don't feed the penguins

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-09-27T00:01:23-07:00

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weird dreams

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-08-02T06:47:20-07:00

so i had a dream last night. it was a long one. i was with dennis and a *bunch* of other people. we rode somewhere in this truck i think. it was a place with a bunch of trucks. and i kept playing around and causing these problems. like one thing was, in my dream, for a period of time, the trucks were all like flat. not like flat top to bottom, but like they were sliced, in like 6 foot wide images of themselves when they were parked. and when we were there, i did something that caught some of the trucks on fire. they were white trucks, like delivery trucks that you see around town. so they would catch fire a little bit is all, then they would burn for a while, and eventually, they would explode. when they exploded, they would catch the ones around them on fire. i didn't have any water to put them out. i think i went and got some at one point but i only had enough to put out one. then eventually one of them was on fire in kind of a critical area, where it would catch like 5 or 6 more trucks on fire when it blew up. but i forgot about it. i finally got some water and remembered but when i got there craig (this guy from work) i think was there and put out the fire. it's getting fuzzy in my head now so i'm not sure. so anyway, we have a bunch more stuff that i don't remember happen, but then we take a bus trip back. on the way back, something happens because of something i did, but it has to do with the truck, or my stuff or something, so i try and like run a cable around the truck. something that i guess was needed to hold it together or something.but i pulled it too tight and it actually broke away part of the back of the truck. but like the back of the truck was opened. so i go up to tie it off where it is instead of trying to tighten it further and messing up the truck worse. another guy, someone who is a friend of mine, but i don't think like a really good friend, comes up there with me, he's standing there... doing something. i cant' remember. like filming it, or just standing there with a drink in his hand, or something. so we hit a bump or something, and then he falls out. and it turns out, we are on this road that is like narrow, with cliffs and forest and like rivers at the bottom. the whole 9 yards of bad stuff that it could be i guess. i watch the guy roll down the hill and i know that he's dead. then like another guy runs back and is saying something about it. he's like blaming me for it and saying something and we hit another bump. this guy gets tossed like against the bars or something going over the back of the truck. it basically tears his jaw almost completely off of his face and he hits the pavement. this time the truck stops. only now it's like there are tons of trucks that are stopped too. and the guy that hit the ground is already standing up and somehow is talking to the people about the other guy that fell. people start climbing down the ravine looking for him, or his body. for some reason, it seems like we are almost to where we need to go. this place is also really near my house. so i'm thinking about walking home. even though, i know i should go and help look. the guy could still be alive and there were already women going down to look for him, i certainly shouldn't be leaving when there are women in the woods looking for a body or a hurt guy. part of the reason i wanted to leave though is because i felt like it was my fault. there was a good friend of mine there too and he was totally calling me out on it. telling me i play too much and i messed up everything or something like that. more than that. and i shot back that he had caused some serious problems for me sometimes, but the justifications were more sophisticated than that. i can't remember, but all of the argumental context was overly complex. the blaming, the countering, the reasoning and and excuses were all.... just more than they needed to be. and, after all, it *was* my fault. i knew it was my fault and i felt stupid for playing my part in making it happen.

i think this might be a dream about how i have messed up my own life. just by 'playing' too much, even though sometimes it's just me talking too much or being argumentative just for the sake of debate. losing sight of what 'should' be priorities in the face of things that shouldn't be priorities. trying to 'control' the situation or problems more often than trying to just help things work naturally. 'bringing peace' vs being a 'peacemaker'. maybe more like peace through war or force vs diplomacy. it's all about completely out of my mind now.

one thing i do remember, is that it seems familiar the guy getting hurt with his jaw like that. i think several other dreams i've had where people got hurt or killed resulted in basically their jaw getting severed almost off. hanging by one side of the jaw bone. pretty gruesome, yes, but hey, i've watched plenty of horror movies so i'm sure that helps with the creativity. i wonder if that means something, or it just means my brain thinks that sucks a lot and carbon copies the image for a really hurt person so it doesn't have to use another one. i think i had my guitar and my regular bag with my laptop and stuff with me too.weird.

