Keep Governors Out of Jail

In the wake of the arrest of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, now is the time to start an aggressive program to keep our governors out of prison. We must reach out to this at-risk group, help them stay out of jail, and show them how to become productive members of society. The following graph shows that governors are now incarcerated at a higher rate than whites and hispanics.


Convicted US governors from the past 30 years:

Governor	State	Term	Notes
John Rowland	Connecticut	1995-2004	resigned in 2004, convicted and sent to prison
Don Siegelman	Alabama	1999-2003	convicted in 2006 on corruption charges and sent to prison
George Ryan	Illinois	1999-2003	convicted in 2006 on corruption charges and sent to prison
Bob Taft	Ohio	1999-2007	convicted of misdemeanors for failing to report gifts, remained in office
Fife Symington	Arizona	1991-1997	convicted in 1997 and forced to resign, conviction was eventually overturned
Jim Tucker	Arkansas	1992-1996	convicted in 1996 and forced to resign, received probation and house detention due to poor health
Guy Hunt	Alabama	1987-1993	convicted in 1992, sentenced to parole, later granted a pardon by the parole board based on innocence
Edwin Edwards	Louisiana	1972–1980, 1984–1988, and 1992–1996	convicted in 1998 and sent to prison
Marvin Mandel	Maryland	1969-1979	convicted in 1977, sent to prison, conviction was overturned in 1987
Rod Blagojevich	Illinois	2002-present	arrested on December 9, 2008

Please help keep our governors out of prison!

- schneid

Fitness notes 12/5

I worked out 2-3 times the week before Thanksgiving, swam and went on a hike during the week of Thanksgiving, and worked out twice this week. This week really should've been 3-4 times, but it's a start. I'm going to start playing volleyball with my friend Tim next week. It has been, oh, almost 7 years since I've played regularly in an indoor volleyball league. It should be fun and I'm looking forward to it.

And if it ever warms up to 50 (it's like 12 degrees today), I'd like to start running with the other Tim again.

- schneid

summer blend gas

I love that term - "summer blend gas". Whenever I think about it, I'm reminded of one of my favorite lines from Seinfeld. Jerry is buying a car from David Puddy, and says "That undercoating, that’s just a rip-off, isn’t it?", and Puddy says "Oh, we don't even know what that is."

The plunging oil prices made me think of that. Watch out, by the way. We're not even close to the bottom of this recession. Unemployment, housing, stock market, and everything else are still on their way down. Why? There's no reason for them to go up. There are a lot more people that are going to default on their mortgages and lose their jobs. You can't improve the economy if people aren't working, regardless of what Wall Street or Washington would have you believe.

- schneid

Thanksgiving 2008

I really need to catch up on the last 6 months, but maybe I should start with the most recent events since those are fresh in my mind.

Due to the bad economy, we decided to drive to North Carolina for Thanksgiving this year instead of flying. This was the first time we drove there with the kids. We gave Anna an early Christmas present, a Nintendo DS and some games.

The kids occupied themselves with their games, books, and DVDs. We spent some time sitting in the back with Anna and keeping her busy. The first day was an easy one, a 5 hour drive to Bloomington, Indiana to visit Kevin, Amy, Carter, and Archie. We hadn't seen them (I think) since our 20 year reunion in August 2006.

We arrived around 2:00 and stayed until after dinner. Ben and Carter were excited to see each other, almost as excited as Sweetness the attention-starved (or so he would have you believe) beagle was to see us. The kids (that sometimes includes Kevin) ran around and had fun while the adults (that sometimes includes Kevin) caught up. We had fun playing Wii Rock Band and hanging out. We had a great time - thanks Kevin and Amy!

We spent the night at a hotel in preparation for our 6:15 wakeup - because I didn't want to hit the mountains in the dark that night. We did wake up on time but didn't leave quickly due to a leisurely breakfast. It had been beautiful and sunny the previous day. This day it was dark and rainy.

We drove on some winding roads back to the freeway. It seems like Bloomington is up on a hill. This was the start of hilly driving which continued for the next 7 hours until we past Asheville, North Carolina. We did get some daylight in the mountains. And mostly is was drizzling, so the drive wasn't too bad. We arrived in Clemmons around 7:30 PM.

The kids were excited to see Nana and Zadie (and Tigger and Eeyore, their cats), and vice-versa except for the cats. After a day or two, an adult would be able to rub the cats into a purr-induced coma so that the kids could pet them. The cats referred to Anna (or at least we imagined they did) as the "Pink Thing". They would take off whenever the kids were moving.

We went to Sci Works in Winston-Salem with Zadie on Tuesday. It's a nice science museum for kids and we enjoyed it. On Wednesday, we went swimming at the YMCA with Nana. Debi and David arrived with Genevieve that day. On Thursday, we visited a couple of Zadie's homes for sale and had a big Thanksgiving dinner at home. Of course, that was not much different from every other night that we had a big dinner, except that Nana did all the work on Thursday. We ate and drank too much the entire week. On Friday, we went hiking at Pilot Mountain. It was a nice sunny day and maybe 50 degrees up there. In fact, it was sunny and warm the entire week. Near the end of the hike there was a lot of grumbling, but we had fun and needed the exercise.

