The move is complete.

Taylor was living in Ruston whilst he finished his thesis, which has taken about 3.34 years. This meant that the inevitable moving day would come for the both of us. I left most of the furniture, the old TV, and most of my other stuff around the ruston house (my vacation home) while I was in Shreveport earning a reputation as an up and coming superstar programmer:). Last weekend, however, I was reduced to a mere mover. Taylor, "The Pops" and I rented a UHaul, loaded it up and moved everything into a storage unit in Shreveport.

Well, that took care of all the big stuff, but there was still a bunch of other crap straggled about the apartment. So, Taylor loaded some in the truck, I loaded some in my care yesterday to take care of that problem. Taylor left town last night for good, and I'm still here at Katie's apt.

Earlier today I went over and cleaned up all the trash, cleaned out the fridge, cleaned the bathroom and the stove and basically everything else. Hopefully Mr. Holstead won't try to keep his wrinkly old fingers wrapped around our deposit. That would make me mad. He wouldn't like me mad!

Anyways, I'm glad to be done with that apartment.

Heat - Nets, Game 3

So far, it's been a very good game. I didn't get to watch the whole thing, but I've been watching the last half and it's been good. I kinda want the Heat to win so Kobe can cry himself to sleep. After watching the Nets play though, I think I've switched my allegiance.

That's the way basketball is for me. I don't keep up with anything that goes on during the season, but I love to watch the playoff games. I hear people say the same thing about baseball, but to me even the playoffs in baseball are boring.

Basketball is such a close sport though, and much more fast paced than basketball. It makes for great drama, come playoff time.

Anyways, there's 2:26 left in OT and the Nets are up by two. I wish Kidd would've hit the three to win it in regulation, but this is good too.

It's getting close to the end and the Nets should be winning this handily.

Crap. The nets lost.

--Updated-- Wait! They could win!

WOW!!! Vince Carter AT the buzzer! Vince got two to tie it up and take it to another overtime. Scored the tying two points with a mere 2.3 seconds left on the clock. Wow! If I can find a video of the ball bouncing on the rim, you'll see that it takes an extra second and a half to actually find it's way in. Great suspense... into double OT now.

Well, the Nets lost. They gave it away.

Java Text-Based Progress Bar

At work today, I looked around for quite a while for a way to implement a text based progress bar in java. You see, a few of the programs I've been writing lately are conversion programs to convert data from an old standard to a new standard with new code definitions and a completely different structure. In doing so, I've been working with console based java programs to manipulate postgres databases, and I've not had much experience with console based java interfaces. I'm really surprised that there wasn't a page in the first few google results explaining how to do this, but then again Java is mainly used in writing GUI applications.

First, let me describe the text-based progress bar.

I created a PrintWriter, instantiated with System.out as the only parameter to it's constructor. Using the write method, I wrote a series of \b characters to the console (the backspace character) using the write() method. I used the flush() method to write the backspaces to the screen and clear the printwriter's text, then wrote the percentage to the screen, again using the write() method.

These were placed in a bit of the code that was updated each time ResultSet's next() method was called. So, this means that each time the ResultSet iterator moves to the next result, the backspaces would move the console cursor back to the beginning of the line and write over the previous percentage. It worked well, so I added a little spinning bar at the same time using the characters "--","\ ","| ","/ ".

All this was in an effort to be able to tell where the program was slowing down, and to give a better idea of how long the process was actually taking.

So, with the new progress bar I could see exactly how far I was into the processing without having to guess based on the debugging code I'd put in.

Here's how the problem started...

I made a copy of one of the tables today and just named it _copy while I tested out the conversion process. During the testing, I became really annoyed with the amount of time it was taking to convert some of the data. I had about 9000 records to examine and convert individually. The entire process was going to take about 30 minutes had I let the program run the whole time.

I would tweak the program, compile and test again and again. I tried to optimize every little thing I could. I switched from using String s to formulate my queries to PreparedStatements. I changed from Strings to StringBuffers when I used concatenation. I even took out every little debugging System.out, and still... nothing. No improvement.

I asked Virgil, the other employee I share the office with, to check the server to see what kind of percentage of the server I was using. Surely someone else is using all the server's resources, slowing my program down. I was using 100% of the first processor though. How could I be doing this? This was even a smaller program than the last one, which went through every single record in multiple databases (maybe 18,000)...

After about 10 minutes of red-faced, mumbling, last ditch efforts, I realized that when I copied the table I had not copied any of the indices from the original table. So all my data was searching through thousands of records without an index on any column. Problem solved... I added an index to the table using a column in the where clause of my UPDATE statement, and voila! The program ran in less than two minutes total.