kissing, sex, cheating

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-07-30T14:20:53-07:00

so i was pondering something recently. the impact of someone you are in a relationship with being intimate with another person on you. what bothers a person more? i've been on both sides of the fence on many of these issues. there have been times that i have been upset and then i feel hypocritical because i, myself, have made many mistakes in the past. i never wanted to hurt anyone. i had an x wife who started up an affair with someone that seemed completely random. would it have been more damaging to find out by catching her actually having sex with some guy? seeing something like that sometimes makes people crazy. they just snap and do crazy things. so maybe, since that's *beyond* what some people can handle, you can argue that the worst thing is something that is *just* under your mental tolerance. after all, do the insane really appreciate their condition? do you know you are crazy when you are? isn't that the definition. i have recently been out of a very serious relationship with someone and trying to reconcile some of the things i have seen or heard about has been difficult. now, of course, this is not the same thing as someone cheating on you, but sometimes feelings are similar. i think i cared about this person more than i did my ex-wife. that is a sad thing, but i think it is that way. i don't wish anything bad towards my ex. hopefully she will find someone that makes her happy. i knew for a long time when we were together that we weren't totally 'right' for each other. we did have a lot of fun together, but obviously i didn't (draws air heart) complete her. =)

anyway, i was thinking about these things. would catching someone in the act be worse? if you have a mental break at that point, maybe you don't suffer that much. how about seeing someone with someone else out somewhere. the casual kiss that shows it is a familiar act. how about finding pictures of someone kissing someone else or just holding them in a familiar way. you know it has probably happened enough that they wanted to get a picture of it happening. i suppose pictures of sex acts would be the worst haha. standing there holding a picture or looking at a picture on the computer, there is nothing to do but absorb the awful truth of what you see. you could go slightly crazy i suppose and smash the computer or tear up the picture, but that won't erase it. it will be there still. at least if you walk in on someone, the act stops. you did something, even if inadvertant, to cease an act causing you pain. a picture you can do nothing about. it has already happened. it is historic fact. even if you didn't see it, it was already still there. so the painful truth was already there, just not obvious to you.

plus, a kiss is a potential for more damage. if you catch someone or find out someone is cheating on you. making love to another man or woman, obviously that relationship already has problems. well, perhaps not for everyone, but for me and any woman i would date that would be a problem. anyone, if you catch them, it's like... the end of something. hopefully you already know that there is something seriously wrong and this is just a visible reminder of the problems. it's kind of like the end of the road. seeing people kissing, or holding each other is like... it's like an ongoing thing. it's a sign that things are ending. i suppose that sometimes is good because, perhaps, all is not lost. after all, you could say that it is *all* just physical stuff and time spent together, good memories, and other memories, etc are irreplacable. that things can be patched and mended. i guess it depends on the people and how much they want to be together.

i remember thinking for many years of my marriage that it would probably end with something similar to the way it ended. out everyone that i knew there were no suprises that my wife had cheated on me or that it all ended the way it was. everyone told me that it was almost an expected behavior from her ultimately. obviously, this is a sign that we didn't really click well among other things. she definitely had her own problems that caused some issues, but i'm sure if i would have made certain changes etc, things could have been different. that all being said, i thought i was somewhat prepared for it. i guess i thought that i would just... go on and that it wouldn't matter. i think i must think of myself sometimes as more calculating than i really am. i'm not sure how many men could be ok with their wife cheating on them. not just that it would make them angry, but hurt. it hurts anyone i'm sure when that happens.

my recent relationship i remember thinking it would end too. i always felt like i was not really good enough i guess. or that i wasn't the right guy or something. that surely didn't make it any easier. seeing her with someone else certainly didn't feel any better armed with the supposed truth that it was fated to happen anyway. i dunno, maybe it would *if* i truly belived it was fated. maybe it's simply because i don't believe that. because i believed it would last forever despite the problems etc. it seems a childish belief, but then again being hurt seeing someone with someone else after you have split up also seems childish. juvenile... that's the word i really wanted to use. maybe it's seeing the future of all those hopes gone. like watching all the pictures of the happy memories burning in front of you. except, really fast, all at once. even the pictures that don't exist. what might have been.

