudi Arabia is running out of oil. Oil is trading at $105 a barrel today. A couple of weeks ago they blamed the oil prices on analysts reports which pisses me off because that means that the analysts are controlling the prices and not the supply and demand. Well, I just checked DOE's website and Saudi has projected the ability to produce 12 million barrels per day by next year. Well, that does not seem too short does it? They also have 2.5 billion barrels in reserves. So is this shortage a bunch of crap, designed to justify the price? Demand is around 22 million barrels per day but we get about 12% of our oil from Saudi Arabia. Canada is actually the biggest single country we receive our oil from, Mexcio and Venezuela are also in the top 5. And apparently Canada has an untapped resource in Alberta. The oil is however, mixed with sand and the processing is very expensive.

The economy only gets worse. There are been 80,000 layoffs in the last month. We keeping how those in the know are fearing recession. Hello? We are in a recession.
I don't feel confident in any predictions at this point. I am only concerned with conserving my cash and living frugally. Oh wait, I don't have any cash and I already live frugally. Am I screwed? No. I am employed and my monthly output is manageable...just barely. Viva cheap red wine, rice and beans. I will survive.

Fifty bucks

Fifty bucks to fill up my car. I don't drive a 1972 Lincoln Continental, gas is just expensive. Oil hit $106/barrel this morning. It is sad and the oil producers are blaming the analysts, stating there is no problem with supply. How do we shut the analysts up? I don't drive much but this makes it really hard for the people who do have to drive.

Everything is more expensive. That $50 bag of groceries (yes, one bag) at Whole Paycheck is now $67. Food for my kitties went up by 10 cents a can and while 10 cents is not that much, it adds up. Price of beer is higher too due to a bad hops crop, up at least 1.50/six pack. Organic greens beans are $4.99/lb. I will not be buying those anytime soon. Cheese is more expensive too which is sad because, really cheese is about the best thing ever.

Time for a recipe involving cheese. This a variation of a Swiss dish called Rosti, apparently the "national dish" so to speak. The real recipe is a potato pancake.

Rosti
2-3 lbs. potatoes (I like Russet or Yukon Gold)
6 clove garlic, peeled and chopped
1 large yellow onion chopped
1 1/2 cups Gruyere cheese grated (big side of box grater)
Sea salt
1/2 c. butter (don't substitute)
1/2 c. milk or broth

Boil the potatoes until semi soft, not mushy, preferably 24 hours in advance.
Let cool
Peel and grate

Saute garlic and onions in a big pat of butter in a large heavy skillet until onions are translucent.
Use a wooden spoon for stirring.
Add potatoe and cook until soft.
Add cheese and cook until melty
Add broth or milk, very small amounts at a time just until potatoes are moist. You may not need to use all of it.
Watch your heat, cover and cook until potatoes are golden, stirring occasionally.
Serve immediately.

This dish is good for any meal, anytime. Especially for when that $65 bag of groceries is $85 bag. It is going to happen. Whatever the speculation, I am with Warren Buffet, we are in a recession. It is not going to be pretty. Stock up on those essentials and take some deep breaths.

Last night in my MySQL class the instructor mentioned that we are moving into programming now. One of the students says "there was nothing in the class description about programming". I fell out. How do you learn SQL without programming. I should have said "SQL theory is not offered this semester".

Yikes.

The curly fries were not necessary

They were, however, very good. There is a subsidized cafeteria run by an evil workers comp insurance company. The cafeteria is not evil, in fact quite good. You can have a Niman Ranch burger with cheese on a soft sesame bun for $3.50, really, real cheese, real meat, real bread. Michael Pollan may actually approve. I like Michael Pollan, maybe he states the obvious but he does it from a refreshing pespective which gives cause for pause and thought. His message sinks in.
So burger, with Swiss, curly fries, salad...full.

"Microsoft Office Access 2007 has been successfully installed" This happened only after I had to Google a .cab file called SKU111. What they neglect to tell you during the installation is that you have in insert your previous installation disk (it does say source) but thankfully some geek out there had posted a solution to this annoyance.

