Geek Speak

England - Day 5 - Monday

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 08:42:00 +0000

Today we went to Bath as our main destination. The Roman baths were really amazing to see. We also visited the Bath Abby, 'The Circus', and the Royal Crescent. Val actually lived in #5 in the Royal Crescent. Lunch during this day we just had take out which was cheaper. The restaurant had different prices for take-out versus eating-in for the same items. It was really worth it eating and walking versus sitting down. On the way to Bath, we stopped at a little town, which I don't remember the name. Where Val lived when she was very little, the rooms were actually part of the local Pub. The pub looks like it was from the 16th century. It was very old and had a shale roof. There was a church across a field below the pub and it was really beautiful from the distance. After leaving Bath, we went to St. Catherine's estate. Val's parents lived there after comming back from Singapore for a little time. They lived in part of a cottage on the estate. It was really an estate. It was very large and it had a single lane road to reach it. I just can't fathom how difficult it would be to reach 50 years ago. We went over a toll bridge and drove quite a distance to reach it. It is known becuase Jane Austen used to live at the estate. From history, the land was given to a tailor which the King owed much money to. We drove a further distance and explored a little town, and found another residence which Val lived in.

England Day 4 - Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 09:01:00 +0000

Today was a full day of touring. We went to Portsmouth. We spent most of the day at the Historic dockyard. We went level by level though the HMS Victory. This was the ship that Admiral Nelson defeated Napoleon's French fleet at Trafalgar. It is the same type of ship in the movie Master and Commander. The ship was very huge. It does not look like it on the outside, but inside, very massive. The ship could hold 850 men. It had like 5 levels within and I even had to duck in places to walk around. There were original guns still on the ship. Afterwards, we sent to see the Mary Rose museum, the Mary Rose sunk in 1545, during the time of Henry VIII. The hull was raised in 1982, only half remained. There was many artifacts recoved. They had modern cannons and used archers on the decks. It was really amazing to see what was recovered. We then took a harbor tour and saw modern ships in the harbor and a fun day for all.

In England, Day 3 - Saturday

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 07:11:00 +0000

We had another great breakfast. We are staying in the Church House. This is such a good place to stay. We had a half day tour today. We went to Lulworth Cove, it was such a good place to explore. The area is great sheltered cove with lots of people arriving when we left, so we had good timing on when to get there. There were teen agers jumping off rocks into the ocean. The cliffs were made of different trypes of rocks. Some more notable was Purbeck stone and Chalk, which the whole area is known for. Afterwards, we drove though the Bovington Camp, which is a tank range, for the British military. Fortunate for us it was not active that day. We went to an overlook and we were able to see the area. There was a town which the US military took over during WWII to use for training in house to house fighting. The town actually still belongs to the military today. We say from a distance, Britians's largest natural harbor, in that harbor is an island, which I don't remember the name, was the birthplace of Boy Scouts, which I will have to look up. We then continued to Corfe Castle, which is well known for being lead by a woman and held off forces untill someone inside turned against the defenders. We ate at a British pub, call the Grayhound. It was great. I had Fish and Chips, it was the largest piece of fish that I have had. We also had mussels and scallops which were also excellent. After returning, Vicki and I went walking around on the 'Foot Paths'. We found a walking bridge over a stream and it was so clear that you could see fish swimming around with the kids playing in it. On the way back we stopped at a train station which was build in the 1800's which stopped service in 1960's, they are restoring the station so that it can be returned back into service. When it get done, it will really be a great attraction to the area. In the evening, we went to the local pub and met a relative of Val's which Val had not seen since she was a teenager. They had a great time remembering and telling stories.

Vacation day 1

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 19:32:00 +0000

Well we made it to Texas. It turned out to a great travel day. We went through Oakland this time instead of Los Angeles. That turned out to be a great choice and we got to see a little of the USA soccer game against Ghana, too bad we lost. It was good to see my parents.

Starting a new workout

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 04:19:00 +0000

I have started a new workout. Check out www.bodyrock.tv, becuase I am out of shape especially after Thanksgiving. Try the beginners workout, it is available as 6 YouTube videos. It was a good workout, you just need a couple of light hand weights and an exercise mat. Have fun with it. My goal is to do it twice a day till the end of the year, then I will see where I am at.

