I had the distinct joy of coming home to a house problem
yesterday.  I got home and thought that the house was pretty
warm… so I checked the thermostat and it was reading 85, even though
the a/c (central air) should have been keeping it around 75.  So,
I went outside and examined the a/c unit.  Everything looked fine
outside.  Next, I went to the basement where the a/c line connects
to the furnace.  “damn…” I thought… there was a huge ice chunk
around the pipe and the connection was leaking (from the melting
ice). 

I called one of my really good friends, who just happens to know a
thing or two about houses, and he said that this is a pretty common
situation.  Apparently the a/c unit is low on freon. 
Everything iced up because there wasn’t a large enough difference
between the outside temp and the temp coming from the a/c unit.

Anyway, to remedy the situation, I turned off the a/c, but explicitly
turned on the fan (part of the furnace).   This allows the
ice to melt.  The next step will be to have a HVAC person to come
out and recharge the a/c units.

I can’t deny that I’ve been a bit short with people as of late.  I
have noticed it at work and a family member mentioned it when I last
spoke to them.  I’m not completely sure what is causing this short
temper, but I imagine that stress is the major factor.

When it comes down to it, I feel the need to change my life/lifestyle
and I don’t think it’s happening quick enough for my
subconscious.  I really hope that it’s not that I’m getting burnt
out doing a tech job because I do like the creativity and challenges it
provides.  That aside, I must admit that I’ve really begun to
enjoy being outside during the day.  Though, I’m sure that part of
that is from the beautiful summer days that have been occurring lately.

I continually wonder what I would want to do if money didn’t matter but
so far I, unfortunately, haven’t come up with anything practical.

Anyway, I guess acknowledging that I’m aware of the situation is the
first step to fixing it.  Perhaps I should start meditating
again… that seemed to generally make me calm, when I did it on a
regular basis before.

I was hacking some javascript and wanted to add a timeout to a callback
request (XmlHttpRequest / Ajax).  Note, only async requests
support the abort() function.  Many bad things happen when you try
to abort() a synchronous xmlHttpRequest.  A bit of background… I
create a new xmlHttpRequest object for each callback, so I couldn’t
just use a global variable as my one callback object.

Anyway, I needed to call a function with a parameter via the setTimeout
function.  I soon found out that passing variables/objects to the
specified function is not supported nicely.  So… I used an
anonymous javascript function to do my bidding.

This is the function I wanted to call via the setTimeout function:

This is how I called it:

Since this is not supported:

I could play with this for days…

I personally think that diaries are a has been… I never got into
writing in a diary, when I was younger, cause I just didn’t like the
act of writing… It’s not that I disliked putting my thoughts down, I
just didn’t enjoy using a pencil/pen to record those thoughts. 
Now things have changed… I can type pretty fast (around 100 words a
minute I would guess), so I can throw my thoughts down fairly
quickly.  Plus, who wants to look through old notebooks?  I’d
rather browse the virtual pages… and having search functionality
improves usability dramatically…  And spellchecker… I would be
a mess without it.

The anonymity of the diary sort of exists… when I started this blog,
I told no one.  All of the people who read this stumbled across it
on their own.  Creating this blog in that fashion allowed me to
pour my thoughts out without a care in the world.  I didn’t (and
largely still don’t) know who reads this.  So, the effect was
similar to keeping a notebook in the solitude of a bedroom…

On another note, I really think that pen pals have been phased out,
also.  I never had a pen pal, but I could imagine writing bs to
someone in a different country… now, I think that practice has been
replaced with forums, IM, and email.

That said, I am changing my life.  Probably more appropriate would
be for me to say that I’m changing my lifestyle.  I will provide
more details as the time becomes more appropriate.

I’m not quite sure why, but lately everything seems clearer to
me…  I notice new sounds in music I’ve listened to for years…
colors seem more vibrant than before.  I’m not quite sure why this
is all going on, but I figured I’d share…

As a side note, I have noticed something that I wouldn’t have picked up
prior to riding a motorcycle… There seems to be an understanding
amongst riders… it doesn’t matter what type of motorcycle you ride,
but everyone waves to everyone else.  In general, the wave is to
the side of the bike with a straight left arm.  The arm is pointed
out toward the ground… There are variations on it, but that’s the
gist.

After really too long, the server is back up and working… I upgraded to CommunityServer 1.1 and ran into an issue. 
After a quick fix, the site is functional again.  I want to
re-skin it, but I can’t guarantee when that time will come.

The other thing that is on my mind at the moment is about
intellisense.  I use Visual Studio primarily for development and
I’m not very happy with the current implementation of
intellisense.  I would really like to see a popup menu type thing
instead of the flat list.  Something that would separate events,
public, protected, and internal methods.

A philosophy professor stood before his class and had some items in
front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very
large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks,
rocks about 2″ in diameter.

He then asked the students if the jar was full? They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into
the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into
the open areas between the rocks.
Sand wagon

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

He then asked once more if the jar was full. This time the students were sure and they responded with a unanimous “YES!”
Beer Can

The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and
proceeded to pour their entire contents into the jar — effectively
filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to
recognize that this jar represents your life. The rocks are the
important things – your family, your partner, your health, your
children?things that, if everything else was lost and only they
remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other
things that matter like your job, your house, your car.

The sand is everything else. The small stuff. “If you put the sand into
the jar first,” he continued “there is no room for the pebbles or the
rocks. The same goes for your life. If you spend all your time and
energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that
are important to you.

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play
with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your
partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the
house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal.
Sand

“Take care of the rocks first — the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented.

The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you
that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a
couple of beers.”