ah well. i just thought it was interesting. thinking about what would hurt more. perhaps catching someone in the act would hurt less. the pain burned away as the love turns directly into hate. perhaps that would burn up the ache that always acompanies something like that. i think i rather feel sorry for the people that it doesn't bother.

random morning thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-07-08T06:54:43-07:00

so i just woke up a minute ago. i was kind of in that sleep/wake time just after you wake up. i was having a dream when i woke up about being in a building with a bunch of people i didn't know and some i did. there had just been an earthquake. and there were a bunch of pregnant women there. we were evacuating them and one of them when we were getting her out, had her water break. so i was taking her back in and trying to tell her it would be fine when i woke up. not that i'm a dr or was in my dream, but i have two kids and she was a pregnant woman. that's what happens eventually when you are a pregnant woman. your water will break.

anywho, when i woke up, i was trying to think of why in the world i would have that dream as i normally do when i wake up and i can remember something about my dream. i always intend to write something down about dreams i think, but before i can actually do it, i normally am off on my day and i forget about all that stuff (the dream and the writing about it) completely. sometimes i remember way later and i try and remember what in the world it was that i was dreaming about. but, i digress. thinking about what the dream meant or why i would dream it led me to think about what i was doing the night before. i have a bunch of 'scary' movies that i bought the other day. i had watched some the night before. i immediately discarded that really because... well the movies aren't that scary. they were better stories than they were actually scary movies. but some of them had really simple plot devices. for some reason, this led me to thinking about movies which *had* actually scared me at some point. i haven't seen it in years, but the nightmare on elm st series seemed scary back when i saw it.

now what's funny is that it appeared my brain chose as a vehicle to think about what movies i had seen, some sort of city. so i think in the beginning i was like on 1st st or something. keep in mind, i was still in that sleep/dream/not really awake place yet. so i was thinking...

1st st... hmm... that's not very scary? what was that street freddy was on? all of a sudden, i was like mentally wisked to freddy ave, looking at a sign. hmm... that's not very scary either.... maybe it was street or something. i'm wisked to the feet of several other signs, some of them numbered, some otherwise. apparently my brain was not connecting the dots on what street it was. finally, i remember, wait it's ELM st. silly, that's what the entire movie series was named for. so poof i'm on elm st. i think at this point. really.... elm st is not very scary either. i wonder why they picked it.

i'm not doing the best job of describing it and it doesn't make any more sense either way so i'm just gonna let it go at this point. time to get up and get ready anyway.

man, i need to do another comic. those things are kinda fun =P

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-03-30T14:18:35-07:00

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-03-30T06:55:30-07:00

Hitachi DB3DL

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-03-29T10:32:16-07:00

I got this a while back when my cordless drill finally gave out. I had seen it a few times but wasn't going to spend the 80 bucks just for a new cordless screwdriver when I already had my cordless drill. However, when my drill gave up the ghost, I knew the time had come! I have to say I have been extremely happy with this product so far. I haven't used it to 'drill' anything, but I'm sure it would handle light drilling with ease. I'm really happy with this product each and every time I use it. So much so, I actually thought I'd post a blog entry about it!

another comic

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-03-28T19:57:44-07:00

i created this with stripgenerator. unfortunately, they are all in flash or something and i couldn't figure out how to save it and look at it as an image quickly. probably isn't that hard, but it's not *really* worth the effort =P

another comic

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-03-28T19:56:25-07:00

web comic enabled =P

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-03-28T13:33:19-07:00

some fun tools out there that enable you creating your own web comics. here's one i created today. =)

new gear

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-03-27T19:05:30-07:00

it finally has come time to upgrade my motorcycle gear. well, upgrade isn't quite the correct word. "replace" would be more accurate. my helmet, jacket, boots, gloves were all falling apart. here are my new things.