Update: The beginner videos are found here: http://www.bodyrock.tv/category/workout-routines/workout-routine-for-absolute-beginners/

Have fun.

Local animals

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:37:00 +0000

Ashley checking out the local animals. Samuel and Bethany got a
chance to drive the riding lawnmower.

Vacation 2009 – Day 7 - Michigan Day 2 – Food and Views

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:30:00 +0000

I needed to add some additional information about the Soo Locks area, We went to a couple of great restaurants.

The first restaurant was “Maloney’s Irish Pub”. I had my first taste of Whitefish. It was delicious and very reasonable, across the street was a view of boats going through the locks. The second restaurant where we had dinner was a restaurant that Aunt Pat had worked at when she was younger.

The restaurant was called the “LockView restaurant”. Aunt Pat and I had the perch, it was battered and fried. It was good, everyone had a difficult time finishing their food, because there was plenty. A grilled Whitefish and Walleye was on the menu, which other people tried and shared. I liked all of the above.

Before we had dinner we drove by to see if any of the houses that Bob and Aunt Pat lived in as kids were still there. We found three of them, but I only have picture of two, see below:

(Spruce Street – Most remembered House)

(Minneapolis Street)

Soo Locks - Michigan Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 05:20:00 +0000

Well I don't have a bunch to see for today, but We are in Day 2 in Michigan, after visiting with relatives the day before, we continued to the Soo Locks. They were awsome. Everyone had a great time. I got to try lake perch, walleye and whitefish. It was all delicious, These were all local varieties.

Vacation 2009 – Day 6 – Driving to Michigan

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:47:00 +0000

Well, this started our mini-trip within our vacation. We drove to Petoskey, MI, by way of Grand Rapids, MI. We stopped in Grand Rapids, to pickup Aunt Pat, which was great because we had not seen her for 5 years.

Afterwards, we ending up in Petoskey, MI, where we had dinner with Deb, Kacey, Kelsey and Korey. The kids went to the beach, which was not far away and went swimming. The lake was Lake Michigan! Sam and Korey jumped in and they said it was very cold.

The funny part was on leaving the beach, Sam accidentally got into the wrong car and someone was actually sleeping in the front seat of the car. Fortunately, he was only in there a few seconds and the person in the car did not notice the extra passenger. This really seemed to break the ice between the kids. It had been 5+ years since the kids had had a chance to get together.It was a great time to be had by all, I ended up cooking burgers and they actually turned out good, surprise. Before leaving to stay at the hotel, we made plans to meet on Friday at Mackinaw Island.

Day 5 Evening

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:50:00 +0000

Well after spending time at the local watering hole, before going to bed my in-laws have a nightly visitor. A raccoon, that we all call “three-legs”. She has been visiting them for 11 years, some years she brings her babies and lately she has not.

The first picture, is her showing up at the door waiting for her two peanut butter sandwiches. The second is her eating the first one and she returns for the second one in about 10 minutes.

Day 5 - Rest Day

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 05:30:00 +0000

Well, this day we went to the Water park in Layafette, IN. The "Tropicanoe Cove", the kids had a great time just going around the lazy river and the slides, the bad part is that all of the kids ended up getting sunburned, even after putting on sunscreen. Below are some pictures.

Day 4 Notes

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:59:00 +0000

Well, it is Father's Day, it was nice to relax. We really did not do much for the day. I did call my dad, and with him "Happy Father's day" and let him know that we arrived safely. It was nice to talk with my dad. I got cards from my kids, wife and in-laws, my other card is in the mail. After having a good breakfast, which now I can understand my Mac gained weight over last summer. There was plenty of food and it was very good!!

My wife's best friend Dina and Rich showed up with their son Daniel and Hannah. The last time we saw them, Hanna wasn't born and Daniel was shorter than we were. Just to give you perspective, Rich is about 7 ft tall and Daniel is around 6ft tall and is a teenager. I just wish I had those genes, not really but it would be nice. We have some pictures of both families together. It was great catching up and it was sad when they had to leave, they had to get back to Fort Wayne, In, which was about a 3 hour drive from here.

The rest of the day was my son and I playing Sims 3. Ashley found some neighbors that had animals at their farm and walked over to introduce herself and asked to pet the animals, (If you knew Ashley, this is totally in character). They actually let her and Vicki went over too and explored.