So, the moral of this story is... If you're using databases to store and retrieve large amounts of data, don't underestimate the importance of indexes. It's a rookie mistake I suppose, but maybe it'll help someone who's in a similar situation.

Carrabba's Italian Grill - Shreveport, Louisiana

Last night, the folks and I went over to Carrabba's Italian Grill on E. 70th street. Originally, I wanted to go to the Macaroni Grill that just opened since they have the most fantastic pork chops known to man. However, the parents didn't really wanna go there for some reason, and Carabba's just opened recently.

I have to recommend this place. I'm sure part of the quality of the meal/service we had last night was due to the recent opening, which meant a waiter for each table, and enough managers and cooks to staff a cruise ship. Apart from the service though, the food was OUTstanding. I had the Chicken Gratella, and it was amazing. I've never had chicken that had such good flavor without skin or a fried batter.

If you're in the Shreveport area you should stop by.

Google Maps Sightseeing

I'm not sure how many people have already seen this, but I think it's a great idea.

After google debuted their new Google Maps functionality, they added the ability to view satellite photos of any location that's in their database. There are a good bit of locations, most with close up pictures. However, a few more rural areas (Ruston included) are not available for the close up pics. I did find my house here, and my old house in Texas, and the house I first lived in here in Shreveport.

Try it out @ maps.google.com. Type in the address or place that you'd like to see and then click "satellite". You can scroll around these images just like google maps. This makes for an interesting virtual drive around town:). Anyways, on to the neat idea.

The site is called Google Sightseeing: Why bother seeing the world for real?. The idea is that they use google maps' satellite imagery to show interesting places. They have stadiums, NASA launch areas, and other interesting areas. Give it a gander.

Six ways to jumpstart your day

Some guy named Bert has posted 6 ways to jump start your day. Here they are in all their glory.

• Use a light producing alarm clock – I purchased an alarm clock that begins to flash a pulsating light in the room 4 minutes prior to the set time. I find that I’m usually waking up before the audible alarm rings.


• Put the alarm clock on the other side of the room – Make it so that you have to get up to turn it off.


• Start the day with protein – Bob Arnott, in his book, The Biology of Success, advocates states that the intake of protein helps to jump start the body in the morning. He stated that a quick protein drink, a short exercise period, then a breakfast started his day. A quick trip to my local GNC store resulted in my purchase of a vanilla flavored protein drink. I couldn’t believe it. It’s like someone turns a switch on inside my head. Just a minute or two after I drink it, the sleepiness is gone and I’m thinking clearly.


• Turn up the lights – A Harvard study concluded that there is a link between light exposure and the part of the brain that is thought to control attention focus and energy production. So, turn on the lights…all of them: Bedroom light, bathroom light, hall light, kitchen light, and living room light.


• Get at least five minutes of physical activity – My choice is jumping rope. Gets the blood flowing. Jump starts (pun intended) the metabolism.


• Eat a healthy low-fat, high-fiber breakfast – Fiber One is a great choice as it has the highest fiber content of any other cereal.

I think they all sound like decent ideas, but I'm not sure I'll try any of them. I'm giving consideration to using the protien shake idea, though I may switch to a protien drink that has a more substantial amount of vitamins and fiber. That way I won't have to waste time eating a bowl of fiber one right after drinking a protien shake.

Who has that kinda time... when you wake up at 6:29 and leave just enough time to shower, dress and get to work at 7:30 on the dot?

Tonight's Dinner

I had the most amazing pork chops from the Macaroni Grill tonight. They were grilled with heroin, I believe. How else could they have made me feel so euphoric?

Katie's little sister, Emma, had a birthday today so she decided to wander into town and take her to a surprise dinner. I got to tag along. Somewhere along the line, we decided to abandon Copeland's and go to the newly opened Macaroni Grill here in Shreveport.

We had a 20 minute wait, only to be seated at a table that was empty the whole time, but the coming pork chops would make me forget all about that.

I'm not really sure of what happened after that. I took one bite of the pork chop and the next thing I knew, I was through with the pork chop. My eyes were glazed over and my cheeks hurt, apparently from smiling too much. They were that good.

I think I'm gonna go try and polish off the second one now as a matter of fact... or sleep. Both sound equally as good after the long day I had.

Horrible Friday, another great weekend with Katie

The weekend started off very poorly. For the first time in a year or more I came down with something. Something awful. A stomach virus from the bowels of hell.

I went into work Friday after getting about 6.5 hours of the worst sleep I've ever gotten. I managed to get a headache WHILE I was sleeping somehow, and at about 3:30 my body decided to wake me up and let me know it was there.

After mustering up the energy to get a shower and get to work, I realized that something wasn't right with my stomach. The headache that I had from earlier that morning hadn't gone away, and had intensified behind my right eye. My stomach felt like it was being rolled over and over like a cement mixer on an 18 wheeler.