helmet

jacket

boots

gloves

i'll post copies of my old beat up and torn ones later. i must say it's a much more comfortable ride now.

all images courtesy of kneedraggers.com.

drop object

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-02-26T14:18:26-08:00

IF (OBJECT_ID('objectname') IS NOT NULL)
 drop proc/table/etc objectname
GO

the price

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-02-20T09:07:29-08:00

have you ever wondered how much money you are *actually* worth to someone you care about? like how much money would they take to do something to hurt you. how about a thing? if your friends and "loved ones" had to choose between a new tv and you being hurt, would they say "you'll get over it, this is a tv!"

after all, a tv is forever. feelings go away, right?

life constantly suprises me.

don't pass csv to stored procs, use xml

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-02-19T11:14:16-08:00

passing csv to a stored proc is bad m'kay. it leaves you open to sql injection attacks and in general isn't the best practice anyway. i'm going to avoid entire code samples just because it's too much typing, but let's take a sample proc and assume you are passing in a varchar(1000) (@csv) comma delimited string. you could do something like this:

declare sql varchar(2000)
set sql = 'select * from table where id in (' + @csv + ')'
sp_executesql @sql

obviously this will work fine if you pass in 1,2,3,4 into your list. but what if some bad person sends you 1,2,3,4,null);select * from users; or something more fun. yep, bad. so what can we do? xml my friend. let's change our input parameter to a type of xml and name it @xml. let's say our xml must be in the format and you can have as many r records as you want. in fact, they can be any kind of record for this following query as long as they have an id attribute.

select * from table t join @xml.nodes('/root/*') x(n) on n.value('@id','int') = t.id

yep, same thing. you can do this a little differently using openxml, but that's old news and you can look that up.

How does MSSQL process my query?

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-02-19T07:03:35-08:00

There are some distinct steps that take place when you submit some tsql to a mssql server. Here's a short overview of them.

1. Parse Query - Check Syntax, Store Query
2. Standardization - Prepare query for optimization
3. Optimize
4. Execution

Let's look at #3 briefly. MSSql does Cost Based optimization which means it will utilize data it knows about the tables involved (statistics) to determine a cost for each possible execution path. It will then pick the lowest cost. MSSql has three steps to it's query optimization.

1. Query Analysis - Identify optimizable clauses (x=1, name='fred')
2. Index Selection - Choose indexes that have a lower cost than a table scan
3. Join Selection - Identify which join order will have the lowest IO cost

There is a lot more information available about this out on the web and in books, but this gives you a rough idea of what happens when you send data to sql.

great sql query blog

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-02-18T16:57:04-08:00

readable regular expressions

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-02-09T22:08:23-08:00

freakin' sweet. that's all i have to say

update statistics undocumented

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-02-09T20:14:33-08:00

these are undocumented for a reason as they will affect performance and you will break your sql production server if you use them! they are *really* helpful for simulations for query plan analysis without having large amounts of data though.

original article here

rock on with this cool code sample from above link:


use tempdb
go

create table t1(i int, j int)
go

create table t2(h int, k int)
go

set statistics profile on
go

select distinct(i) from t1
go

select * from t1, t2 where i = k order by j + k
go

update statistics t1 with rowcount = 10000, pagecount = 10000
update statistics t2 with rowcount = 100000, pagecount = 100000
go

select distinct(i) from t1 option (recompile)
go

select * from t1, t2 where i = k order by j + k option (recompile)
go

find sql proc with text

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-02-07T04:11:00-08:00


SELECT    
      ROUTINE_NAME,
      ROUTINE_DEFINITION
FROM    
      INFORMATION_SCHEMA.ROUTINES
WHERE    
      ROUTINE_DEFINITION LIKE '%whatever you are looking for%'
ORDER BY
      ROUTINE_NAME

source

zipcode sql2005 endpoint sample/example

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-02-07T00:03:54-08:00

i went to look for a super simple way to setup a test of the endpoint feature in sql 2005. i couldn't find one simple enough, so i made this one up.

here's some sql code. just run all of this. there are comments in here for what's going on.


