Greg Hughes, one of the rock stars I had the pleasure of working with on a gig has a nice phrase that he likes to whip out from time to time: trust, but verify.

Greg didn't coin the term. Wikipedia says Ronald Regan used it and others before him. The term indicates you should trust what people are doing or saying, but verify it nonetheless. I had one such opportunity recently and I'm sorry to say that I failed miserably.

The check-engine light went on in my car last Friday. I took it to a repair shop early Saturday morning and left it there. They called back in a couple of hours with an estimate to fix this, that, and the other thing. I winced, but said sure, go ahead. This is over the phone, mind you.

They called back a few hours after that and said there's one more thing. I asked for the total, winced again, and said sure, go ahead. Again, on the phone. This time, the part was offsite and the delivery truck couldn't arrive until Monday. No worries, we had the spare car thing worked out.

I get a call on Monday. The truck arrived, but not the part; weird. Apologies were offered by the repair shop, but I say, no problem, I’ll get the car on Tuesday.

Tuesday arrives and I get a call in the late afternoon. The car is ready, please come and get it. I was in a meeting, so I learned this by listening to the voice-mail the kind man left on my phone. I leave work, pick up the H-man from daycare, drive home to get the wife and drive over to the dealership.

We're less than a mile from the repair shop when I notice I have another voice-mail from them. In this one, the kind man explains that they close at 6pm, but I have until 8pm to pick up the car before the gates close. He explained that I can call him back and pay over the phone if I plan on picking up the car between 6pm and 8pm tonight. He also says the amount on the call. It's two times the amount he quoted me on Saturday. I'm instantly furious.

I park and walk into the repair shop, the service desk directs me to the cashier. The cashier grabs my file and asks for the 2X amount. I respond politely with "I can't pay that amount". She furrows her brow, understandably at 15 minutes to closing time, and returns with the service desk representative.

I ask for the amount he quoted me over the phone and he points to the 2X amount. Again, with all the politeness I can muster, as if I'm speaking to my grandma, I ask if he quoted me the 1X amount. He scratches his head and explains, it's all right there. His document identifies who called, when they called, who they talked to, and the amount of the estimate.

I'm baffled and I begin to doubt myself. But I'm also resilient and tell myself that if the man estimated 2X for the repairs, I surely would have declined and pursued other options. It's an old car and we're thinking of trading it soon. I was very sure, even now, that I asked him for the full amount. I was also sure that he never said anything resembling 2X in response to my question about the full amount. Under no circumstances could 1X be mistaken for 2X, even on a bad phone connection.

He explains that he'll have to get the manager, so he's off and I stand around for a few minutes perusing the repair sheets he left on the desk. It's all right there on the documents, how could two parties be so far apart on an essential matter?

A large burly man in a nice looking suit emerges from the back offices, introduces himself and asks me about my problem. I explain the situation and he takes it all in. Then he turns to the service representative and repeats what I said. Then he turns to me and repeats what the service manager said. Then, he repeated what the service manager said two more times, then he repeated what I said one more time followed by repeating what the service manager said and ending with a finale of "in all of my 20 years here...", you get the idea.

Those of you who have met me will know that I have a pretty good face for these types of things. I'm not too pretty, it's hard to tell what I'm thinking if I don’t let you and the whiskers don't hurt either. Plus, for whatever reason, I decided to wear a nice button-down blue shirt and dockers today. I looked professional and not like some punkass kid trying to skip out on part of the bill. Plus, I sincerely felt that I was right.

In any case, 2X is a lot of money to screw up.

The manager explains that the documents with the who-what-when-and-how-much are legal documents in the state of Oregon. I don't bite. I'm not in any mood to debate the matter. My position is clear and so is his. No quick, witty comment or sly argument from me is going to win him over. My only rebuttal is that estimates over the phone are inherently prone to these types of mistakes. He picks up on this nibble of an argument and thoroughly explains that in all his years, they've never had a problem like this. Again, I refuse to argue the point. It's futile to do so. 

So, he explains that he has to go to the general manager of the repair shop. Again, I’m left alone near the cashier's desk. This time for about 15 minutes, the standard time one would sit in an office of a car dealership, waiting to see if the manager would accept your offer on the car. The old wear-you-down trick.

In the mean time, I think about what to do. I really do like jury duty. It's a lot of fun. I wonder of small claims court would be as much fun. There's the anxiety of getting over the problem, the possibility of losing my first case (I was a business law major until I took my first computer science course in college) and just the general hassle. Plus, I'm beginning to doubt myself. Did that guy really tell me the full amount on the phone and I just wasn't paying attention? I decided that they would offer to split the difference and I'd accept it.

Damn!

So, the manager returns, right on time. He repeats what I told him; then he repeats what the service representative said one more time. Finally, the manager then says the general manager offered to split the cost with me. I asked if he was offering me 1.5X and I’m corrected. The general manager is offering it and the manager is merely saying it to me.

Whatever.

I put up the stop hand and said, I think this is the best solution for both of us. The manager knows to stop selling when the sale is over, so he turns to the cashier and firmly states that this customer is going to only pay 1.5X of the amount on the bill.

I'm relieved that the issue resolved, yet still disappointed that it happened at all. I'm out 0.5X, but I do have a few extra repairs on the car. Upon further review, I think some of the repairs are a little suspect. For example, my car is perfect on oil. It doesn't burn oil and my drive way is void of any oil spots. Why didn't I think of that when the guy said the oil pan gasket was leaking on the phone? Arrrgg!!

This is when Greg's term "trust, but verify" really became clear to me. My super smart wife pointed out that I could have asked him to e-mail me the estimate. I also could have asked him to call me back and leave the full estimate as a voice-mail on my phone if they were email-impaired. The amount of money is large enough and use of my car is important enough that I really should have been more diligent. I should have verified the estimate instead of just trusting what I heard on the phone.