Nana and Zadie were gracious hosts as always - it's not easy to have a houseful of people for a week. Nana's brother also came on Wednesday and left on Friday, so they had 8 guests! I think everyone had a great time. It was fun to add Genevieve to the mix. The kids liked having another kid around and Anna really liked doing things with her.

Now that we were leaving on Saturday, of course the clouds and rain came back, although it only rained for about 3 hours on the drive home. We left before noon and drove straight back home. We spent about 12 hours driving and 2.5 hours on stops. Anna fell asleep around 8:30, but Ben was so excited to go home that he didn't fall asleep until about 9:30. We took turns driving and it went fine until we hit the wall around 9:30. The next hour or two were excruciating until the caffeine set in. The last 4 hours were tough. We were really sick of being in the car and ready to get home. We arrived around 1:30 AM. We were all happy to be back in our own beds!

Airfare was about $425 each, plus we needed to rent a car, so it would've cost a minimum of $1900. With the price of gas as low as 1.54 (in Indiana) and an average of about 1.79, we only spent about $150 on gas. We spent one night at a hotel and had some meals. The whole trip cost less than $400. Good deal. I did have one splurge - I bought a Garmin Nuvi 650 GPS before the trip. It worked very well and I left my stack of maps at home.

- schneid

again

Another day, another workout. On Wednesday, I attended a yoga class at work. I am very sore from the Tuesday fitness class, so that was perfect. The stretching felt great. Then I had a big salad for lunch.

- schneid

another workout

I worked out again today. Woohoo, two days in a row, it's a new record. I didn't work up a sweat yesterday so I decided to try the fitness class today. I have never attended a fitness class. It was not fun. I had 12 lb weights in my hands for almost 45 minutes. My stomach muscles were cramping from all the abdominal work. I know I sound like a wimp but it's pretty tough when you're this out of shape.

Thank god it was taco salad day in the cafeteria. It was almost worth it. Fortunately they have yoga tomorrow. I'll go to class and just lay on the floor.

Can't wait to try it again next week! Buy some Advil stock.

- schneid

I worked out

Yes, believe it or not, I worked out. I've been slacking off badly. I worked out hard a couple months ago and ended up with back spasms. That wasn't fun. I'm feeling better now, including my ankle, so I'm going to get back in the groove. Hopefully I can hit the gym at least 3 times this week, especially since next week is Thanksgiving. I also ate a salad for lunch. Pathetic, I know. But it's a start.

- schneid

Swoopo - wish I'd thought of THAT!

These is this ridiculous new auction site called swoopo. The company itself is auctioning all the items. In some auctions, the bid increments are 1 or 15 cents. And the winner of the auction generally gets a TV or laptop or whatever at a good price.

Here's the catch...it costs $1 to place a bid! Suppose they auction off a TV worth $1500. Let's suppose that 100 people bid about 50 times each for this TV. So the TV sells for $750. Someone gets a $1500 TV for $750 (plus their $50 in bids). 99 people are out $50 each. And swoopo makes...drum roll please...$5000!!! (OK, they had to pay $1200 for the TV which they sold for $750, so they made $5000-1200+750 = $4550 profit.)

They also have automatic bidding so sometime near the end of an auction, automatic bids come fast and furious. And every time someone bids, it adds time to the clock!

Sometime they even auction off CASH. That doesn't seem legal. It's basically gambling. The whole thing seems borderline illegal and unethical. They are making money like crazy. Wish I'd thought of it!

- schneid

Creating tabs in SharePoint using Javascript and CSS

I couldn’t find an example of this, but I was determined to make it work. Here is the result.

I wanted a set of tabs where clicking on a tab would change the category but stay on the same page. Also, I must be able to pass in that category through the URL.

For example, I might have a web page http://...describe.aspx. I want to display information from several SharePoint lists. However, if I use the
URL http://...describe.aspx?animal=cat, then I only want the information about cats, and if I use http://...describe.aspx?animal=dog, then I only want the information about dogs.

Data views in SharePoint Designer will be used to display the desired information, using the animal variable. The method for that is not described here.

So I need to somehow read the variable from the URL using JavaScript. Then I need to highlight the tab corresponding to the variable. I found the code for that here: http://www.dynamicdrive.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-11883.html

It doesn’t look that great in the screenshots, but when you put the code into a SharePoint web part, it looks better. Here is the code:


<style type="text/css">



span.class1

{

float: left;

padding: 4px 0px;

font-size: 1em;

font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif;

border-right: 1px solid rgb(123,166,225);

}



.class1 A:link

{

background-color: #ffffff;

padding: 4px 10px;

background-image="url(/sites/_layouts/images/topnavunselected.gif)";

background-repeat:repeat-x;

}

.class1 A:visited

{

background-color: #ffffff;

padding: 4px 10px;

background-image="url(/sites/_layouts/images/topnavunselected.gif)";

background-repeat:repeat-x;