--copy the database file from
--http://www.cfdynamics.com/zipbase/
--and save the txt file in it
--to c:\projects if you want to 
--match my setup

--create the database
create database zipcodes
go

--use it
use zipcodes
go

--create a table
create table zip_codes(
 zip varchar (255)
 , latitude varchar (50)
 , longitude varchar (50)
 , city varchar (50)
 , state varchar (50)
 , county varchar (50)
 , zip_class varchar (50)
)
go

--bulk import our data. modify the path to match yours
DECLARE @bulk_cmd varchar(1000)
SET @bulk_cmd ='bulk insert zip_codes
FROM ''c:\projects\zip_codes.txt'' 
WITH (FIELDTERMINATOR ='','',
ROWTERMINATOR = '''+CHAR(10)+''')'
EXEC(@bulk_cmd)

--remove the quotes we imported
update zip_codes set
 zip = replace(zip,'"','')
 , latitude = replace(latitude,'"','')
 , longitude = replace(longitude,'"','')
 , city = replace(city,'"','')
 , state = replace(state,'"','')
 , county = replace(county,'"','')
 , zip_class = replace(zip_class,'"','')

go

--modify the data types a little
alter table zip_codes alter column zip varchar (5)
alter table zip_codes alter column latitude float
alter table zip_codes alter column longitude float
alter table zip_codes alter column state varchar (2)
go

--create our proc to share
create proc dbo.zipcodes
 @zip varchar (5) = null
 , @latitude float = null
 , @longitude float = null
 , @city varchar (50) = null
 , @state varchar (2) = null
 , @county varchar (50) = null
 , @zip_class varchar (50) = null
as

--no locking
set transaction isolation level read uncommitted

--stupid code to fix empty values
select
 @zip
  =case when @zip = ''
  then null else @zip end 
 , @latitude
  =case when @latitude = 0
  then null else @latitude end 
 , @longitude
  =case when @longitude = 0
  then null else @longitude end 
 , @city
  =case when @city = ''
  then null else @city end 
 , @state
  =case when @state = ''
  then null else @state end 
 , @county
  =case when @county = ''
  then null else @county end 
 , @zip_class
  =case when @zip_class = ''
  then null else @zip_class end 

--get our values
select
 zip
 , latitude
 , longitude
 , city
 , state
 , county
 , zip_class
from
 zip_codes
where
 zip    like coalesce(@zip,zip)
 and latitude = coalesce(@latitude,latitude)
 and longitude = coalesce(@longitude,longitude)
 and city  like coalesce(@city,city)
 and state  like coalesce(@state,state)
 and county  like coalesce(@county,county)
 and zip_class like coalesce(@zip_class,zip_class)

go

--create an endpoint to share proc
CREATE ENDPOINT zipcodes
STATE = STARTED
AS HTTP (
    AUTHENTICATION = ( INTEGRATED ),
 SITE = '+',
    PATH = '/zipcodes',
    PORTS = ( CLEAR )
)
FOR SOAP (
  WEBMETHOD 
    'http://localhost/zipcodes'
    (NAME = 'zipcodes.dbo.zipcodes'),
    BATCHES = ENABLED,
    WSDL = DEFAULT
  ) 
go

and here is the code for a simple c# command line application to consume this service. you'll need a web reference to the localhost wsdl. you can name it something else, but i just left it as localhost. you will also need to reference system.web.services. you can make tons of modifications to this default to add functionality, but this should get you started.