Rats. Well, they say the awesome people can tell you all about their mistakes and the incompetent never see their own mistakes. Here's one more thing on the pile that I can learn from. I'm going to be riding the "trust, but verify" horse into the ground for the next couple of weeks. Apologies, in advance, to all my teammates.

I don't explain the identity of the repair shop or the amount here because you're going to trust, but verify next time right? So, in that case, it doesn't matter who I dealt with.

There's a really cuil set of photos showing the Large Hadron Collider being setup in Europe. Very high tech stuff.

Just a little bit down from the top of the photo stack is an image of someone way down the aisle in the server room. You get the idea that there are just racks and racks and racks of servers with a mind for effective use of power consumption, space utilization, heat and all the other green elements.

The person at the end of the aisle is working on a server. They're sitting at a workstation, typing on a keyboard... looking at a monitor. Not a slick flat screen, but a huge honking cathode ray tube monitor from 1994! Hah! That thing probably takes up the space of three or four servers and gives off as much heat!

I noticed this when I left the house this morning. Le Wife dislikes the roses due to the maintenance they require and this isn't helping matters at all.

I was on a call with a former colleague discussing a specific technology and how it applied to his situation. It was good to catch up again with him and give some useful advice. I fielded several questions about the flexibility, complexity and fitness.

During the call, I had a thought that really stuck with me:

We (read: the world) are currently in the fifth version of the Microsoft .Net Framework, we have more AJAX libraries than you can shake a stick at, SQL Server 2008 is launching soon, and I still haven’t finished pulling tricks out of SQL Server 2005. There’s not much outside of our reach. We can customize nearly anything and change most behaviors to suite your taste. I can override methods, inject JavaScript, and execute complex database activities in just a few LINQ methods.

But… should he do this to the platform? The word “could” and “should” really stood out for me.

The answer to his specific question was a resounding yes. It was absolutely possible to do brand those pages. I was positive that my former colleague’s team could build a custom external application to manipulate the database and perform the same types of functions that come with the default installation of the system; albeit through their own unique user interface.

In this call, I was asked about completely customizing the administrative pages. My first instinct was to identify which way the cost/benefit ratio tipped.

1. Could the customer use the money elsewhere and yield more benefit?
2. Does this preclude the platform from future upgrades because of egregious customizations?
3. How many people would be subjected to these administrative pages?
4. How often are they used?
5. Does he want to support this code? One reason to buy a platform leverages on-going support and bug fixes; this path has the potential to give away that important strategic advantage.

Once a technology is chosen (no small endeavor), the best approach is to deeply understand what a platform does well and make damn sure you’re embracing it. Don’t spend valuable time fighting technology in lieu of focusing on your business. If you’re not leveraging what the platform does best, you’ve got a good sign that you’re off course or you’ve chosen the wrong platform. Go figure out which one it is and fix it – fast!

Yep, that's my head as of last weekend. I had my two remaining wisdom teeth extracted by Dr. Bell at the Head & Neck Surgical Associates in NW Portland, Oregon. Le Wife says it got a little larger than this at the peak on Sunday morning.

I had the other two extracted in my twenties back in Chicago; a truly horrible experience. I was naive for picking a dentist arbitrarily from a listing and this particular dentist was an idiot for trying to do it. He said he could take all four out without much of a problem. I hadn't gone to a dentist in years and it seemed like a reasonable thing to do; I was in my twenties, so it was time to get the wisdom teeth removed. After multiple hours of pain and agony, he removed 1.5 teeth out of four total. He packed me full of gauze and handed me the address of a surgeon. I drove my corvette to the other office and the surgeon finished taking out the second tooth in about five minutes.

So, I waited about ten years or so on removing the other two. When the Wife and I moved to Portland, we found our dentist, Dr. Halvorsen, right away via referral from a friend and we've been keeping up reasonably well with six month cleanings.

At my last cleaning, I decided to have the final two teeth removed. I knew it would take some time to recoup and the baby is coming in late April, so I made plans to have the procedure in early January and be done with it. They recommended Dr. Bell's office for some super impacted wisdom teeth.

Dr. Bell and his staff did and outstanding job. I had a consultation and scheduled the procedure for about two weeks later. They were friendly and efficient. I arrived at the office, got into the chair, chatted with the nurses, got prepped with an IV, received some drugs, and was sitting back in my car in about 60 minutes total. I nearly didn't believe him when Dr. Bell said the entire procedure would last between 60 and 90 minutes during an earlier consultation.

I *felt* like I could drive home, and the Wife just laughed. I knew I couldn't but the drugs didn't make me feel wobbly or anything, they just targeted the pain.

That night I was back on the computer working on some code. I was prescribed some oxycodone and ibuprofen for the pain and swelling and thankfully, it didn't interrupt my coding much; albeit I might have been a little slower and more *creative*.

The pills worked good as long as I kept my belly full of food. I found out that I got nauseous if I didn't eat enough food with the pills and/or I would get an stomach ulcer feeling. After I figured that out, it was much better. I probably can't go to the gym for another two or three weeks, so this isn't going to help my gut much.

Yet, I'm glad I timed the procedure with the MLK holiday because this past week stinks with pain management and thinking really hard about code. I think I only snapped with cranky responses a few times during the four day work week. :) Its much better to work alone when you're in pain. I figure another couple of weeks I'll be good as new, er... good as a thirty-four year old new guy.

I had remarked to The Wife that she had spent over N on clothes during the past month. She retorted that it couldn't be correct.

Thanks to http://www.wesabe.com, this was an easy thing to confirm. Wesabe organizes purchases that you upload to your Wesabe account from your bank. It creates some great charts and graphs for managing your money with precious little effort. All free of course.

I returned to The Wife and explained how all of the values are tagged correctly, and the value is actually N+1. There are purchases from Motherhood, Gap, Macy's and Old Navy.