}

.class1 A:hover

{

text-decoration: none;

background-color: #FCE293;

padding: 4px 10px;

background-image="url(/sites/_layouts/images/PortalTabSelected.gif)";

background-repeat:repeat-x;

}

.class1 A:active

{

background-color: #ffffff;

padding: 4px 10px;

background-image="url(/sites/_layouts/images/topnavunselected.gif)";

background-repeat:repeat-x;

}









</style>





<script type="text/JavaScript">



// set the color of the chosen tab

// the tab is chosen by appending ?page=cat to the URL



function change(page)

{

document.getElementById(page).style.backgroundColor = "#7BA6E1";

document.getElementById(page).style.backgroundImage="url(/sites/_layouts/images/topnavselected.gif)";

document.getElementById(page).style.backgroundRepeat= "repeat-x";

document.getElementById(page).style.fontWeight= "bold";



}



// runs a function at page load time



function addLoadEvent(func) {



  var oldonload = window.onload;

  if (typeof window.onload != 'function') {

    window.onload = func;

  } else {

    window.onload = function() {

      if (oldonload) {

        oldonload();

      }

      func();

    }

  }

}



// run this function at page load time



addLoadEvent(function $_GET(key_str) {

if(window.location.search) {

var query = window.location.search.substr(1);

var pairs = query.split(/&|;/);

for(var i = 0; i < pairs.length; i++) {

var pair = pairs[i].split("=");

if(unescape(pair[0]) == key_str)

return unescape(pair[1]);

}

}

change(pair[1]);

}

);



</script>



<span class=class1>

<a href="default.aspx?page=cat" id=cat>cat</a>

</span>



<span class=class1>

<a href="default.aspx?page=dog" id=dog>dog</a>

</span>



<span class=class1>

<a href="default.aspx?page=horse" id=horse>horse</a>

</span>





- schneid

The Salesman at Home

I was wondering what life might be like for the salesman at home.

Customer (Billy): cries and screams incoherently.

Salesman (Dad): "OK, I understand. I'm sure we can do that, let me talk to Engineering. No problem."

Later:

Dad: "The customer would like the system to produce chocolate milk. When can we have that implemented?"

Engineering (Mom): "I'm pretty sure that's impossible".

Dad: "3 months then?"

Mom (exasperated): FINE.

Dad: "Also, a stretch goal would be a baby brother, can you squeeze that in? It's a nice to have, but would really help our customer relationship. The customer really wants that."

Mom: "I think we need more time to consider the implications of that. And we're going to need input from sales. It's going to take 9 months, at least."

Dad: "Can't you work harder and move some things around? We really need this or we might lose the customer. And we need it in 3 months."

Mom (giving up): "Sure."

- schneid

Anticipating the Great Taste of the Midwest 2008

I love beer festivals. Granted, I haven't been to many, but when it's love, you just KNOW it, you know? The Great Taste is a terrific beer festival for so many reasons. It's really well-organized and reasonably priced at $35. They only sell 5000 tickets, so it's not overcrowded. It's held at a nice park on the lake in Madison. The people are friendly and the food is good. Best of all, every good brewery in the Midwest is serving beer. You can sample some rare beers that are almost impossible to get, such as barrel aged Dark Lord and barrel aged Darkness.

I can't wait for August 9!

- schneid

Why did the caribou cross the road?

...because their habitat was destroyed by profit-mongering US oil companies! Gosh, that's not very funny.

Yes, the price of gas is very high right now. That sucks. Most everyone would agree with that. But will drilling for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Reserve solve that problem? No.

Here's the premise: we need to drill for oil in Alaska to lower gas prices!

And here are the reasons that will not work:

• It will take years to get any oil from ANWR, so why would that help oil prices now?
  
• The total oil coming from ANWR will be about 1% of the world oil supply. Why should we think that will affect oil prices by more than 1%?
  
• OPEC controls the world's oil prices, so if we actually manage to produce more oil, they will just produce less, keeping the prices the same.
  
• Even if somehow we could put a dent in the oil supply, why would Big Oil give us a break on the price??? They could do that RIGHT NOW! But do they? NO! They continue to make record profits while we all suffer the consequences.
  

Congress could force oil companies to charge less money for gas. But they won't do it, because they get big campaign contributions from Big Oil!

Big Oil could charge less for gas, and maybe just for one quarter they could have just average billion dollar profits, rather than record multi-billion dollar profits. But they won't do it, because then where would the CEos get all the 100 dollar bills to light their cigars?

Good potential solutions may be:

• alternative energy sources
  
• drive less
  
• more fuel efficient cars
  
• take public transportation
  
• 4 day work week
  

Unfortunately, those things won't happen soon enough, because Americans like to drive their gas guzzlers. And this problem hurts the lower class the most. After all, $400 per month for gas hurts a lot more if your gross income is $2000 per month than if it is $6000 per month. So politicians don't give a crap because they all make tons of money. The US auto industry is reacting too slowly and they will soon be gone because of it.