using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Net;

namespace zipcodes
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
          
            string zip = string.Empty;
            string city = string.Empty;
            string state = string.Empty;
            string county = string.Empty;
            string zip_class = string.Empty;
            double latitude = 0;
            double longitude = 0;
            bool showhelp = true;
            
            foreach (string a in args)
            {
                if (a.Contains("zip=")) zip = a.Remove(0, 4);
                if (a.Contains("city=")) city = a.Remove(0, 5);
                if (a.Contains("state=")) state = a.Remove(0, 6);
                if (a.Contains("county=")) county = a.Remove(0, 7);
                if (a.Contains("zip_class=")) zip_class = a.Remove(0, 10);
                if (a.Contains("latitude=")) latitude = Double.Parse(a.Remove(0, 9));
                if (a.Contains("longitude=")) longitude = Double.Parse(a.Remove(0, 10));
                if (a.Equals("nohelp=true")) showhelp = false;
            }

            if (showhelp)
               Console.WriteLine(
                 String.Format("{0}\n{1}\n{2}\n{3}\n\n{4}\n{5}\n{4}"
                    , "royashbrook.com =) sample syntax:"
                    , "zipcodes longitude=-103.847648"
                    , "spaces and wildcards --> zipcodes city=jacksonville \"zip_class=po box %\""
                    , "wildcard support --> zipcodes county=morr% zip=%5%"
                    , "*************************************"
                    , "USE nohelp=true to omit this message!"));
            
            using (localhost.zipcodes z = new localhost.zipcodes())
            {
                z.Credentials = CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;
                foreach (DataRow dr in (
                    (DataSet)z.httplocalhostzipcodes(
                        zip, latitude, longitude, city, state, county, zip_class
                            )[1]).Tables[0].Rows)
                    Console.WriteLine(
                        String.Format("{0},{1},{2},{3},{4},{5},{6}",
                            dr[0],dr[1],dr[2],dr[3],dr[4],dr[5],dr[6]));
            }
        }
        
    }
        
}

enjoy!!!

celeste's socks

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-02-04T23:18:54-08:00

what doesn't happen?

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-01-22T18:39:45-08:00

getting hit on your motorcycle? well... that happens sometimes. how about someone running into you at a stop light? i guess that happens sometimes too. how often do you hear about people on motorcycles being run into from behind though?

oh... i see... you are one of THOSE people. you *know* people that have problems, huh?

well, how often does it happen and there isn't any damage to the bike? eh? ha! never! gotcha. well, it happened to me today. the most bizarre thing ever. i saw the lady coming and she was stopping, but not fast enough. fortunately, i pulled up some, but apparently not quite enough. she just bumped my back tire though. thanks to being paranoid about people hitting me.

just a lesson to any of you out there that don't ride much or don't pay attention to the other drivers. YOU MUST WATCH THEM! People *will* kill you. Remember, the stupid people *far* outnumber the smart people, and many of them have cars! =P

i would rant about it, but the lady that hit me seemd really concerned about my safety, and she kind of reminded me of my step mom. my step mom *hates* driving really. she only does it if she has to. so, whatever. no harm, no foul.

God was definitely looking out for me, but he apparently wants to make sure i'm paying attention because if i hadn't of pulled up some myself, i'd probably be really, really hurt right now. =P

=D

daily stuff....

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-01-22T06:04:36-08:00

53 css techniques you couldn't live without

cool railsish site. addictedtonew

microformats are cool

microformat related blog post

cssplay this site is always awesome and i'm gonna link it just because of the sheer amount of times i've had it open when i was posting something. =P

asteriskNOW!

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-01-16T11:36:42-08:00

noreply@blogger.com (royashbrook) — 2007-01-21T21:29:38-08:00

Check out this really incredible article on using .net and atlas to create a page just like the Google IG custom home page. You can see the results and at this completely usable page, here!

Check out BitTyrant . It's supposed to be 70% faster than your typical torrent clients. You can read the page for why that is.

Here is a cool article from Techcrunch. Good old Mike lists his favorite web 2.0 apps. Web apps that I use daily are google (mail, calendar, chat), flickr, digg, and youtube. I use skype as well, but i don't know that i would categorize skype as a web 2.0 company like Mike does.

Other apps that I use daily would include Outlook, VS.Net 2005, RadRails, SVN and Firefox.