And here's the quote:

"Oh, that's why! Not all of those are clothes. Macy's isn't clothes... it's make-up."

Zing!

In my experiences as a software developer, its fairly normal to hear comments like the following:

• That's too many hours
• They don't have the budget
• I'm not paid enough

I had the good fortune of attending a Portland XP Users Group presentation a few weeks ago by James Shore. He got off on a slight tangent and gave us (well, at least me) a simple equation to chew on:

He explained that at its core, Return On Investment is represented by the previous equation. It can help explain quite a bit about the world. This was in response to someone asking about the high cost of the software development methodology under discussion that night.

If you're presented with a scenario where the value is constant, then the only way to play the game is to minimize costs. Think of a job that never changes. If it always provides the same value to a business, management will seek ways to reduce cost in order to improve the ROI equation.

On the other hand, a scenario where value has the capability for growth is much more interesting. If you wanted to make $500,000 a year then you would be challenged to deliver some multiple of that cost as a value to the business.

Here's my favorite take-away: At some point along the graph, as value increases then cost becomes insignificant. This is the place to be.

The initial cost of software can make some people squeamish. I'm certainly not one to be afraid of zeros; I'm much more interested in the value.

• What is this solution doing for the business?
• Is there a practice in place for tracking ROI over time?
• How soon can it begin providing value?
• Can it provide even more value?
• It is possible to reduce cost and drive the equation even higher?

This is why I love my job at Pop Art. Driving value higher and then swooping back to cut costs with new technology that makes me more productive. Value will often come in several forms including cash value, brand value and community value. In any case, it all starts with that equation.

Holy shit! I'm sitting in my room, typing on my laptop and minding my own business. The entire room starts to shake and the floor feels like its balancing precariously on half a dozen tennis balls. I seriously begin to consider the possibility of the ceiling crashing down and crushing me. I step into strategic locations where I feel like there's less of an opportunity for being instantly annihilated by a slab of concrete (or is it cement?). The entire event lasts for approximately 30 seconds. Have you ever counted to 30? Its a long fricken time!

I think this is my first real earthquake. I was sitting in my living room back home and heard a "bang!" noise from my basement once; I later found out was an earthquake in southeast Portland, Oregon. This is the first honest-to-goodness pants-filling thrill ride for me.

Then, finding sites like this with up to the second reporting on recent quakes don't fill me with much ease, although it is really cool technology: http://quake.wr.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Quakes/nc40204628.html

if I understand that report correctly, I just experienced a 5.6 earthquake. Damn!

I'm sure my buddy Bruce would brush this off as a non-event as he grew up in L.A., but for a good 'ol mid-westerner like myself, these things fricken suck! Especially while I'm in the forth floor of an eight story building. Ok, I'm going to go clean myself off now.

I'm staying in a nice hotel in California this week on business. The restaurant is satisfactory, albeit a little pricey for what they deliver. The gym is OK and the room is good enough. Last week I was in Albuquerque, NM and stayed at the Embassy Suites. I didn't know I had it so good. From now on, I'll take the Embassy Suites any day of the week - there's good and then there's better.

In the evenings, after dinner and a little time on the laptop, I pop down to the bar in the lounge for a nightcap. Last night an Asian man was accompanied by his New York translator. The New Yorker's switch between a thick east coast accent and his sharp Japanese dialect was striking - a lucky people watching opportunity indeed. Its fun to watch someone speak a language that you would NEVER guess they know.

A few steps from the bar is a small doorway that leads to a large room. In the evening, the door is usually open. The room includes several lazyboy recliners, a six foot television with non-stop sports, a pool table and a desk. Seated at the desk is a small black man that looks like he can handle himself. He's probably in his mid 40's, well groomed and confident.

This room is a collection site for the U.S. Army. Each night, a handful of new young men assemble, speak briefly with the man seated at the desk and then mill about uncomfortably in the room. Some will play pool or watch the game on TV. Each man has a duffle bag that probably contains everything they'll be taking to their next stop - the base. Nearly every one of them look like they could step into the octagon in a UFC fight. They have short hair, obviously work out and don't really look at ease as they chat with other recruits or walk over to the restaurant for a free meal by way of the small ticket in their hand. I bet they all watch UFC. Well, I think I'd win most of my bets. I kind of wish I could walk over and chat about recent bouts with them.

The entire spectacle is a thought provoking experience. These are the people joining the military. This is their last night before waking up in a base or elsewhere for the next couple of years. It has a way of putting a somber mood on the room.

I popped into work early on Sunday morning for some quick volunteer work whilst le Wife was sleeping. Sometimes I like to use my powers for good. Today I was building a small feature for the Saturday Academy site.

Little did I know that Sunday morning was also the schedule date of the Race for the Cure walk/run here in Portland. I was prepared for the construction that's going on but I was caught in a serious maze trying to get to my parking garage. Several streets were blocked off for the event. After going around the block and assessing my options, I figured that I could "accidentally" go down a one-way street at this hour and get to my parking garage.

So, I get to the street and turn to go up it. About half way through, a construction dude puts a cone in the street in preparation for a big dump truck headed towards us, then looks up a me. He walks over and casually informs me that this is a one-way street. I play all wide-eyed and apologize while explaining that I'm just trying to get to the parking garage entrance that is now just 30 yards away. He stares at the garage entrance, then at my car, then back to the garage entrance. He graciously mentions that I might be able to make it if I continue on and turn right at the intersection, then go around the block and come back down properly.

I thank the nice man and continue on slowly in the early morning light. I get to the last intersection and see the garage door entrance, a mere 10 yards from my car. Instead of turning, I bolt for the entrance. I see the police car at the end of the street - this is going to be close. I make it to the entrance and zoom up the ramp. I can tell people are running after me in full chase. I get my garage ticket, quickly park and exit the building; everything seems safe. I don't see any faces popping around corners or footsteps racing towards me.