Didn't we encounter the very same problem in the 1970s? Everyone was going crazy about solar power and other alternative energy sources. Then we were all fat and happy in the 80s and 90s and forgot all about it. Maybe if we spent billions of dollars on research instead of war, we would already have an answer.

Maybe McCain will follow Bush's lead and send everyone an extra tax refund - an economic incentive. Unfortunately, that's just giving you back your own money.

- schneid

Poker tourney cash

I finally managed to win a little money in a poker tournament.

I was disappointed with my results at Friday's tournament with our weekly group. I would be remiss to not mention my first bustout (it was a rebuy tourney) to Marc with my KK vs his 99 where, of course, he rivered a 9. Anyway, I finished 7th out of 10.

On Saturday night, I found some cool tournaments on PokerStars. There are $12 sit-n-gos for 180 players. The only ones that ever fill are turbos, which I'm not crazy about. It's amazing how fast these go - 2/3 of the players are eliminated in under an hour. It pays 18 places, but you don't get much unless you are top 5. I won a 9 player $16 sit-n-go for $67.50 but didn't cash in the 180-player.

On Sunday night, I played in 6 simultaneous 180-player sit-n-gos. They fill up every 10 minutes or so. I at least doubled my stack in four of them. And finally, in one of them, I made it to the final 3. The overwhelming chip leader surprisingly offered to make a deal. He suggested a very good deal and we agreed. I was third in chips with about 26,000, and the other players had about 54,000 and 190,000. My cut was $350, which was almost second place money.

It was nice to get a decent cash and I'm going to start playing these regularly. The level of the players is awful. When it gets down to about 30 players, the skill level is pretty good. But there isn't much room to maneuver because the antes kick in and the stacks aren't very big, so you pretty much need to push all-in or fold. And then you need to get lucky.

I also played in an insane 0.50/$1 cash game on Saturday night. A guy kept making and calling raises with crap and making huge hands. Here's the first hand he showed down, and lost:

UTG limps, UTG+1 raises to $16 all-in (huge overbet), Maniac calls on BB, UTG calls all-in.

UTG: JJ
UTG+1: AQo
Maniac: 8d3s ???

The board came 6s As 6c 8h 2s and AQo wins with two pair. But the Maniac called a huge $14 to win a $18.50 pot with 83 offsuit! Shortly after, the Maniac triples up.

UTG limps for $1, UTG+2 limps, SB raises to $6, BB (Maniac) raises to $22 all-in, UTG folds, UTG+2 calls all-in, SB calls all-in. The hands?

UTG+2: AcAs
SB: QdQc
Maniac: 43cc

Flop: 3h 2c Tc
Turn: 9c !
River: 2s

And Maniac triples up with his flush. The following hand occurred immediately after that one:

HJ-1 limps, HJ raises to $4, SB (Maniac) calls, BB calls, HJ-1 calls.

Flop: 6c 2d 2h

HJ bets $10, Maniac calls, everyone else folds.

Turn: 9c

HJ bets $21, Maniac raises to $49 all-in, HJ calls.

River: Qc

The HJ had TT. Maniac flopped a boat with 6h2s!

In two hands, the Maniac now has 6x his starting stack.

Now everyone is gunning for the Maniac, calling raises with very little, and hoping to double up. I finally get a decent hand and get into a pot with him.

me: AKo
Maniac: ?

Maniac raises to $5 UTG, CO calls, I call on SB. I wanted to reraise, but I didn't want the CO to think I was trying to isolate the maniac and reraise me.

Flop: 8d Qd Ac

I check to give the Maniac some rope, Maniac bets $10, CO goes all-in for $13, I raise to $25, Maniac calls.

Turn: 9d

I hate that card. I check, Maniac bets $20, I call.

River: 6c

I check, Maniac bets $25, I call.

Maniac shows down 5d3d for a flush! I lost $70 in that pot. I started playing badly, calling raises with bad hands to try to snap off the maniac, but it never happened. Fortunately, I managed to get all-in with someone else with QQ vs TT on a 922 flop to recover my loss and actually finish the table with a slight gain. The Maniac started with $39 and worked it up over $200.

-schneid

Blog Slacker

Sorry that I've been slacking badly on my blog. I need to catch up on Dark Lord Day (April), our Disney trip (April/May), geocaching (June?), my sprained ankle, cub scout stuff including family camp (June), my upcoming trip to my childhood summer camp, Camp Edwards, etc. Now that I'm off World of Warcrack, I might be able to get those blogged.

- schneid

World of Warcrack

In college, I spent a lot of time playing MUDs - Multi-user dimensions, which were a precursor to the massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) of today, like World of Warcraft. I eventually became a programmer for some of those MUDs, including the famous HERO MUD. After college, I stopped playing.

Shortly after Ben was born, I borrowed Might and Magic 5 or 6 from a friend. That game is a single player game and isn't even very good, and I played it in all my spare time for a month. I believe Suzette's exact words were "It's us or the game". I gave it back and made my friend promise not to let me borrow it.

