Jack's Diary

I love that you write a poem for your wife every year.

And I like both of the articles, about eliminating distractions and taking smart breaks. Thanks for sharing Jack!

I envision that having games recorded would just result in me having a "backlog" of games that I "needed" to watch, instead of letting them pass into the ether if missed. In other words, having a DVR would create more "things to do" for me. Just sharing a thought.
 
Thanks, LaMa and Mols!

Well, it's too late on returning the PC. I kind of decided I would roll with it. It's a luxury and kind of a waste. But it's done.

I was kind of distressed yesterday because it hit me that a colleague I used to work with isn't returning my emails. I was trying to get my maintenance contract renewed, and she just didn't answer. That was last August. Then, after initially responding to an email about a potential problem, didn't pick up the thread when I asked her how things are going. That was in December.

I told my wife about it, and she said I should take the hint and drop trying to contact her. I realized she was right, and that part of the distress I felt was that like that of losing a girlfriend. Once I looked at it that way, it became a lot easier. Regrets about old flames are something I'm used to dealing with. Not that were so many, but there are a couple that I dream about from time to time.

So, I *almost* finished the Angular/Spring Boot course yesterday. There is one appendix I want to get through today. I'm excited about what I've learned. Java finally has an out-of-the-box solution that makes it relatively easy to develop a full stack solution to developing database-driven web applications. PHP, Ruby on Rails and Groovy all have had frameworks for this for years, and finally Java has it. It's only been within the past 5 years or so that it happened.

Another cool thing I got out of the course was Microsofts Visual Studio - this is a free editor which is a marvel for ease of use and works perfectly with Angular.

I remember once I had a job interview where one of the assignments was to develop a simple web-app according to their specs in the language of your choice. It was for a PHP job, and I realized I would be better off if I developed it another language because they would know where all the best practices were in PHP and more likely to pick it apart. But I ended up having to do it in PHP because I absolutely didn't want to do it in Groovy, which I dislike, and I'd rather get the practice in PHP. But sure enough, they picked it apart. The point being that now I can do a simple web app in Java which is the language I know best.

Well, that's relative. Java 8 is like a new language in itself, and something I have yet to really learn. But that's near the top of my agenda. I don't really love it, though. It's a response to other languages which have features like lamba expressions and streams and filters. It means you don't have to code separate functions to do some things, but in my opinion, it just makes the code denser, more complex and harder to debug. There's a reason why Java is one of the most durable and popular languages, and the Java 8 features aren't one of them.
 
I was good last night at the SB party at my brother's - no sweets, no pizza! Although I did have a good share of chicken wings, egg rolls, and other assorted Chinese food. The nice thing about it is I didn't feel bloated - hate that bloated feeling. Yesterday after working out I was 166. So it's not like I'm losing weight, but it's been pretty stable.

The game was low-scoring and tense, but the Pats won in the end. Another one for the home team.

Got to the gym yesterday, and I'm this close to finishing the Spring Boot/Angular course.
 
Heya Jack - great restraint at the SB party. Well done. :) Now that the season is over will you gain a bit of free time on Sundays?
 
Thanks, guys! Although I finally did crack in the sweets category the next day - there was a slice of carrot cake leftover from the part that was sitting in the fridge, just calling my name. I put it back a couple of times but had it in the end. It was soooo good.

I actually heard on NPR that having sweets do have value as a mood-enhancer. But the problem is, people (like me) eat way past the point where the mood-enhancing value has an effect. Since I only had a couple of bites, maybe that was ok. But I'm still officially on the no-sweets bandwagon. Just can't have them in the house.

Mols, yes, it should free some time up on Sundays for sure. Although I have been leveraging time during games by practicing guitar licks.
Speaking of which, unfortunately, the experiment with the $300 computer and the $50 streaming recorder hasn't worked out yet. I've watched both Celtics game so far while doing some Angular stuff because it does free up a display. I think the playing licks during a game might be a better option, tbh. At least I get some guitar in because I really can't do much else if my eyes are on the game.

On the Angular app, I finally got the Spring Boot side of that set up on a remote git repository. It took a while because I also had to figure out how to integrate it with Eclipse. The next step is to do the same for the Angular side. I also converted it to a persistable database (mysql) - which is great because now my todo list won't disappear every time I restart the app.

I've started work on adding a "habits" page to it. This will initially just be a page listing the habits that I'm working on. It will be good to have them persisted somewhere, instead of just floating around in my head.

I had a nice day at work yesterday. I'm almost finished with what was going to be the trickiest enhancement I'm making to the Linux auto-installer. I learned how to use "sed", which is great scripting tool for modifying and changing file content from a script.

Also, E figured out how to configure the project in Install Anywhere, which he has a license to on his workstation. I like E, and it will be better to have the project controlled locally than by the offshore team. It will be a lot easier to just work with him on getting my changes cut-over and implemented.