I made it to the restroom a few times where I felt like I'd throw up, and eventually did so at work. I asked to go home, and the boss said it was ok, thankfully. On the way home, the nutri-grain bar I had decided to visit a second time. That was the last of the real stomach problems though. I made it home and slept for about 5 hours on and off.

This all postponed my weekend with Katie, but it went on as planned from Saturday afternoon on. I went to visit, and we did the usual hanging out at her house, ate dinner with Taylor at Fatty's and today had dinner at Chili's (our tradition).

I ended up having a great weekend despite the persistent stomach problems migrating from the stomach to the digestive system.

Before I get to bed, here are two pics I took this weekend while I was there. The first is of a caterpillar I caught racing along the top of Katie's car; the second, a panoramic picture of the inside of the student center.

Mr. Caterpillar, I presume?

Small version of the Student Center Panoramic Pic

This past weekend

I forgot to post about this past weekend when I got back into town Sunday night, so here I am.

This weekend I took another trip to Ruston to see the Katie. I had Fatty's for dinner Friday of course, though Katie chose not to eat there because she's counting calories. After dinner we stopped by Office Depot and bought a desk for Katie's new computer, which was to be my project for the weekend. We hung out the rest of the night and really just relaxed since we'd both had pretty stressful weeks.

Saturday the big event for the day was the Scottish Highland festival in Minden. Katie had another event that she needed to go to for some kinda class on cultural somethin' or other, so I volunteered to go again. Burly men in dresses, you say? I'm there with my camera.

I managed to take a few pictures, and a video or two of the bagpipe players. On a side-note, I recently realized that there are two songs that I get chills every time I hear: the national anthem (especially while at live sporting events), and amazing grace (especially with live bagpipes). I can't really explain it, but it's a good feeling I suppose... not creepy chills.

Anywho, I took a few pictures which you can find in the gallery. My personal favorite is of a "hammer thrower", hurling a hammer... at least I think that's what they called it. I caught him mid hurl and it was a pretty good action shot, I think, thought the color is kind of bland. This thing he's throwing weighs 56 pounds or so, and he threw this thing 20 feet or so. Another shorter, stocky guy said he could bench 300 pounds, but that when he swings the hammer around it swings him around like a rag-doll. Interesting stuff.

The Hurler

Nothing really happened after the Festival. I spent the rest of the weekend downloading files and setting up Katie's new laptop again with her new hard drive (a new 5400 RPM laptop drive). The new drive meant another installation of Windows, another download session for updates, and all the necessary programs. It also meant a nice little speed increase since her old hard drive was 4200 RPM. Anywho, that's about all we did before I left town.

Chris Cornell and the like...

I was driving home from visiting Sami at the mall today when a song by audioslave came on the radio. I thought, "Hmmm... I like this song... and I like all audioslave songs. Come to think of it, I like all Chris Cornell related ventures." So, after going through a mental list of bands/projects he's been involved with I realized that he's made great music consistently. If you've not heard much of him, he's the lead singer of audioslave, was the lead singer of the band Soundgarden, and was also involved in a project called Temple of the Dog where he was one of the singers, the other being Eddie Vedder (pre-Pearl Jam as I understand it).

With this thought, I tried to come up with a list of other people/groups who consistently produce great things. Here's what I have so far...

• Quentin Tarantino (all the movies... all of em)
• Chris Cornell
• Tom Hanks (was 'The Terminal' necessary, tom?)
• Google (satellite images, groups, gmail, adsense... all great)
• Apple (all the gadgets look great and are great in concept)
• Pixar! (can they do wrong...? Not in my book)
• Steve Jobs (I had to include him after seeing that he's the common point between pixar and apple.)

Those are the stellar performers as I see them these days. If anyone has some of their own personal favorites, I'd like to hear them.

Today's lingering question

If taste is 80% smell, does that mean I shouldn't chew gum while in the bathroom?

"Hmmm... this gum tastes like crap".

My new policy

The little lady and I have been discussing engagement for some time now, and the time has come for me to divulge my latest ideas that I've shared with her. Note the careful use of language in the previous sentence.

I used the phrase "shared with her"... which is far from the verbage "view we share". I brought my thoughts up, and she... was present.

Here are a few of the gems from this conversation:

Proposition 1: If I'm gonna be dropping a few G's on a ring, I think that you should drop a few G's on a computer. You know, to symbolize the commitment and all.

Proposition 2: If we're gonna have a wedding shower and all that stuff. I'd like to register at alienware.com and newegg.com.

Proposition 3: I have a strict anti-coaster, anti-doylie, anti-kitchenware policy. To prepare shoppers for their outing, we'll have to give them a motto to get them in the right mindframe: If it doesn't compute, it ain't worth a toot.