A week ago, Suzette gave me a subscription to World of Warcraft for Father's Day.

I am proud to say without any uncertainty and beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I must stop playing this game right now. It's so thoroughly addicting and the hugest time suck. While playing, you check the time and think 30 minutes have gone by, and it's been 3 hours. And I'm not even playing with a group of people, just soloing.

There's a reason they refer to it as World of Warcrack. It's highly addictive. Just like giving samples to kiddies, they give a 10-day free trial, knowing you will get hooked. And I am.

Fortunately, I used the 10-day free trial instead of the subscription, knowing what might happen. I'm going to Target to trade it in for something less addictive like heroin. :) There's a reason that we have never owned an Xbox or other gaming system. Hmm, I wonder if they have those at Target?

- schneid

This was supposed to be the Summer of George!

I haven't blogged in awhile because there's nothing to blog. I sprained my ankle badly on May 9. Plyaing basketball, I made a good cut (unusual for me), got the pass, went up for the shot...and came down hard on someone's foot. I saw the doctor, spent a week on crutches, then hobbled around for a week, but the pain was so bad, I went to see a specialist. He gave me an aircast (the boot) and told me to wear it for 2-3 weeks.

It's a bummer because I was getting back into the groove of running regularly and had lost a few pounds before the injury. I had our bicycles tuned up and was planning on riding to work. We live near the Prairie Path and I can safely ride to work, and it's about 7 miles which is a great short ride. And the summer volleyball season is starting.

This was supposed to be the Summer of George! Do you remember that Seinfeld episode? George discovers that he has a 3 month severance package from the Yankees. He decides to take the summer off, and declares it the "Summer of George". But he gets injured, and the doctor says "Mr. Costanza, your legs have sustained extensive trauma. Apparently your body was in a state of advanced atrophy, due to a period of extreme inactivity. But with a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck, I think there's a good chance you may, one day, walk again." Unmoved by the news, Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer go out for coffee and leave him. He shouts at them as they walk away, "This was supposed to be the Summer of George!"

I plan to wear the boot for a few more days, then start rehabilitating my ankle. I hope to ride my bike pretty soon and play volleyball by the end of June. I had planned to seriously get into shape this summer and drop a lot of weight. Unfortunately, the injury has interfered with the Summer of George but I'll have almost two months left when I'm ready to go.

- schneid

Here comes Dark Lord Day!

I'm psyched for Dark Lord Day. And also Disney World. :) Suzette took her last quiz a week early, so she is done with her class and earned an A. Friday night, Bob is in town with his family and we are all meeting at Tim's house. Saturday is Dark Lord Day. Last year was the first time I attended Dark Lord Day, and it was awesome. I'm bringing some cool beer to share and trade, and I'll get my ration of Dark Lord. Then on Sunday, we're going to Disney World for a week.

I love vacation!

- schneid

Russian Imperial Stout

This is my favorite beer style and I'm assembling a lineup of the best RIS for a tasting with friends. I plan to have about 8 people at the tasting and will have about 12 beers. That might not sound like much, but a Russian Imperial Stout has double to triple the alcohol of your typical beer. We will be sharing 22 oz bombers of each, or two 12 ouncers in some cases.

I've been making beer trades to get the rare ones. For example, a RIS called Sexual Chocolate has only been bottled once, and there were only 500 bottles. Dark Lord may be rare, but they made 5000+ bottles last year. Surly Darkness has only been bottled once and there were only 480 bottles.

Here's the complete lineup. Some of these are not Russian Imperial Stouts, but they are all thick, black, and yummy.

• Three Floyds Dark Lord
  
• Portsmouth Brewing Kate the Great
  
• Foothills Brewing Sexual Chocolate
  
• Deschutes The Abyss
  
• Goose Island Bourbon County Stout
  
• Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout
  
• Alesmith Speedway Stout
  
• Stone Imperial Russian Stout
  
• Smuttynose Imperial Stout
  
• Bell's Expedition Stout
  
• Great Lakes Blackout Stout
  
• America's Brewing Company Bourbon Barrel Signature Imperial Stout

Don't have yet:

• Peche Mortel
  
• Surly Darkness
  
• Lost Abbey Older Viscosity
  
• Ten Fidy

The Ten Fidy is easy to get, just not around here. The Peche Mortel is harder to get, but not impossible. The Older Viscosity will be hard and the Darkness almost impossible.

Here are some that are easy to get, but might not make the cut:

• Great Divide Oak Aged Yeti
  
• Southern Tier Choklat
  
• various Rogue stouts
  
• North Coast Old Rasputin
  
• Bear Republic Big Bear Black Stout
  
• Victory Storm King Stout

- schneid

Fitness status 4/16

I played basketball on Monday. I hadn't been out in a couple of weeks and I played pretty well. I also played on Wednesday. It was really windy outside so shooting was horrible. I jammed my pinky and ring finger and played through it. It's sprained pretty good and swelled up today. Looks like I won't be playing for a few days. Tim and I are scheduled to run on Friday if it doesn't rain.

