Code of the Day

I haven't been able to post a lot because I've been working at work (and getting stuff done). To prove this point, here is my code that makes validating ±500 fields a lot easier. Don't get me started on why this is necessary in the first place when I should be able to use built-in checks. Suffice it to say, the guy is an idiot.

sub ah2_valid
{
my ( $c ) = @_;
my %errors;
my $data = $c->stash->{form}->get_values;
$c->log->info("***  ah2_valid  ******");
foreach my $k (keys %{$c->req->body_params})
{
next unless $k =~ /^ah2/;
int_comma_err($data->{$k},\%errors,'ah2') if $data->{$k};
#print STDERR $c->req->body_params->{$k} . "\n";
}
return _set_custom_errors( $c , %errors ) ? 0: 's2/ag' ;
}

Happy New Year, if I don't get back here before Friday.

Work at Dawn

I got to the office at 6:30 this morning. As you know I love time-lapse movies so I set up my camera. This is what I got until the battery died.


 

It's quit snowing

I'm not sure what shocked me more

In a moment of purging and recycling, I decided I would give away my wedding dress. I figured:

1. I wasn't ever going to wear it again.
2. I was never going to fit into it again.
3. It's not that stunning so Fern probably wouldn't want to wear it.
4. I didn't want to even come close to making Fern feel guilty for not wanting to wear it.

So I thought I'd look into one of those charitable organizations that collect special occasion dresses for women who need them.

Last weekend Dan was away on a golfing trip to Florida, the kids were occupied elsewhere, and there was a Say Yes to the Dress marathon on TLC. I cozied up and watched six or eight episodes back to back.

Say Yes is a reality show set in Kleinfelds in NYC where all types of brides with their mothers/sisters/fiances/fathers come in to find "the dress" with budgets between $1500 and $15,000. I'm not sure why I'm drawn to this show, but I am. Maybe it's the audaciousness of the brides or the conflict of opinions within the entourage, dunno. Somewhere in all of that, Fern appeared and watched with me. We critique the dresses: too much lace, too plain, nice beading, ugly neckline, good train, makes her butt look big, etc.

After a while I confess to her I'm planning on giving away my dress and I explain why. She says, "Can I try it on?" "Sure," I say. We release it from the almost-20 years of dry-cleaning plastic it's been hiding in.

I had my dress made for me from an ivory cotton damask. It has a classic "ballroom" silhouette (stuff you learn by watching such a show) but has full-length lace sleeves attached under the arm, a zillion buttons up the back, and has large bows adorning the bodice and the train.

So Fern tries it on and I get many, but not all, the buttons done, just enough to keep it on. I spread out the train and there she was. Beautiful.

I'm not sure what shocked me most: the fact it nearly fit her, I'm just a couple inches taller than she is, (was I really that skinny!?) or that she doesn't want me to give it away. "Mom, we can just take off the lace sleeves and the bows, and it's beautiful."

I love it when she surprises me like that, it's fun.

At the Grocery in the Produce Section

8 to 5 and Quilting

Once upon a time, back in the glory days...

I was in the band in junior high and high school. My favorite part was marching: we marched at football games, in parades, and at show competitions. Every August we'd pack up for a week at band camp to get ready for the upcoming season.

First thing every year was learning (or re-learning) and perfecting the concept of "8 to 5." Football fields are marked off in 5-yard increments and marching music is usually written in 4-4 time, four beats per measure of music. When you put the two together, you can march eight steps in two measures of music and move five yards down the field. "8 to 5." Each step reached 22.5". Exactly. You started with the arch of your foot on the yard line and ended five yards later exactly with your arch on the line. Precision, baby, the best bands had it.

The first morning of band camp was always spent on the field without any instruments just marching back and forth across the field in the hot blazing sun practicing the step in straight lines. Yard after yard we would chant "half-way" on the forth step of each 5-yard increment and "hit it" on the eighth step. By the end of camp we could "hit it," the yard line, every time, without question, blindfolded if we had to. I could probably still mark off about five yards to this day.

So why am I fondly remembering marching band all the sudden? I've been quilting my mom's quilt.

I'm quilting this quilt with a pattern of overlapping circles. The easiest way to do that is to not quilt the circle, but to quilt arcs on each side of the seam line so they look like circles after you make the arcs in all directions. As I'm going along I am aiming for the intersection so I cross it perfectly and then arc on to the other side. I've been finding myself thinking "halfway" at the high point of the arc and "hit it" at each seam intersection. I can get a lot of quilting done when I get into a groove with this chant going on in my head instead of worrying about how much more there is to quilt. I'm not trying to finish it before Christmas, but it's nice to feel good about my progress and to reminisce about fun high school times.

Again, Really?

I getting a more than a little tired of the anonymous spam comment posts.

I've deleted three spams from the last blog post over the past couple days. sheesh.

The latest spam came from: ABTS-KK-Dynamic-004.109.167.122.airtelbroadband.in Karnataka, Bangalore, India

Go away already.

The weird thing is I only see one "deleted comment" and not three. Oh well.


 

User ID and Password

I got a replacement iPhone recently, right before the warranty expired. For some reason when I synced it back to the computer, the passwords didn't get restored. I have three email accounts that I can read on my phone. Evidently, the passwords are all different and I cannot remember one of the three. I should probably keep a list of what I've tried so I won't continue to torture myself with old guesses.

A month or so ago our modem died and I set up the new one. Yeah, now it's password protected, so I can't use the wi-fi on my phone at home until I can remember that password. I have a program on my Palm-Pilot that stores passwords for times like this. Except I hadn't entered this one in the first place.

Yesterday I needed to log into my employee express page to print out W-2's because we're refinancing our house (how can you pass up 4.25%, right?). I couldn't remember my user name or my password. I even got the security questions wrong so they have to mail me the info, instead of being able to retrieve it online. I checked my Palm and in the case of the employee express page, I had it entered twice, each with a different ID.

I had to log into my bank's site so I could print out statements for the past three months for the refi. You guessed it, forgot the password. My Palm to the rescue. But it was no help since the password had been reset. It only works when you keep it up to date.

Why am I having so much trouble with passwords this week? I did have the current password stored in my Palm for AmEx so I could pay a bill online so all was not bad. I hope I never forget the password to the application on the Palm.