Rest of Day 3

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:21:00 +0000

Well, by noon, we had let off some good friends that the family had made. They were on their way to the Mayo Clinic, I do with them good luck and hope that they will have a short stay. They good thing is that they girls have a way to keep in touch with each other. Once we hit, MN the view got better. I was hoping to see Fargo, ND becuase of a former co-worker, but we went through there at 2am in the morning, so I missed it. Minnesota was nice and there was some Flooding in WI, which I thought was a little too close to the train, There were fields and playground totally flooded. I was able to get off in Milwalkee, WI, but was not able to see anything becuase as soon as I got off, they were waving people to get back on. We did get a picture, but that was it.

We finally got to Chicago, around 4:30, we were about 1/2 hr late and we needed to get our luggage and take it on the next train. I kinda of felt like we were at the airport, waiting on luggage and trying to determine where our next connection is at. Chicago's station was very different from other stations that we went to. Chicago's station is level with the ground but most of the way enclosed. The effect make the area very loud. All of the other stations that we went to were very outside the train was not enclosed or covered very much. Chicago was interesting becuase it was not just Amtrak, but there Metro station also, it was a bit confusing. While waiting for our luggage, my daughter went to try and get a picture of Johnny Dep, He was supposed to be comming through the terminal, but we did not see him. The wait for the next train was really uncomfortable, The room that we at was 1/4 of the size of the Seattle terminal and there were doors for C,D,E and F terminals and it was jammed packed with people sitting and standing everywhere. Think of waiting for a SouthWest flight before they started doing the A,B and C lines then take the current way and have the lines move together at the same time.

The next train was an experience, we actually got to see how long the train actually was. The other stations, the train was next to the platform at a 90 degree angle, well in Chicago, it was at a 180 degree angle, so we actually walk to the train by going from back to front. Because we were the third stop, we had to walk to the front of the train. It was such a long walk that we lost a couple of people in the process and we keep going by conductors and they just said "keep going to the front". We must have been one of the last one's on, eventho we were not at the end of the line for getting through the ticket area, after just sitting down, the train was moving.

We arrived in Lafayette, IN, around 10:30-11:00 PM, the station was chaos. There were people everywhere. It was an annual feastival going on, "Taste of Tippicanoo?". There was a live stage and people all over the place. We had to take our luggage and carry it up stairs and over the train tracks and back down. It was great to see my in-laws and sleep in a comfortable bed, but first it was great to have a shower.

Start of Day 3

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:28:00 +0000

Day 2 was actioned packed but I will take some time to write down other stuff. The short
synopsis is that my kids had a great time on the train and really had a
great time interacting with fellow travlers. When I went to sleep, for Day 2 we were just past Minot,ND and woke up at St. Cloud, MN.

Sent from my iPhone
David Waddleton

Havre,MT

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:32:00 +0000

In the background is a guide from Trails to Rails. She is talking about local stuff as the train travels. This was one of the best parts of the trip, learning the history of areas while traveling. Since I like history stuff, this was right up my alley. My kids and Vicki really enjoyed this. This was only in the lounge car, That is where most of the pictures were taken. The lounge car had really huge windows and you had nearly a 360 degree view of everything.

Day 2 morning

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:15:00 +0000

We are in Whitefish,MT. We have seen some elk and scenic views. Here
is some pics from my seat.

Sent from my iPhone
David Waddleton

Trip - Day 1 Notes

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 07:38:00 +0000

Well everyone is asleep even in the whole car, well mostly. It has
been a busy day for the Waddleton's. It started with sending the kids
to school and making sure that Sam is dressed right for his
graduation. The my wife and I running errands like me sending Father's
day cards and getting an external flash for our camera,which turned
out to be a great buy!! My wife and I had sushi before graduation.
Sam graduated and the graduation was actually done my 2:30 which is a
miracle because it went till 3:10 the previous year, I know because I
was there. School actually gets out at 3:00.
The car service picked us up at 2:45. He was backing up the driveway
@ 2:45 exactly!! This time we were packed and all ready!!! We
actually got to the train station early and got to watch some trains.
We started our journey at 4:40pm to Indiana.

The train has been great so far. @ dinner I has Bison meatloaf which
was good. The best part was the mashed potatoes! Sam and I sat at a
different table because the tables are small and sat with an older
lady who has ridden on trains from other countries and really liked
it. Well it is time to get some sleep.
just a FYI the train just happens to be stopped somewhere.