I round the block and see the next barricade that certainly would have nixed the whole deal had I heeded the instructions of the construction guy. I'm quite sure that my route was the only way to the parking garage at this specific hour and I was quite satisfied with the success of my plan. About 30 minutes later, I see the event in full swing. There's non-stop cheering for about 90 minutes with a stream of runners and walkers parading down the street. It was a nice day for it, I hope they did well. 

When I travel, I can expect ignorant/discourteous folk, long lines and some mild nausea. What I can't expect to find in airports is a good ol' power outlet. I've thought about adding a section to my site that just plots locations of power outlets in the various airports I visit — a little like geocaching I suppose. The worst is finding a perfect spot to setup, unpacking the gear and looking down at the little green light on the laptop power brick that isn't lit up. Disconnected power outlets suck.

The fine folks at Coffee People in PDX have figured it out. They've integrated power outlets into the modern bar that surrounds their business. I ordered a Depth Charge (coffee and double espresso shot) and a danish, plugged in to grab a few more bits online before I travel back in time to a land that has no cell phone signals, internet or cable TV. I'm back to the future on Tuesday!

I went to the Vet the other day; we got card in the mail informing us that it was vaccination time for poochie. The Wife made an appointment and I ended up taking poochie in — go figure.

So poochie and I zip over to the Vet and wait in the busy waiting room for 20 minutes. Not too bad, they had a lot going on. The worse part was Poochie isn't a friendly dog. Poochie acts friendly to other dogs, and then goes bat-shit crazy - all 80 pounds at once. The Wife and I believe Poochie wasn't socialized very well as a pup, before we adopted Poochie from the pound.

Finally, they call us into see the Doc. The Doc comes into the little room quick enough and starts the standard evaluation procedure. About a minute later, the door opens and a tech requests the Doc's presence elsewhere. Doc makes a graceful exit and leaves me in the room with Poochie. About two minutes later, another tech comes in and explains the Doc had to attend to an emergency and asks if I would like to wait about 10 minutes or just drop off Poochie and come back later. I don't mind waiting so I flip out my Treo 700w and start listening to a podcast in the little examination room with Poochie.

About 10 minutes later, the Doc comes in, a little shaken. She explains that a kitty was really sick and had to be euthanized. That's a tough thing, no matter how objective of a Doc you try to be.

So the Doc restarts the evaluation and goes on and on about Poochie's dry skin and booger-ee eyes. Small potatoes in my book, but whatever. After a litany of product prescriptions and instructions, Doc asks if I have any final questions. It looks like Doc is getting ready to leave.

So, I ask about the vaccination shots.

Doc looks taken a-back.

After some paper shuffling in the file on the table between us, Doc exclaims that yes, Poochie does need shots and somehow that information didn't get passed along. Understandable, Doc just took out a kitty afterall.

So another tech comes in to help hold Poochie in place as two needles full of modern medicine are injected. Poochie doesn't mind too much since Daddy is there. If Daddy is cool, Poochie is cool; unless someone's at the door. Poochie's my dawg, in the literal and figurative sense of the word.

So my advice to you: when your receiving services from someone; no matter what; make casual declarations of your business there or you'll walk home with an armful of dry skin shampoo, fish oil and eye booger medicine.

There was a knock at the door the other night which set off the dog. When I put her in a side room and returned to the door, The Wife had already opened the door and was conversing with the gentleman who probably made the knocking gesture on previously said door.

He was dressed in a windbreaker jacket with a security type of logo branded on one side where you might expect it. He was wearing normal slacks but I paused for a moment on his shoes. Then, I remembered this was Portland, so its OK to wear sandals. These were leather, near full-shoe type, with several vertical slits in the material to let the foot breathe.

When I arrived at the door, the nice gentleman was already working up his speech and I sensed he was working steadily at discounting The Wife's attempt to bring the conversation to a close. I placed one foot on the threshold and poked my head out. In a friendly, yet 114% of my normal speaking volume, I said, "Oh, hi! Sorry, I missed the first part. What's this about?"

The pleasant Johnny Come Knocky man was a little startled at my dismissal of his current statement and looked to The Wife for some assertion of his purpose. I can only imagine how looking up at two 6+ foot people in a waif-like windbreaker with a loud dog barking in the background could put you off the speech you've undoubtedly practiced in the mirror several times.

It turns out the dude was curious about our security system. My Spidey Sense™ went from mere annoyance to high alert. If he were a genuine party to my security system, why is he asking questions. If he wanted to convert me to an alternative security system, he could have been a little more up front about it. I let him hem and haw about his response to my question regarding my absence from the first part and upon my evaluation I rated his response "insufficient".

This is what I gleaned from his statement and his visible artifacts:

• There is some type of survey in progress.
• He was not really selling me anything.
• His binder was really ratty looking.
• He really was well groomed; washed face, trimmed fingernails.

I couldn't understand why he asked if we engaged our alarm often during his rambling statements. Perhaps its because I have security very much on my mind these days. I am an avid listener to www.RunAsRadio.com with Richard Campbell and Greg Hughes. The frequency of my alarm engagement is just not a question you ask someone in a casual front door conversation. He might as well ask me which framed artwork has the wall safe behind it. I was keen to his exploits.

I sent him on his way with an abrupt "We're not interested" statement. The Wife thought I was a little less than polite in the retrospective we held immediately afterwards. Upon further reflection, I can only believe that only one of the following two scenarios apply to that situation:

1. Knocky McWindbreaker dude has really ineffective salesmanship abilities.
2. Thievey Stinkershien was using his social engineering skills to identify an attack vector.

That really gets my goat. I don't like seeing folks do a face-plant on their job and I hate getting ripped off. If you're going to knock on my door and sell me something, then you better have some good chops and know how to deal with people like me. I hope my TV is still in my house when I get home tonight.

...is about Safari running on Windows.