Well, 3 weeks and 3 days until my final day. I had a good year financially last year, though. I didn't take too many days off, and earned 10k more than I thought I would. It helped that my temp company gave a 1-week vacation. It seems cheap, but I was surprised they offered that as a benefit.
 
I more or less finished off the Pina Colada mix and rum tonight, kinda feeling it....

Anyway, only Friday left then blast off to the weekend! Well, it's not like I have a ton planned. But just not working. Speaking of which, only 3 weeks and one day left, omg.

Someone asked me today if I would take a job there if offered, just offhandedly. Actually a guy I did some work for a few months ago. We were just talking about some benefits and stuff, that was the context. Still, people don't ask that kind of question if they don't like you, pretty much. He's the 3rd person who's randomly asked me that in the past few months. Unfortunately, none of them is my boss /:

Still, now that the end is near, I'm kind of looking forward to it. This job pays well but it's a grind. Today 3 or 4 issues cropped up out of nowhere - just when I was thinking I was running out of stuff to do. It's actually good, it will keep me busy, which is way better than having nothing to do.

I got up at 1:30 a.m. last night and worked a couple of hours on my "Habits" app. Actually, adding a "Habits" page to my todo app (which I copied from an Udemy course). It has habit name, description, priority, trigger, reward, that's it. Only one of the fields is working right now, description. Angular is so new to me, last night was the first time I even tried the debugger.

I figured out one of the bugs that cropped up today. Tomorrow I'll work in testing that, then figuring the MySql installer issue. I can't' seem to get untangled from the mysql windows installer, there's always something with that. At least I've got the Linux one working.
 
Never bad to have people interested in keeping you - but I´ll agree that it would be more useful if they had a say in the matter.
 
Hi LaMa,

Yes. Ultimately the only one you really need to keep happy is your boss.

At least he's not being a jerk about it. Always says hi and everything.

So, I finally have my "habits" page working - and I immediately started loading it up. The thing about habits involved in picking up a skill (guitar, software, language) is that the amount of time available is completely different from a regular day to a weekend day.

But I did notice almost immediately that I've been lapsing into bad, time-wasting habits. Mostly sports blogs and just browsing the net. It's not like I'm squeezing every second out of the day. I just found that I wasn't getting anywhere when I tried to do all three in a day.

My knee's been bothering me in the last few days. Unfortunately, I think playing guitar aggravates it, which absolutely sucks. I'll just have to be careful. The only position where it really doesn't aggravate it is laying down - even having them up on a rest which I usually do at home, I'm noticing it. Sigh.

I added "find a knee doctor" to my todo list. I was looking up "arthritic knee", and there are plenty of things they can try, including liquid injections and knee surgery. The doctors don't want to do it because, well, they don't really see the arthritis. They think my knee looks fine. Only one doctor actually said he saw it, but he only recommended therapy. But, it's a quality of life issue. I can live without playing tennis, but just walking and playing guitar are things I need to do.

Oh, well. I have a free day in front of me. I'm going to do some Japanese, which I've been neglecting. I need to get about 1200 stories cut and pasted into the kanji web site. Then I can start flash carding the kanji. I have also been doing a subset of kanji which are ones which have common sounds, more or less daily.

Speaking of guitar, I was practicing the intro to "Wanted Dead or Alive" for about a 1/2 hour last night. I was trying to do it with my eyes closed. It's definitely a good way to practice for two reasons:

1) You hear the music better.
2) When you start looking again, it's so much easier.

As far as the todo/habits app, I have lots to do on that. There is a lot of setup work that needs to be done. Need to add Angular to github (I think I already did) and learn how to check in code.

Then I need to figure out how to deploy the app. I think I'll deploy it to AWS.
 
Today's gold stars:
Got to the gym, did weightlifting and 1/2 hr on the treadmill
My knee wasn't bothering me for the second day in a row
Added habits app to github
Added scrolling capability to my habits list
Went to Chuck's and had a nice jam
Went to the supermarket to pick up a couple of things my wife asked me to
Figured out how to do the settings on the kanji app. So now I can control which cards get added to space repetition.

Fails:
I went to the supermarket before lunch, meaning I was hungry and ended up buying a couple of bags of flat, baked pretzel-y things, 2 for $5. 800 or 900 calories a bag, and of course I munched through both of them.
Ok, well, the trick is to get back on the bandwagon.

Didn't do any Japanese verbal today.
 
Why does the guitarplaying aggravate your knee? Is it your posture or the simple fact that the guitar is resting on it? Either might be fixable. If donctors don't want to do things like fluid injections it's not because they want you to suffer but because it's a very short-term solution with little real evidence. The same goes for some kinds of knee surgery and the ones that can be truly helpful you don't want to risk without at least having given therapy a serious go. If only because most doctors prefer invasive orthopedic treatment over conservative; if you've seen several doctors and none want to cut then cutting would probably not be a great idea.
 
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I hear you, La Ma. It makes sense. I did give some (very expensive) PT a try, by a doctor who had me get some useless $300 fitted foot pads - all without knowing what I had. I switched from him to a doctor I trusted - the one who operated on my shoulder. He's the one who said it was arthritis. I lost access to him when my health plan changed, though.