Sent from my iPhone
David Waddleton

Day before Vacation

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 22:59:00 +0000

Well, things are getting busier, we leave for vacation tomorrow. I still have got to pack my bags and supervise my kids to make sure that they don't forget anything important. Just so much fun. I it finally a relief to finally get unburried from work just in time to leave.

Preparing for a trip

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 05:50:00 +0000

Well our family is going to go on a big trip. We are going to go on Amtrak to Indiana. The time is getting short and everything as work is also getting busy. It would figure that everthing would be crazy before leaving. I will try to update as we travel.

Tip: GPG encryption on Windows - “Extra Carriage Return”

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:19:00 +0000

Using the gpg.exe which can be downloaded from http://www.gpg.org. Well there is an issue with this executable on the Windows platform. It adds an extra “CR” (Carriage Return) to each new line.

The Process:

Generate a File for encryption
Encrypt File
Another user Decrypts file, then the file is broken.

So if you are using .NET. you need to control which end line characters get created. For example.

StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter();
sw.WriteLine(“”);

Results in a “CRLF” (Carriage Return & Line Feed), which results in an extra “CR” when the file gets decrypted on each line. so it will look like “CRCRLF”.

The Fix:

StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter();
sw.NewLine = “\n”;
sw.WriteLine(“”);

This results in each line just having a “LF” when generated, so when the GPG decryption is done, each line results in having the correct “CRLF” at each line.

Tip: Enterprise Library configuration setup in NUnit 2.5

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Thu, 28 May 2009 21:27:00 +0000

While unit testing, I ran across the following error:

System.Configuration.ConfigurationErrorsException : The "cachingConfiguration" section is not available in the supplied configuration source.

I know that the Cache Configuration was defined correctly.Now, I began to wonder what was going on. I was previously running my test using TestDriven.net, but then I switched to using the NUnit 2.5 user interface. After some digging, when I selected my project in NUnit, it did not correctly setup my test information.

Steps for correctly making sure that your project test information get loaded.

Load Project (the project to test) – This creates a .nunit test project which can be saved as a reference.
Click Project –> Edit
Check the following settings in General tab.

Notice the following fields: Application Base & Config File Name
Make sure that they are similar to the below diagram.

Current List of Tools that I am using.

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:27:00 +0000

Below is a current set of tools that I use on a daily basis.

VS2005/VS2008
NUnit 2.5
TortoiseSVN
AnkhSVN
LINQPad
TestDriven.NET
ReSharper
Enterprise Library 4.1

Updates

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:57:00 +0000

Well things have been very busy. I have been busy coding, coding, coding. Some of the things that I am working in is a bunch of middle tier work in VB.NET and C#. Mixing between 2.0 and 3.5 framework applications. The fun part is that people at work are starting to get on the bandwagon for the 3.5 framework. I am going to work on publishing more stuff on these technologies and stuff that I am working on.

Updates: Work and Play

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:30:00 +0000

Well, many things have changed since my last blog post. I have left Microsoft and I am working for a local company called HipCricket. I am actually getting to do the stuff that I originally wanted to do and I have somewhere I am appreciated. Well my son played flag football this year, instead of soccer and had a great season. My daughters had great soccer seasons. One of my daughters team won the end of year tournament and ended the season with only one loss, which was in the end of year tournament. My other daughter played on the Eastlake Freshman/Sophmore soccer team, which only had two losses all year.

We of course at this time of the year is having rain, and again we are wondering if we are going to have another wind damage. Well catch you later.

PS. My daughters team did make it into the P3 division, which means that they will play soccer in the spring instead of the fall.

Soccer: LPT's Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (Geek Speak) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 05:05:00 +0000

Wow what a day. My daughter's soccer team is in the process of qualifying for playing in a higher division. The process is that the prospective teams play a double elimination tournament to decide who will be divided into two different levels. The number of open slots are fewer than the number of teams attending the tournament. This just makes the level of competition that much tougher. Well, her team played two games today and they won them 4-0 and 3-0. Which is very good for this tournament.

The girls worked very hard and it was tough playing in colder than normal weather plus in the rain. I will post some highlight of the games for the team to see.

We hope that we can pull off another win tomorrow and we will be done with the tournament, and play as a P3 team. Good luck girls.