I thought I'd just increment the search index counter by one and include it on my blog too. Geesh, I hope tomorrow is more diverse.

• Tim Heuer
• Jason Mauer
• Simon WIllison
• Shawn Burke
• Scott Hanselman
• Joel Spolsky
• Jeff Atwood

Ok, so its just seven out of 69 blogs I read, but I swear I got one an hour when I was reading them today! :)

So, my flight got delayed yesterday.

I finished my WCF Master class in New London, CT on Friday night, had drinks with some people from class and went back to my hotel room. My flight left PVD on Saturday; I was due home to The Wife by 9:45pm.

I had a connection in Chicago with a 90 minute layover. No problem, right? Pbbbfffftttt.....

My flight out of PVD was delayed twice which put it over the limit for catching the last flight to PDX out of Chicago. So, I rebook for a flight out of PVD on Sunday, patted myself on the back for getting a 24 hour T-Mobile internet access for $10 and found a nearby hotel (that wasn't full) using my laptop, wi-fi and my Treo. How was this done back in the day?

So here I sit. 6:42am on Sunday. At my gate; waiting for the boarding call in 60 minutes. The flight before mine just boarded for Orlando. They called for the preboard and I swear nearly half the plane was full before Group A ever got to walk down the tunnel - lots of families with small children. Ha! I guess that's Orlando for you.

I've never been, but I'm told that famous people line the streets in Hollywood. You can go to lunch, look over at a corner booth and see big actor chowing down on a roast beef sandwich.

On Tuesday, I got to hang out with Carl Franklin at Hanafin's Irish Pub. He had just finished a recording a DotNetRocks session with some super stars and sat down with my WCF classmate and me for a beer. I've been listening to his shows for years so it was a real treat to chat it up in person.

Then, today (Thursday), I'm eating my roast beef sandwich at Steve & Cheri's Brooklyn Style Deli when I look over and see none other than Geoff Maciolek chowing down on a delicious deli treat about 3 feet from our table. I wasn't quite sure at first, but then we started murmuring about code and databases at our table and Geoff couldn't resist chiming in with a comment; then I was absolutely sure. It went something like this:

Geoff: Ah, spaghetti code

Me: Hey, you're Geoff Maciolek!

Geoff: Thats me! (ok, he didn't really say that, but that's what I think in my head because he's says it at the end of so many DNR shows... he just kind of stares and looks incredulous because a total stranger said his name)

Me: I know you from DNR and Mondays!

Geoff: Yeah, I'm over there with Carl...

We exchange a few more pleasentries and chat for a minute, then Geoff leaves the deli and I go back to the afternoon session of the WCF Master class - happier than a pup with two peters.

I leave this town Saturday. What are the chances that I'll be filling up my rental car at the gas station and see Karen drive by with Richard in the passenger seat and Mark running after them down the street, screaming profanities with a stream of toilet paper trailing out of his pants?

Wow. Sitting in WCF Master class.

16 (excellent developer) dudes. No ladies here.

I had listened to all of my normal podcasts last week and over the weekend. So, on the bus ride to work this morning, I downloaded and listened to a couple of random podcasts on my Treo.

Tech Nation Daily had an interesting two minute interview:

Dr. Moira Gunn talks to Beverly Davis, Professor in the School of Technology at Purdue University about Technoism, the need for technological emersion centers.

The interview revealed an interesting statistic: a distribution of households in the United States with Internet access at home:

• White Households: 46.1%
• Hispanic Households: 23.6%
• Black Households: 23.5%

There's an awful lot of potential still out there along with a number of challenges. I wonder what these numbers will be like when I'm 80.

This link went around the office a few days ago about the rendering engine used to display HTML email messages in Outlook 2007. Evidently, the folks from Campaign Monitor are not impressed.

The issue is that Outlook 2007 uses Word to render the HTML email messages instead of Internet Explorer. This leads to some limitations on the HTML and CSS that authors can use in their message.

Zeyad Rajabi and Erika Ehrili wrote this document to help folks understand the rendering capabilities of the Outlook 2007 email client. Its well done and easy to understand.

It looks like a fair number of people are in a tizzy over this. If you make a large percentage of your revenue by designing complex email templates for your marketing clients, you're probably interested in how the email renders in the reader's email client program. Just thinking about the number of email client programs is startling. That's a lot of testing to do before you send out your mass e-mail message. Plus, you have to comply with the federal anti-spam laws. I suppose the marketing folks deserve a little bit of a hassle for all of their networking events and schmooze fests...

I like a pretty e-mail as much as the next person, provided that its relevant to my interests. I don't like the crippling affects that I see when one is forwarded to me by the original recipient. It seems to me that the message needs to be short, with a clear call to action, and trackable. I'm fine with a details link to a web page.

These are some of the choice excerpts from the comments on the Campaign Monitor page:

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jaw - floor.... Where is the frick'n sense in this? Is it 'cuz they didn't employ people who can understand CSS?? WTF??!!

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Hey there... I guess this is attrubuted to Vista's. IE has been split from the windows shell thus meaning that if IE is not installed on the computer Internet Explorer cannot render the HTML. See when you are in XP if you type in a url in Explorer it will go to the page "inplace" however if you open up Vista and try to put in the URL windows will open up your default browser to open the page. :)

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I like it. I've gotten emails from clients using the background images just b/c they look "pretty" and it ends up destroying the message formatting when I try to reply. Also, it's less junk taking up bandwidth. If you need graphical pretty things sent to specific people, find another way.

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Hate to be a spoiler, but I long for the days when my email didn't look like a webpage.

Email should be fast and efficient.

Graphical email is not.

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I'm no fan of using the Word rendering engine, but the real problem lies in the overuse of HTML mail. Anyone who doesn't use Outlook already has problems similar to the ones this switch will cause, and there are only two ways to ensure perfect rendering; Use plain text for emails, and use PDFs for pizazz.

