Harry's Ruminations

David's nascent blog * * *

After a morning of sleeping-in, procuring some coffee at Kroger, and gassing-up the Intrigue, we headed to Beattyville, leaving at 2 and arriving around 5 (!) The news: - Dad bought a truck. It's the same truck as his last truck, but it has the advantage of 97k fewer miles and a higher differential ratio (3.43 v 3.73) - Used the air tools to rotate the tires on the intrigue. - Dad tried to use the same technique to teach Joey to catch a baseball that he used with me. With similar results--Joey ran into the house. Was alot of fun, though, being an objective observer. We're spending the night, and Bella thought she felt the baby kick for the first time! :D * * * Work was pretty fun the remainder of Friday--sat at home trying to figure out an XSLT stylesheet on an XML document, basically to automatically generate the settings documentation for our new system.

Nothing like having the Hershey Squirts all morning combined with too little sleep to make one perky on a Friday. * * * Thought: I must stop caring what people at work think of me. I've got folks like David, Jeff, and Patrick, who are just awesome, supportive, and real. And, they're all alot older than me. Then, I have people my own age who are just not nice. Ugh. * * *

(On exiting the tennis court this morning) Me: Man, you were hittin' that ball pretty well? Your dad been workin' with you? Joey: No. I'm just good! hehe

Annoyances.org - Top 10 things likely to be overheard from a Klingon Programmer OH YEAH!!!!

Oh Lord, strengthen me in thy sight. Pull my soul from the despair I feel, Make me ready to carry your banner, Plant my feet on the rock of your Word. Oh Lord, though the hour seems dark, show me the light of Your love. Raise my eyes to Heaven, show me the glory of Your throne. Kill the lies that hide behind my tongue, undo the hurt I wish to inflict on others. Remind me of my purpose, and that You believe in me. I am Yours, Lord. Am wholly thy servant. The things of this world I desired pass away, but You remain, my God.

Spent Friday night and Saturday up in Columbus, Ohio at a Promise Keepers event, held at the 20,000-seat Nationwide arena . It was a great experience, as 7 of us from Northside Christian Church (Pastor Scott, Ryan, Me, Rick, Chuck, Tim, and Jason) headed out at 2:30pm in the rental 15-passenger van. On the whole, it was great to just be myself, not worried about talking sports, or computers, or whatever else. I could be comfortable and enjoy just laughing and being myself.

Intel to ax 1,000 managers | CNET News.com Ah, if only....

I sit basking in the glow of my citronella candle as the last pink of day turns to gray. Relaxed. Sated. Today was a study in contrasts--my relaxation now versus me taking a DeWalt cordless drill to the remains of my powerbook as I salvaged the Hard Drive. Bella wanted the pictures off it. I got through 16 little screws, but the final two holding the hard drive to the case itself stripped out. I was a little frustrated and thought "Well, if this were a car, I'd just grab a metal bit and drill-out the screws." Turns out, this is a perfectly serviceable option for laptops, too. * * * Later, we washed both cars and gave the Bimmer a nice-smelling coat of carnuba. Noticed more nicks-and-scratches than when I bought it a few months ago. Must....get...touchup...paint!! Kinda wish today wouldn't end, as up-and-down as it's been.

Um...mommy... I wanna wear spidey and my football pijamas, but I can't 'cuz they don't match Yike.

Ruby is an awesome, powerful little language. I needed a 'time' command for windows to measure the execution time (in seconds) of a command. Should be trivial, but I'm not Windows API savvy. Here's the full script in Ruby: t1 = Time.new IO.popen(ARGV.join(' ')) { |pipe| puts pipe.gets } t2 = Time.new puts "Execution time: #{t2 - t1} seconds" Simple, direct, and obvious. LOVE IT!

The Lord granted us a respite last night just long enough for a clear sky for the awesome Scott County fireworks show, but this morning has been a steady, slow rain, up to 1" on my rain gauge. We need it desperately. * * * In other news, the new baby Combs is actually at 10 weeks instead of 9, putting his or her delivery date at February 5th. New ultrasound scans coming soon.

In church yesterday, out of the blue, my inclination was "You need to go visit your parents." Sans Joey this weekend, I told Whitney we needed to go and she thought it was a great idea. Had a wonderful time with Mom, Dad, Norie, and Mike getting in about 248 bales of hay off some land just around-the-corner from their farm. Hot, dry day in the 90's, but it turned out for the best: I helped with the hay, got some exercise, and got some "quality time" with Dad. Whitney was bored to tears, but at least she got to stay cool. We all miss Joey and look forward to having him for the 4th of July.

The powers that be bought the whole regular employee cadre tix to the matinee of Superman Returns . I hated it, but then I didn't care for the first 4. The movie comes (in the dc comics reality) after the events in Superman II, but prior to those of Superman III. Superman left 5 years ago to investigate the last-known position of Krypton, his homeworld, only to find the world has all but forgotten him and that his former love has a new live-in man and a 5-year old kid. This expensive, Bryan Singer -directed film was all the superlatives--stunning visuals, sweeping story, well-developed characters. But I didn't like it...Kate Bosworth was the same icky, unattractive Lois Lane as Margot Kidder, and Brandon Routh was the same smirking Superman as Chris Reeve. However, Routh is somehow less emotionally engaging. There are many bright moments: The film lapses into comedy (maybe even camp) once we've hit the rising action. One precious scene has Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor c...