One of the two reasons for installing this today is that I have a query that is troublesome. Here is the trouble: I am summing a rows value from four tables into a new table that contains the values from those four tables and the sum, across the rows. The query seems to go well until it is almost complete, as it is cranking (there 105K records) it displays the new/calculated values but when it finishes, all values change to NAME. Now, NAME usually indicates a type error or a calculation error (going with type in this case). It is now just sitting there, crashing.

Nail on the Head, so to speak

now, this is good
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/66-recycling/
hope they don't mind me putting this here

It's Friday, I am listening to Ghostland Observatory. Not that listening to Ghostland Observatory is a Friday thing, it is just what I am doing right now.
Oh and working.

Recipe:
Shrimp Dip (concocted sitting in the car driving up north for the weekend. Note: this is not a diet plate).
1 lb. shrimp (minus what your brother steals when your back is turned)
1/2 c. sour cream
1/2 c. cream cheese
1 T. Tapatio or other habanero/jalepeno hot sauce
4 T. grated yellow onion
salt and pepper to taste
juice from 1/2 lemon or more if you really like lemon

Mix it all together with a fork
Stick it in the fridge for about an hour
Serve with French bread, carrot, celery

Delete, Delete, I Eat Meat. This the name of the Ghostland Observatory album I am listening to. It rocks.

Observations on MySQL 5.0. Everyone says it is a much better product than previous versions. I dig it, as an Access user of many moons, it is nice to get in and dig in. Writing queries has taken on new meaning in that you can see what you are writing, actually asking the program to do as well as understand what is going to happen as you are writing it. Delicate desire of the command line over the GUI right? I like them both but hey I believe in God and evolution so shoot me. Point is, like cooking as to opposed to just eating, I get to know what is going in and that is just delightful. I can control what I want to see and I can manipulate the code as opposed to getting some error message about something I did not enter and cannot fix.

Renewable

The wind sort of went out of my sails on this issue. Not to say it is less important, because it might be the most important issue. I think Stupor Tuesday did me in. I fear four years of McCain. Don't let it be. Eight years with the "idiot" was too many. There was no good there and I cannot tolerate another president who will spend four years justifying our presence in the Middle East. Fuck him. The only way to fully defeat their collective mentality on the Middle East is to reduce our reliance on oil. No small feat there kiddies, eh? Okay so there's my segueway to renewability. That was not a word and now it is...ha!
Without the rhetorical definition like last time, we know that renewable energy is energy from sources that naturally renew themselves, like wind, solar, geothermal, hydro. Wiki says that renewable energy accounted for 13% worldwide in 2005 with 52% of that being from hydroelectic. 7% is the number for the United States use of renewable energy. Shit, we can do a lot better than that, and that number is two years old. So what I do? It has to be everyone doing their part, as well as all those companies doing their part. I ride my bike to work most days, I compost and reuse my compost in le garden. I recycle everything. I live with a recycle nazi who keeps me in check. I try to be super conscious of waste and try desperately not to waste. I have noticed that my level of consumption in the form of needless crap has greatly decreased over the years. I used to think it was because I am poor but I also think I am just more aware of what I really need and don't need. And I have a ton of crap already, can't contribute to the landfill anymore, even though there is some super cute shit out there for the kiddies in my life. If only Trader Joes did not use so much plastic for their packaging! The other day I bought one of those rice bowls. The bowl is plastic, wrapped in cardboard label which is fine but then you remove the plastic from the bowl, lift up the hyper-paper-plastic bowl cover and inside is a the sauce packet, the oil packet, the freeze dried veggie thing, all in plastic. Just a small amount, really but a shitload of people eat these and similarly wrapped ramen type of meals because they are cheap and easy and better than McDonald's. And it all goes to the plastic island. Think, think thinking.