Of the four doctors I've seen, one diagnosed it as a patellar knee, two couldn't find anything, and one said it was arthritis. And of them, one of them said it was probably arthritis because he couldn't find anything else. He offered to try exploratory arthroscopic surgery but retired by the time I decided to go for it.

An article I read shows the following for effectiveness at treating arthritic knees :

Nondrug Therapies for Knee OA | Natural Treatments | Arthritis Foundation

  1. Hot or cold compresses – 54%
  2. Losing weight – 42%
  3. Stretching – 36%
  4. Over-the-Counter rubs, gels or patches – 35%
  5. Walking – 32%
  6. Swimming – 28%
  7. Other exercise or physical activity – 23%
  8. Knee brace – 23%
  9. Shoe orthotic/insert – 20%
  10. Soaking in Epsom bath or hot tub – 17%
  11. Yoga – 14%
I've tried all but 6 and 1-. I don't feel like this has a cure, although the last couple of days have been better. I was careful playing guitar - I think it's the leaning forward on my knee that causes it - plus it may have been the walking in combination with that.
 
Leaning forward on your knee for longer periods of time (especially if you push back a little with the ball of your foot) would put strain on your knee, particularly where your tendons meet your bones, most likely where the tendon that connects your quads to your lower leg attaches to the upper part of your shin bone. Maybe leaning back a bit and going by feel can make enough of a difference.
It´s shameful that politics should be more important than people´s health.
 
Yes, I think that's it, LaMa. For example, C go a new lounge chair and I played sitting on that for like three hours with no problem.

Ok, so there some more work that needs to be done on my habits app. For example, a signon creation display. Also, another detail display on the habits. There you would click on a habit, and it would show you a list of days that you did the good habit - or didn't do the bad habit.

But, I also need to deploy it to the web. That's the most important piece right now because I will probably user Elastic Beanstalk and voila, another keyword on my resume.

Ah, good news. I got a 1k bonus from my cheapo company for length of service. So, that six-week extension had a nice little kicker.

I watched a cool little move on Netflix called IO last night. Honestly one of the better movies I've seen in a long time. So much better than the garbage Netflix typically pumps out, or at least that I run across.
 
It´s shameful that politics should be more important than people´s health.

I agree with LaMaria, I do not understand the American health system, or how many people over there cannot get the medical help they need, our health system is not perfect but at least getting medical care is not going to send anybody bankrupt.

I hope you can find a solution for your knee.
 
Hi guys,

I think we can all agree that the health care system in the US is a complete joke. My only hope is that Medicare (which is essentially socialized health care for those 65 and over) doesn't collapse.

Mols - well, I sorta treated myself with the $300 pc last month, so the bonus is going into the bank. Gotta fund the old retirement account.

I'm running out of stuff to do at work. I'm on a wait state on a couple of PCs to work on. There is some small stuff to do that will probably be done by today. My boss is going to be away for the next couple of weeks. I will just have to find something to do.

I haven't made much progress in deploying my todo app to Amazon. I'll give it another go tonight.

My weight is 168, having gained a couple due to 1600 calorie pretzel binge on Sunday. Well, at least I passed on the doughnuts in the caf at work yesterday.
 
I'm at 167 today, or 166 if I round down. I did have one piece of cake a couple of nights ago, and 1 slice of pizza at T's going away party yesterday. Also, I have had a couple of pina coladas. This is the way it's going to be until I get more active again.

I'm staying off my feet as much as possible as I've developed a painful hangnail in my toe. How gross, right? I'm going to hopefully see someone at the medical center today (they open at 9). If not, I just might go to the emergency room, but there's $100 charge that goes with that.

Deploying my habits app has turned out to be a real hassle. I can't even create a new instance on AWS and connect to it, regardless of the overlying services such as Elastic Beanstalk and CodeStar. I will see if I can get AWS help, they are very good and get over that hump. I might try creating a different account - that one's old now and could be causing issues. I'll definitely try that first.

I finally broke down and started an Udemy course last night on TDD, test-driven-development. Having testing built into your programs is becoming almost mandatory these days, although it's time-consuming as well. TDD seems like a good approach because you write the tests firsts, then drive your code off them. I've resisted this a long time, but in a way, it's really great to have bug-detection built right into your code.

I've been kind of neglecting Japanese and guitar, although I have been generally sticking with the Anki, since it's so quick. Today I might take a crack at getting the spaced repetition in the kanji site working.

Two weeks left on the job (I think). I think the product manager would be interested in having me replace the guy (a product guy, not a developer) who just left. He's hinted around about it, and yesterday kind of floated the idea as I was walking back toward my desk. I certainly qualify - I know the technical aspect, obviously, and I'm a good communicator. But, I'm not really a people person like that. The way he asked it was just vague enough, and I said I'd keep an eye out. I know myself. I'm a coder, even if the younger guys are so sharp these days. I can still do it, no problem.
 
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