- schneid

Fitness update 4/11

Here's a little fitness update - maybe it will be easier if I do it weekly rather than daily.

I strained a ligament in my back on March 31, then over the weekend I actually threw a vertebra out of whack. The chiropractor really helped my ligament last week, and on Monday he fixed the vertebra in about 5 seconds. My back feels a lot better.

I lifted weights hard on Monday and Wednesday. I ran with Tim at lunchtime today. So, not a bad week. It felt good to get out there.

I plan to go back to my regular routine of basketball 1-2x per week, running 1-2x per week, and weights 1-2x per week. I hadn't been exercising nearly enough in February and March. I also wasn't lifting weights at all. I think that is critical so that I can keep everything in good enough condition to handle all this exercise.

I've been eating better than usual, having a salad for lunch a couple times this week and some reasonable dinners, and avoiding (somewhat) sweets.

I'll play basketball next week and see how it feels.

- schneid

Fitness status

On Sunday, I decided to start working out vigorously. I was over my cold and ready to get some exercise. On Monday, I played basketball at lunch and actually played decently. Then I made a sudden move and wrenched my back. Great, my plan for getting back into shape lasted 24 hours. On Wednesday, I saw a chiropractor. Fortunately, it's just a strained ligament and it feels better already, so I should be back in action in a couple of days. It's really frustrating because we had great weather for running this week. Maybe next week...

It's tough getting old!

- schneid

Poker Stars and Full Tilt

Last week, I started playing at Poker Stars and Full Tilt. I bought a prepaid Visa card and was able to get money into the accounts with it. I had been playing on UltimateBet ever since PartyPoker disallowed US players. The problem with UltimateBet is that there just aren't that many players, and not enough selection in tournaments and cash games.

I have learned one thing. The cash players on Poker Stars and Full Tilt are better. At the same levels (.25/.50 and .50/1 no-limit), the players are much more aggressive. There is rarely an unraised pot preflop. On Ultimatebet, I could limp in with small pairs and suited connectors all the time. That just doesn't happen on Stars. If you limp on Stars, I guarantee someone will raise and shut out the limpers.

As for the tournaments I've played, the skill level is about the same. My goal is to win satellites to play in the big Sunday tournaments. Stars has double shootout satellites for $11? with a good structure. I played in a shootout with about 60 players tonight. I made it to heads up at the first table and we played a long time. In fact, we were the last table out of 10 to finish. It was a close match and I had a good read on my opponent; unfortunately, I jammed A3 at the wrong time, when he had AK.

I can definitely win the first table in a shootout. There are usually 2-3 players who bust out pretty quickly, which is silly because the structure is so good. There is plenty of time and no need to be overly aggressive. Winning the final table is another matter. That will be tough and require a lot of luck too. I think I'm playing decently and learning from my mistakes. Hopefully I'll have some results to show for it soon.

- schneid

The downfall of grammar

Since more communication is in written form now, you might think that grammar and spelling would improve. I think it's worse. The proliferation of text messaging is partly to blame, since it is dependent on using shortened (incorrectly spelled) words. People don't put any thought into their written words. My biggest pet peeves include "would of," as in "I would of been there" (I would've been there) and using apostrophes for plurals, as in "I have 3 dog's." It's (or its) an endless list but I'll quit there (or their or they're). (I have to admit that I normally violate the "punctuation within quotations rule," and would usually place the comma outside of the quotes in this sentence.)

Email should be a clear form of communication. You have the opportunity to put together some coherent thoughts in your own time. The recipient can then answer at his convenience, also putting time into his responses. This is much better than a phone call, where the caller might blather on endlessly before actually stating the question. Unfortunately, email has degraded into a "type how I speak" form in which the sender simply types exactly the words they would say on the phone. Any semblance of decorum is lost.

Of course, the level of formality depends on the relationship of the two parties. If you are chatting with your buddy, go crazy. If it's a work email or you are trying to prove a logical point, poor grammar really blows your cover.

My son is learning grammar in second grade. I don't recall learning that until junior high school. I am amazed that he can correct a poorly formed sentence. Hopefully, the net generation (whoops, I meant to type "next" but that seems appropriate) will do better.

- schneid

Bear Stearns and the Economy

Wow, that's some amazing news. Bear Stearns was trading for $87 on February 27. One year ago, their stock was as high as $167 per share. Today, JP Morgan Chase bought them out for about $2 per share, a total of about $236 million.

Let's see how much money CEO Alan Schwartz earned last year. $35.7, well, let's just call it an even $36 million dollars. And for what? Losing 98.8% of his company's value in only 1 year! Congratulations! But it's not his fault, you say? If the CEO isn't responsible for the fate of his company, then the CEO shouldn't get paid a lot of money. I believe the CEO is responsible and still shouldn't get paid a lot of money. Give them $1 million and give them a big bonus based on the company's performance. Of course, then they would just cook the books so they could be billionaires instead of millionaires.

I think the economy is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Oil prices are at a record high, the US dollar is at a record low, banks are collapsing, inflation is rising, unemployment is rising, the market id down, the housing market has slumped for two years, and the fed continues to lower interest rates.