Proposition 3 - subclause A: The first person to give me something that has been crocheted will be slapped. No exceptions. I don't care if it's your great grandmother. I'll drive to Montana, knock on the door, slap the wig off her as soon as the door opens, get in my car and drive home.

We'll have to see how each of these plays out in the years to come, but it's worth bringing up early.

Edited to add: After rereading this post, it does look like it's implied that we got engaged. We didn't though, we just had a conversation about the future, where I brought up a few things I think are important:). Didn't mean to be unclear.

The Jordan-Zone

I went over to best buy today to return a birthday gift, and brought along this coupon. It's a 15% off coupon for all open box TV's. There's also a coupon for 20% off all other home theater open box items. This is an additional percentage off the already discounted open box prices. I ended up getting about 75 dollars off. You have to go in-store to find the open box items.

I picked up a new TV with the discount. It's a 27" JVC flat screen tube TV. Here it is, pictured in my own personal heaven.

The new TV fits in well. This zone is a haven for Jordans everywhere. A laptop on the left, a desktop on the right, and a large TV hooked up to a replayTV with commercial skipping. I hear a chorus of hallelujah each time I sit in my computer chair.

What's that? I can download mp3's and watch the daily show and conan o'brien from the previous day without commercials? Surely you're mistaken, because this is not heaven. Well, it's as close as I'm getting any time soon.

Pirated DVD's

I came across this pic on a google image scan. Funny stuff.

This MT-Keystrokes business is great

I've had MT-Keystrokes installed for close to a month now, and I've not had a single piece of comment spam. This is down 100%... from when I was getting about 20 a day.

Give it a try people, it's well worth it if you're being bombarded with spam.

News Flash!

It's 10:35. I'm in Shreveport, craving a meatpie from Fatty's in Ruston. There's a grumbling sort of rumbling sound coming from my stomach. It sounds as if I swallowed a tiger cub and drank a glass of water for it to gargle with.

10:36:05 - I could make the drive and camp out until they open tomorrow.

10:36:25 - No, I've got work! BLAST!

10:36:30 - But who needs work!? I have a disability! ADHD. The government gives money to people with disabilities, right!?

10:39:45 - I guess I'll just go to sleep without the meatpie filled belly, but with a shiny new, incredibly useless post. SWEET!

Two Panoramic Pics from this weekend

I decided to try my hand at taking some panoramic pics on campus this weekend. The results were pretty good, I think.

Here are two shots. The first of keeny hall midday, and the second of Hale Hall on Louisiana Tech's campus.

Ok, so Hale Hall looks a little crooked, but what can I say...? It's my first try. So, all in all I think I did pretty good. I just need to get better at not disturbing the camera angle before taking a shot.

First weekend of April

It's gone by fast. I'm sitting here on Sunday morning, feeling like I've only been in Ruston for a few hours, but on the other hand, Katie and I did manage to fit a lot of activities in.

Friday night, we really just hung out at her apartment and looked for a few things at office depot and walmart in order to get Katie's computer hooked up to her cable modem. We ended up getting some new speakers, which sound absolutely great. I believe we bought a pair of logitech Z3 speakers... and they really fill out Katie's little apartment with rich sound. Apart from a few cables, and blank cd's, that's all we came away with from our trip. We went over to Fatty's for dinner and called it a night shortly after 10. Pathetic, I know.

While I'm on the subject of Fatty's, let me tell you about their meat pies. Fantabulous. Granted, I was starving, but they really were great. We both had a meat pie basket, which comes with two meat pies and a large amount of thin, curled fries.

If you live in Ruston, chances are you haven't been to Fatty's. I know it was here for at least a year before I graduated and I never thought twice about going there. After Friday night though, I think we may have to go there much more often.

Saturday we went to campus early to take some pictures for a couple of panoramic shots, and left from there to go see a powwow in Minden. Katie was required to go for one of her psychology classes, and she managed to drag me along with the promise of cookies and cartoons. It turned out that this powwow was extremely small, and that we were either too early or too late to see the tomahawk throwing contest and a few other competitions. Here are a few pics from the powwow.

The rest of the day went pretty quickly. We went to the Outlet mall in Arcadia on the way back... which was badly air conditioned, but had some pretty decent prices. They just didn't have enough nautica stuff for me to choose from.

When we got back we waited around for a while, ate some Wendy's and watched Mary Poppins until Katie got a call from Lacy saying that they were going to Rabb's. I'd never met Lacy and Katie wanted to go up there and hang out, so we went up there and stayed until about 2... so that's all that's happened so far. I'm bout to go get some breakfast from sonic, I believe, then relax with Katie and a good movie later.