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I'm almost positive it has to do with the whole Anti-Trust issue. The answer that would make the most sense to me would be the word rendering engine is part of Office. IE is not and therefore instigate the issue that people are being forced to upgrade and use IE versus alternatives. I think its a step in the right direction but i believe that it has hindered the users experiance because of it. Only time will tell if they stick to their guns and give some resolution on it.

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I think this is a great move. I'm sick and tired of html email and hopefully this will reduce the number of people that think its cool to put html, background images, and all that other crap in an email.

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Currently using Vista and Office 2007 and I do not see these problems problems. I even make HTML based newsletters an I have do do not changes to the way i create them. It looks like FUD to me.

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stop crying... BUY A MAC!!!

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Hey, maybe now we can get email back to what it's supposed to be. Text-based. HTML email has always been problematic and you've never been really sure about what the other person would see depending on their email client.

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Let's talk a little bit about spamminess, and why HTML might not be the way to go in email.

We run SpamAssassin, a requirement when each email account averages 150+ spam messages per day.

HTML is already suspicious and gets -10 -- -40 if HTML only. Since -50 is quarantine, your beautifully crafted HTML only message is precariously close to deletion already.

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Thanks Jim! Here I am wasting time on my first day back at work after the holiday break, and apparently, you are too. Here are 5 things you don't know about me.

1. I played varsity basketball my freshman year in highschool, much to the delight of the upperclassmen, and I was the MVP my senior year.
2. As a future software developer, I earned my obligatory black belt during college by training in Ryukyu Kempo karate with Bill Burch, good friends with George Dillman. I met some of the best friends I ever had.
3. At my first 4-H show, I received a red ribbon for my two chickens. I think I was eight.
4. I visited the Blue Hole in Belize with the charming woman I would later marry. We met about 50 sharks, between 6 to 10 feet in length, as they came out of the deep blue center to greet us at a depth of 140ft along the rim. She squeezed my hand very tightly and I knew it was love from then on.
5. During the glorious late '90s I bought a red 1994 Corvette when I had absolutely no business doing so. My wife says she dated me in spite of that car. Boy, that car was sweet.

Here are my five victims of this game: Kelly, Scott, Happy Steve, Lee, and Dave.

I just made my first trip to Costco Wholesale Corporation yesterday with The Wife. She's been going with her lady friends for quite a while and I've managed to dodge the bullet up until yesterday.

It was an enjoyable outing and my buddy Marc turned me on to the deal for a hotdog or polish sausage and a soda pop for $1.50 after making your purchases. Quite a deal! They even have these little boxes with a crank on one side. You hold your dog on the other side, turn the crank and either onions or relish come out the other side! Brilliant!!

So, I was meandering down an isle of wholesale goods with other shoppers when I laid eyes on the Rogaine.

Now, I've always said that when it comes time, I'll give it the ol' buzz cut instead of the comb-over, swirl over, or other means of denial. But this was Costco Wholesale Corporation and it was cheap! Like $10.00 cheap! Why pass up an opportunity for imortality?!?!

So on a lark, I was about to chuck a box in the cart until The Wife reads the side of the package and says "This isn't for you, dear." Turns out this Rogaine is for balding around the crown of your noggin' and not for the exceedingly high forehead, like mine. Alas, it'll be the clippers for me before too long. I wonder if I'd make a good Mr. Clean head like Doug Purdy or King Kong Bundy? It's not too smooth, but I do have a lot of "character" bumps.

Last Thursday, The Wife was out with the car and it wouldn't start. The tow truck jumped it, so she could drive it home. He said the battery cable was loose so the diagnosis should start there.

I received this news late Thursday while out with my darts team for the division championship. We had just lost the very close game, so this was just about the perfect time. No need to bring on sour news when I'm feeling good; better to here about it when I'm already in the dumps.

My friend let me borrow his 2nd car that night so The Wife could drive to work on Friday. Just to put a little pizzazz into it, there was police activity smack dab in front of our house. When I rounded the corner to our street, a couple of police cars had pulled over a car and were searching it. I parked a few houses down and waited about 20 minutes. They hauled the guy off and a tow truck promptly took his car. I walked outside around 12:30am and drove my friends car into our driveway. Great.

Friday morning, I woke up and examined the car. The battery was way low; it wouldn't even turn the engine over. So, driving it to a mechanic was out of the question. Paying to have it towed made me grimace too. The battery cable was a weird kind of loose. Tight at first glance, but if you wiggled it just right, it would pop off the battery post with ease.

I went inside and searched online for the nearest Napa auto parts store (for no particular reason, I think that's what my Dad always went to back on the farm). I walked about 20 blocks to the shop and purchased one model "51R" car battery for about $80. As the fella brought the battery out of the stockroom he looked at me and said "so, this is going to be a lot of money". Who says that? This guy should go to marketing school or at least take the correspondence course. I had a good guess of what a battery costs; maybe he thought I was going to ask for a deal or something. I was dressed pretty scruffy after 6 hours of sleep and a tough night of beer & darts. It was easier walking there than it was walking back; its heavy after a few blocks.

I removed the old battery and installed the new battery easily enough. It really helped that I found the needle nose pliers, vice grips and adjustable wrench in the house. They're weren't put back in their proper locations in the garage. Grrrrr!

The car started right up and I felt a little bit of pride in a job well done. I considered that I had probably solved the problem and it was most likely caused by the loose connection; thus, the battery was not being charged properly by the alternator and it was slowing draining all its resources. After several days, the battery finally gave up. Yet, in the back of my mind, I thought what if its really something bigger? I am a farm kid, but I'm no mechanic.

The same friend who loaned me the car highly recommended Dan's Automotive. I drove the car over there this morning and recited the story to the guy (Dan I suppose) then walked over to a coffee shop. He called me back in about 90 minutes and said to come over. The car was perfect, nothing was drawing too much of a charge and he looked all over for any other suspicious problems.