But don't worry, you'll be getting your economic stimulus check soon! That will fix everything! :)

And what will we do with that money? Buy more cheap stuff from China! And the more junk we buy from China, the faster we'll lose our jobs.

Let's just cut out the middle man. Instead of sending refunds to taxpayers, why doesn't the government send 1/2 the money to US corporations and 1/2 the money to the Chinese?

- schneid

This reminds me of a quote from Good Will Hunting.

Will: Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll take a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. Maybe I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never met, never had a no problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Oh, Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number got called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some kid from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes back to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile he realizes the only reason he was over there in the first place was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish over there to scare up domestic oil prices. A cute little ancillary benefit for them, but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back of course, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and fuckin' play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So now my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the fuckin' job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what did I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. I figure fuck it, while I'm at it why not just shoot my buddy, take his job, give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.

Glory Builders

If you are interested in building a new home near Clemmons, Lewisville, Advance, or Winston-Salem in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina, look no further than Glory Builders! Harvey Schneider builds quality homes at reasonable prices.

Developments include Barrington Oaks, Bermuda Run West, Riverway on the Yadkin, and Taylors Run. Visit the Glory Builders web site and see for yourself.

- schneid

Getting back in the swing

Poker sucked last night. There were 9 players and I was only 1 hour late but was the 9th, which meant that I had to squeeze between two guys at the octagon table. I couldn't catch decent cards to save my life, and folded the winner on the river at least 4 times. 9 players is ridiculous if we're not playing flop games.

I've slacked pretty badly at exercising and thus blogging. I've managed to exercise twice a week, but haven't been running since mid-January. I could play basketball indoors but it's 54 degrees today so I'm planning a run. I'm hoping to run a lot more often as the weather warms up.

Weight: 193. I'm up 9 from my best, but still down 7 from where I started. It's hard to exercise enough during the winter but that's no excuse.

Food:

• 2 granola bars, coffee with Equal and skim milk
  
• big salad for lunch, diet Pepsi, small piece of cake, banana
  
• dinner - taco salad

Exercise:

• lifted weights, then ran and walked about 2 miles.

- schneid

dinner at Charlie Trotter's

On March 8, we went to Charlie Trotter's in Chicago to celebrate two 40th birthdays. Suzette will be 40 in a few days, and my running partner Tim actually turned 40 that day. I can honestly say that our dinner at Charlie Trotter's was the best meal I've ever had.

For a lot more photos, please visit my Flickr page.

We checked into the Radisson Hotel and Suites Chicago around 4:15. The hotel is under renovation, which is a pain. You actually have to go outside to walk from the lobby to the elevators or the pub. Fortunately, the rooms we reserved were not available and we were upgraded to a junior suite.

we walked around Michigan Avenue...

We met up with Tim and Thea around 7:15 and walked over to the Elephant and Castle pub. We had a light snack and some good beer - the Fuller's ESB was great but the Fuller's London Porter wasn't as good as usual.

We left around 8:30 and grabbed a cab to Charlie Trotter's. We arrived early and only waited a few minutes for our table. We could have had dinner at 6:00, but we wanted to eat at the kitchen table which was only available at 9:00 that night.

More details to come. It took over 3 hours to finish dinner!



- schneid

Bad web design

I am so tired of bad web design. My biggest pet peeve is when a web site has a workflow diagram with a little word under each picture describing the item – but you can’t click on the picture, only on the word!
It’s even worse when the word is small. A similar problem is when you are supposed to click on some teeny tiny icon to open a link. You can barely get your cursor on that icon. Here is a table of information and you click on an item to get more information. But instead of having a link from the description, you must click on the small number!
Another common web design problem is the difficulty of finding relevant information. Most visitors to certain types of web sites are often in search of 2-3 pieces of information. For example, most visitors to a school web site are probably looking for the school calendar (or lunch calendar), the attendance line (to call when your child is sick) or office phone number, or school closings. All this information should appear on the school’s main web page and you should be able to see it without scrolling. There shouldn’t just be a link to that stuff, the information should appear on that page.

Sometimes web sites have icons instead of words for common links. I think icons are ok when you use the web site a lot, like your blog. A little pencil icon means edit. OK, I get it. But if someone only visits a web site occasionally, what does a little book icon mean? Address book? Read a book? Who knows. Web sites with infrequent visitors should abandon icons or at least combine them with text.

Even worse are bad fonts. I’ve seen some pretty unreadable fonts. Here’s an example:

If you like the look of a fancy font, then use it for your header. But a paragraph needs to have a readable font. You also shouldn't assume that every browser supports the fonts that you have. At least take it into consideration when you use a fancy font.

I've seen pages that have no headers or categories - the links are embedded into paragraphs. This style was abandoned about 15 years ago for good reason. It's cute when it's your personal web site but not when it's an information web site. I don't have time to read a paragraph, just list out the relevant links!