But getting back to the Presidency. I, like a lot of us, want to see a Democrat in there. Either Hillary or Obama would be fine, better than McCain. But if it comes to McCain or one of them, will the public sway in favor of a democrat or will the "willful ignorant" prevail. An interesting statistic would be to see how many of each party are in the voting pool.

Sustainability

source citation: http://dictionary.reference.com/cite.html?qh=sustainable&ia=luna

to support, hold, or bear up from below; bear the weight of, as a structure.

2.	to bear (a burden, charge, etc.).

3.	to undergo, experience, or suffer (injury, loss, etc.); endure without giving way or yielding.

4.	to keep (a person, the mind, the spirits, etc.) from giving way, as under trial or affliction.

5.	to keep up or keep going, as an action or process: to sustain a conversation.

6.	to supply with food, drink, and other necessities of life.

7.	to provide for (an institution or the like) by furnishing means or funds.

8.	to support (a cause or the like) by aid or approval.

9.	to uphold as valid, just, or correct, as a claim or the person making it: The judge sustained the lawyer's objection.

10.	to confirm or corroborate, as a statement: Further investigation sustained my suspicions.

We talk a lot these days about something being sustainable but I think we are confusing it with the term renewable. Although sustainable fish farming supplies us with fish, it is not necessarily renewable, as we see with the current salmon situation. By sustaining, in the case we mean that it can keep going. Unfortunately for the fish, this is not the case, nor is it the case for energy sources such as oil and water, which don't mix but you knew that already, smartypants. We cannot sustain organic substances at their current level, we simply do not have the wherewithal, the resources and we are far too much of a consumptive society. That is not to say that there are not several organic substances that will last a very long time from now. But in order to sustain current levels the infrastructure of the environment needs to exercise some serious conservation. We need to watch for the signs or depletion and construct and manage accordingly. We have to check in on the bees and the worms and make sure that they are still doing their job. We have to give to those organizations that are trying to sustain. Sustain, keep at the current levels. We have to do our part to ensure the continuation of that which we need: energy, whole food, shelter, clothing which is why conservation (not rationing silly) is important. Have thought in the everyday things you do, don't be wasteful, be mindful. Be considerate.

Now renewable energies, entirely different, yet not unrelated subject.

But I have to come back to this in the next post.

Awkardness

I had to quit a consulting gig today. I have worked with this particular company for the seven months and it has become increasingly uncomfortable and quite honestly, irritating. They are poor communicators and even poor planners which makes my job, as their IT consultant, near impossible. The worst part is the lack of information conveyance leads me to do a half-assed job and then, then, they are pissed off at me. The hardest about IT consulting is the lack of ESP that I have. It renders me "incompetent" in the eye of the beholder. But worse still, is what this does to my self esteem. I like to do a good job and I like to make the end user happy. Not this time.
I am quite sure I need a glass of wine and day to digest this.

A year ago I left another consulting gig, actually I was a regular employee. I helped start the company and was there for four years. By far, that was a worse situation than my recently departed although they were similar in the involved personalities. Although neither of the "difficult ones" would ever see that.

I made up my mind quite some time ago that there was only so much abuse I could take. I can't live like the kicked dog in the corner. I am here to help and help I will to the best of my ability.

Good luck with the Geek Squad kids, I have gone to find someone that knows what they need.

Wednesday

Some days the stapler gives me trouble.

I am taking a MySQL class, had the first one last week. Seems like it will be good, the instructor says he is a "nuts and bolts kind of guy". This means not a lot of time in front of the computer, but a lot of time in lecture. He goes fast. I use Access regularly and have taken C++ (that made me certifiably insane for four months). I thought today that I would crack open that Northwind DB in Access. Work is a little slow today. Access is denying the existence of SQL server, fucker. Wait:
run/services.msc/SQL Server Browser, change to Automatic, Start. That better now?

I had two of those french panini sammies today. One for breakfast, one for lunch. Simply ham and cheese and some token butter because the ham and cheese don't have enough fat in them right? Those sammies rule, exception, not norm nor habit.

We are making fish, brown rice and some greens for dinner, gotta be good for at least part of the day.