Then, he looked at me warily and said, "so, is $20 fair?" I grinned widely and agreed. The confirmation of no problems would be a deal at twice the price. He had a couple of customers in the shop and already had some cars up on the blocks. I was glad he took me on such short notice. Looked like he was doing a fair business; but not swamped. He was super friendly; which is very high on my priority list. So, Dan's Automotive is now my favorite place to take my car too. If you need a mechanic in NE Portland, you should try the place too:

Dan's Automotive
5811 NE Sandy Blvd
Portland, OR 97213
(503) 281-7788

I've developed this phenomenal practice recently of rising early with The Wife (as a high school math teacher, she gets up wicked early) and donning my ratty old pair of Uggs, I make some bacon & eggs and a pot of coffee while I read the newspaper.

I usually come away with two or three great stories that I can use for conversation when I find myself in front of a non-developer.

Today, I came across this gem in The Oregonian:

Caught in a web of stupidity
In a recent Edge, we told you that the approximate time it would take you to visit every site on the Web if you spent one second at each one was 1 day, 9 hours, 46 minutes and 34 seconds. See, we were so busy visiting this one Web site (hey, we thought they meant TURKEY breasts!) that we left out a line. The actual figure is 3 years, 2 months, 1 day, 9 hours, 46 minutes and 34 seconds, according to The Chicago Sun-Times. Hey, Persnickety McPickypants, we were only off by 3 years and 2 months!

Huh... After thinking about it, I suppose they mean just the home page of every site. Even so, its easy to see how a large array of computers can successfully scan the entire web quickly. Then, it occurred to me the truly hard part was returning "the right" results quickly on a search result page.

 One of our Pop-Art-Gives-Back-To-The-Community clients wants to implement some simple online donation services on their website. So, I was flipping through a PDF file from PayPal using my Foxit Reader and I noticed this little phrase at the top of a page:

They're giving me complementary technical documenation! No orange juice or bagel, but the doc is categorized and complete.

I saw another funny part on the PayPal site. The link to the PDF file says it requires (my emphasis) Adobe Acrobat to read it. Ha! I must be flaunting the rules with my Foxit reader; breaking the law! breaking the law!

By the way, I've had great experiences with Foxit up until yesterday. One of our black turtleneck shirt wearing designers created a PDF version of a client proposal. When I opened it in Foxit, some large background images flashed for a second, then the text content appeared without much styling. Each page behaved this way. When I opened it in Adobe Acrobat, the full beautiful proposal displayed great with background and content. Huh. I'm not sure if the designer was leveraging some custom Adobe feature or if Foxit was the culprit; it was the first and only time I didn't get parity though.

No matter how complex the Internet becomes, it refreshing to see that right and wrong are still easy to decipher. Here's the lesson that Six Apart has to pay for.

I had a fairly minor change to some code today that modified the display order of some reports implemented as unique web user controls that are loaded dynamically based on which items you select.

I wrote out my plan and before editing any code, then I asked my co-worker, Kelly, to review it and see if it held water.

Turns out, I sprung a leak. It was such a simple mistake. The code I inherited used the Session object to store a value and my flawed plan slightly modified the values in the existing Session object. My plan assumed the web user controls executed serially, when in fact, I could not guarantee that level of access to the data in the Session object.

Sans code review, I would have gone ahead and modified the code, tested it, and (hopefully) seen the error of my ways before handing it off for final review before deployment. It would have ran without throwing an error, but not correctly. The peer review saved a significant amount of time, relative to the overall time spent on the task.

Peer reviews rock. Do them early and often!

So, I made a trip to the family farm last weekend. Its nice to return to where you grew up. Lots of memories. Here's a photo set I took on my Verizon Treo 700w. Not a bad camera, if you keep the optics clean.

My Old Apple IIc. Man, I wonder how many hours I spent in front of this as a young lad? I miss you!!

The beehive is turning out nicely. They're drinking lots of syrup now:

The calves are doing well. They were dropping like flies earlier, but the last two batches have had zero death loss. I guess they're treating the right bugs now. Horray!

The canning operation has been dormant for a few years:

The future of the family. Complete with shirt AND shoes!

The primary item covering a few states in the midwest:

This is where I used to practice basketball. Did I mention I was highschool MVP?

I used to rake hay on this old International 300. It bounced a lot. There's a big spring under the seat.

I wish we had this post hole digger when we dug post holes for a deck last summer.

Our biggest tractor, International 1466.

Jake, the only horse on the farm (for now). He needs a pal, like a young mare.

The new bull on the lot, Jughead. At his current (young) age, he can breed up 15 cows this year.

What home visit would be complete without visiting all of the machinery?

New plantings for the orchard: Pears, Peaches and Apple trees:

Who needs all that new fangled crap? This rotary phone is older than me.

I just got a kick out of this coffee cake packaging on the plane. It's "mostly" something. I forget the last word and I can't quite make it out. How much more honest could you be? I love it!! It's mostly good for you.

Holy Cats!

I was browsing my logs on my blog and I discovered I'm the #1 search result for the phrase "ADO Excel Query" for the msn.com search engine.

My posting is really just calling out another person's post that I used to solve a problem. Nonetheless, that's pretty sweet.

I'm #1 baby!!! Number one!!!

So they had the ASP.Net Connections conference in Florida a few days ago. I'd love to go to that next time around.

The Telerik team chatted it up with Scott Guthrie during one of the parties. I'm convinced we're heading in the right direction at Pop Art. This post by Telerik has some good indicators and evidence. I wonder what Microsoft has in mind for easing CSS editing in the next product release. Sounds delightful.