Better searches! This is a category in itself, and really applies to big corporate sites as opposed to mom and pop web sites, since they presumably don't have the programming capability to do it right. It's unbelievable that I can go to a hotel web site, type in Madison, and what comes up is a list of damn near every Madison in the US...except Wisconsin...because that is on the SECOND page of results! Come on! Or when there is only one result to your search - but instead of displaying the information, the web site displays a link! Now you must click again to get the information. Argh!

Here's one of my favorites. I'm trying to book a flight. I enter Chicago and Albany. And here's what I get:

This site may be using a soundex search, in case people type a word the way it sounds and misspell it. But that's idiotic when they have spelled the word correctly and there is only one exact match.

Try to display the information in the same page whenever possible. I've been thinking about this lately, and I'm sure that other people have too. I'm tired of opening page after page of subcategories to get information when the site has very little information in the first place.

If you have a personal site, or your site isn’t informational, do whatever you like. But if you have an informational web site, please don’t do these:

• Bad fonts
  
• Hard to find important information
  
• Can't click on images or links are not obvious
  
• Non-descriptive categories
  
• Bad searches
  
• Too many clicks to get to relevant information
  
• No headers, categories, or list of links

My wife is getting tired of hearing me say "This is the WORST web site EVER!"

- schneid

Stimulate the economy?

Let's just send money to everyone to stimulate the economy. I'm sure that will work!

If they send everyone money, one thing that will be stimulated is home mortgage refinancing. I was just looking into this myself. I could probably break even within a year, but definitely within two years. Then I would save 43,000 in interest over the life of my loan. Even more if mortgage rates drop below 5.5%. Unless I desperately needed the money for something else, which I don't, this would be the best financial decision for me. This is probably true for almost everyone.

- schneid

New paintings

We bought some paintings from an Israeli door-to-door salesman. I bet you've never heard that sentence before.

Suzette called me at work and said that a man was selling very nice original oil paintings. They were pretty expensive, at least to us, since most of our artwork has been purchased for $50 or less, but we considered buying one of the small ones. She said the paintings were very good. She asked him to return when I came home from work.

He showed us about 20 original oil paintings on rolled-up canvases. He had an accent so we asked where he was from - an Israeli accent is very hard to place. He was very intent on pleasing us, and showed off the paintings and made suggestions for which would match our decor. We ended up buying two - a small one and a big one. They are almost identical - Paris street scenes with the Eiffel Tower. One now resides over the fireplace in our family room and the big one is in the living room. The salesman was actually the artist that painted our paintings.

There were some other paintings that we really liked of Mediterranean scenes and typical French or Italian hill towns, but those were all tall rather than wide, and we don't have a good spot for them.

The story is that a group of art students are opening a gallery in New York. They sold paintings in the Batavia area last year, and decided to come back again this year. The paintings are all original oils by these students.

My neighbor is convinced that this is a scam. I ask him, "What's the scam? I have two beautiful original oil paintings that I love at a fair price." Sure, it's sounds funny that paintings are being sold door-to-door, but unless they're stolen, I can't imagine what the scam is.

The artist suggested a local friend who does framing. We checked at Michael's and JoAnn's, and framing is outrageously expensive. $1000 for two paintings - with a coupon you can get it for $500. We invited the local framer to come over. He was also Israeli, and really wanted to please us. He showed us all the frames with our paintings and made suggestions. Framing a canvas oil painting involves more than just sticking it in a frame. You must stretch the canvas over a homemade frame and staple it. We picked some frames, and he would frame the paintings and return them in a week. Now that's the part that might sound like a scam - you just bought some paintings from one guy, and now another guy is going to take those paintings and frame them. Hmm, would they ever return? But they let you choose any painting as collateral - so you pick another painting that you really like and keep it until they return your framed paintings.

Of course, the framed paintings were returned in a week and we really like them. The photo is the big one. No, it's not crooked, I just can't shoot straight.

- Mike

Let's tax the rich

I have an idea...let's raise taxes on the 10% most wealthy people in the US. I would bet that, say, 90% of US citizens would agree with that. That should work! Let's use the money to help the lower and middle class. Perhaps we can have school lunches or send the kids to college. But wait...the congressmen who could pass that law are in that 10% most wealthy. I guess it won't happen. We could convince them to do it - we're their constituents, after all. We voted for them. Oh, but then some rich people would give them large donations and subtlely suggest that they don't pass the law. And the corporations at which those rich people are CEOs would also donate money. And the Republicans would somehow convince the lower class that this "Robin Hood" law of robbing the rich and giving to the poor isn't fair, put some completely unrelated religious issue on the ballot, and get another Republican voted into the White House!

Sorry, went off on a tangent there.

What's so funny? Our forefathers started this country to get away from religious persecution and taxation without representation. They wanted a government that was elected by the people, for the people. Our government is elected by the people* but I don't think it's for the people. And the government wants to impose its religious agenda on everyone through the laws and the Supreme Court. Unless I'm really wrong about Americans, in which case maybe I'm living in the wrong country.

- schneid

* Exception: 2000 US presidential election when the president was elected by the Supreme Court.