We had a bit of a false alarm starting about 30 hours ago. Microsoft is releasing an update through their normal means that will alter the way Flash and similar ActiveX technologies render in Internet Explorer. Its due to legal action; but that part of the issue is not relevant here. The facts, as I believe them to be today at 1:35pm, Pacific are as follows:

• Microsoft announced the intended action in December, 2005.
• On February 10, 2006, Microsoft made a preview of the update, indexed as 912945, so ISVs and corporations could test the behavior. It was not included in the Windows Automatic Updates feature. Windows users would only have this patch installed if they manually installed it, or their system administrator pushed it onto their machine.
• On April 11, 2006, Microsoft released a patch, indexed as 912812, that cancels (reverts) the ActiveX behavior change made in 912945. This release, 912812, was distributed up by the Windows Automatic Update feature as a High Priority update.
• The June, 2006 update cycle will include a patch that will perminently change the behavior of the ActiveX controls, like 912945 exhibits. This patch will likely be distributed by the Windows Automatic Update feature as a High Priority update.

The false alarm started when a rumor started that Microsoft had released the June patch early. We mistakenly assumed that 912812 was the behavior altering patch that would destroy some websites due to the lack of preparation on our part.

I'm reminded of a saying that my friend's dad says: "I thought I was wrong once, and that was when I thought I was wrong."

It never really sat well with me when I heard the rumor. There are corporations that spend millions of dollars with Microsoft, and they probably have significant interests at stake here. I couldn't account for the apparent no-warning deployment of a significant behavior change. Especially when they said the deployment would be in June. It didn't follow the historical pattern of my experiences with Microsoft.

I read the 912812 article over and over. About the tenth or fifteenth time, it finally struck me. By the time my eyes got to the meat of the article, they were so glazed over that I had been skipping the most imporant facts. The rumors had brainwashed me and I was reading what I wanted to see, not was was printed on the document.

This text is the important part:

Microsoft is releasing a Compatibility Patch on April 11, 2006. As soon as it is deployed, the Compatibility Patch will temporarily return Internet Explorer to the previous functionality for handling ActiveX controls. This Compatibility Patch will function until an Internet Explorer update is released as part of the June update cycle, at which time the changes to the way Internet Explorer handles ActiveX controls will be permanent.

So that's pretty clear. The 4/11 patch, 912812, is the compatibility patch and it returns the previous functionality for a short time. It should have been written better. Its still hard to decifier without a good mental picture of the issues.

Now, to be clear, I could be wrong and I will continue some cross checking, but this is what I believe at this moment.

I've never had my car stolen from me, or broken into... until today. I jumped into my car today and looked down at the radio where I normally push a button to turn on OPB, and I saw this...

At least I had a craftsman at work here. They unplugged the wires instead of slicing them. There's a little damage on the left where they used a flat instrument to pry out the radio. It had a detachable face, but I stopped removing it after the first 60 days. The Wife bought this stereo for my birthday about three and a half years ago when we moved out to Portland. It was a dandy little radio/cd player. It wasn't terribly expensive, but its still a little disconcerting that this was done in my driveway last night. I'm much more concerned about what this says about the safety of my home and my family. I was up around 11:30pm and I heard a noise, but I thought it came from the basement. I didn't notice any other damage to the automobile. Little did I know a nut was outside stealing my radio. We'll I hope it works out for them; the jerks.

So, I painted my basement last weekend. I bought a Wagner paint sprayer, two five gallon buckets of paint (primer and semi-gloss) and two gallons of Flaming Sword (red).

I bought the $0.97 mask, thinking it would be sufficient and not much worse than the expensive mask.

Painting gives you time to think. I thought of many metaphors for painting a place on a wall by focusing on it. I had some really good ones, I wish I had a voice-recorder with me. I made up stories of how discipline, focus and commitment were all properites of a good paint job and building a quality web site.

After painted about 75% percent of the first coat of primer, I noticed I was having trouble stepping over the hoses. That's a bad thing. I put down my sprayer and headed for the great outdoors.

About an hour later, my head cleared and I drove to Home Depot in search of the most expensive mask they had. It worked like a charm. I worked for hours and hours with that sprayer, and the worse thing was a little patch of my forehead that was exposed and made for a funny clown-like white spot.

But now I have nicely painted basement. Just in time for the Oscars. Hopefully the paint smell will be gone by then.

The Govm't (please recall the strategic offsite for proper pronounciation) recently held the Internet giants to the fire for doing business in China. If you've heard the outsourcing podcast I mentioned in an earlier blog, you'll understand what its like to do business in China. You've heard the hype for the past couple of years, and its always about China as the next big thing and it should be embraced. You wouldn't get that impression from the hearing that took place.

There was talk of a "sickening collaboration". Representative Tom Lantos, Democrat of California, said "I do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night". I'm sure they sleep very comfortably, they probably have a sleep number bed. Smells like an election is drawing close.

This photo was just taken a few minutes ago, outside of the bank on Glisan, just this side of Starbucks. It seems a wild bucking bronco was tied up outside the bank, while the cowboy (buckaroo) went inside to tend to his financial affairs.

Hey, I figured out how to open a door!

1. Approach the door (see figure A)
2. Enter the secret code
3. Wait for the buzzing sound
4. Place hand on door knob
5. Do not twist the door knob
6. Push the door closed, then open the door (see figure B)

Figure A

Figure B

I had to put our team's SharePoint research and training on hold today. A couple of projects are hitting just right and we need to keep pushing the Catabolt 2006 button. Currently, only one client is requesting SharePoint help, and I can knock that out in a few hours so alas, little Windows Sharepoint Services, you will have to wait for another day.

Holly is being switched over to LifeWorksNW, bumping Kelly for the position. Holly's projects were defferred and Kelly's projects kept growing. He's knee deep in SelecTrucks work without a plan. I'm meeting with Marci and Kelly on Wednesday to figure one out.

I think I'm going to take the Detroit Diesel project because (1) I need a job too and (b) my father-in-law can give me the run down on client. His company is one of their engine part suppliers and I think he works with them quite a bit. But most of all (3) I need frequent flyer miles!!