New Title

My original title stuck me as a bit too ponderous and I didn't like how the one word spilled over onto the second line all by it's little lonesome. So a new leaner, meaner title. Do believe it rolls off the tongue a bit easier as well.

A whirlwind week

I'm working on a big project at work, even bringing stuff home to work on, something I normally don't do. It's coming along well, just taking a lot of time. Real excited about it. As part of this project I've had to do a lot of work on Excel, most of my previous experience w/ Lotus 123. So far I'm finding Excel easier to work with. I especially like the ability to set up multiple pages. Before I had my entire spreadsheet on one huge page, made it really time consuming to move from one part of the sheet to another.

What's the project you may ask? No big secret, just it's a bit technical and I figure people probably not that interested in all the details. However, if ya'll are interested in hearing more let me know and I'll gladly do a post on it.

Shifting gears . . .

Seems most of my life I've known lots of people, but this hasn't translated into making much in the way of friends who like to do things w/ me. Ironically I made more friends in my three years of going down to Battle Creek every weekend than I've made in a lifetime in Lansing. At one time I figured I'd move to Battle Creek, but that didn't work out, so I've tried to recenter my life back here in Lansing. At work I've met a bunch of people I like, but everyone so busy, nothing has developed beyond chatting w/ folks in the hallway and such. That is until this week.

Alban and Peter work on the 5th floor of the building I work in. I do a lot of work in this set of labs, so I bump into them a lot. Last week while chatting w/ Alban about the recent vote in France on the EU constitution, he mentioned that he, Peter and Stephan eat lunch together everyday. Really!! I asked if I could join them and he said sure. So this past week I joined them on Tue, Wed. and Thurs. What fun!! Thankfully the meals at the Owen cafeteria are reasonably priced and they don't mind you supplementing the main course w/ your own food in tow, which helps keep the price even more reasonable.

Over time I've come to realize I get excited when I'm invited to do something w/ a group and tend to talk too much. I'm trying really hard to monitor myself and make sure I'm not dominating things. As near as I can tell, they are enjoying my company as much as I'm enjoying theirs, so I think I'm doing OK.

A different take on Revenge of the Sith

I've noticed on the radio lately several reports about folks taking parts of Revenge of the Sith to have a political meaning, somehow a slam on President Bush. Frankly this strikes me as a big stretch, however another message jumped out at me during the movie that hits a little closer to home.

I've forgotten a lot about episodes I and II so forgive me if some of my recollections are a bit off. That said ... I saw a big parallel between Anakin's slow descent into the dark side and many of the struggles our teens and young adults have today. Think of the Jedi as the parents, very busy parents, who see Anakin as the chosen one and want nothing but the best for him. Yet how many times do they actually say this to him or take the time to sit down and listen to their young prodigy. Esp. in episode III, Anakin pretty much left to his own devices and to wonder if the Jedi would accept him anymore if he came clean on his marriage, ripe for Palpatine to drop ideas into his head w/o anyone to counter them.

How would things have turned out if Obi-Wan instead of rushing off to the next battle, and telling Anakin to wait in the temple, had taken the time to sit down and talk? Find out why his young pupil so on edge, make clear the reasons they didn't make him a master and lay out the steps to attain that goal, let him know they valued what he had done to date and that they trusted him, but yet had concerns about the motivations of Palpatine in picking Anakin as his personal representative. Ditto this in the earlier movie with Anakin dealing w/ the loss of his mother and increasing turning to Padame for comfort, slowly increasing his reliance on her and his desire to marry.

Instead from Anakin's point of view the Jedi came across as rigid and arbitrary, Palpatine as willing to listen and concerned for his welfare. It seems to me a lot of our modern households have a similar dynamic, any wonder kids turn to gangs or their friends for advice and a sense of worth? The good news, it's never to late to change the dynamic in your household if you realize your family resembles Revenge of the Sith more than you'd care to admit.

Hurray for Dan!

So far I've wondered if anyone reading my blog. I hadn't publicized it to any extent yet, wanting to get a few more posts under my belt before opening it up to greater scrutiny. I looks like I have at least one regular reader though.

Dan left no less than two comments yesterday. So, Hurray for Dan!!

Bay Pointe Inn and Restaurant

I have a friend named Tom. We met at the first church I attended, he's about 88 years old now and lives in one of those independent living places. He's pretty much legally blind now, due to macular degeneration, otherwise he's very fit and able to get around just fine. He likes to go to nice restaurants from time to time. So tonight I drove him and couple of his lady friends to a place on Gun Lake called the Bay Pointe Inn and Restaurant. Previously located in an old lake side villa (ie - huge house) its now in a brand new facility with an attached inn.

The last time we went I had one of the most enjoyable dining experiences I've ever experienced. This time also very enjoyable. I've never had duck before so tonight I tried a pasta dish with sliced duck, Andouille sausage, Creole sauce and fettucine noodles. I liked it a lot. Not quite as good as what I tried last time, but still very very good. If you ever want to try something different and check out Gun Lake give it a try, prices in the $10 -18 range for dinner. Travel time a little over an hour each way.

Oreo the wonder cat

Going on a year ago now, some friends of mine faced a dilemma. Cheryl had two cats, Oreo and Phosphorus (yes she's a math/chemistry major), brother and sister. She had also become engaged to her husband to be, Steve. As the day of the wedding approached Oreo decided to take action and started peeing on Cheryl's bed, so she put plastic on it. Well then he started peeing on it w/ her in it, so Oreo went into the bathroom each night. After they got married and bought a new sofa, Oreo made this his target of choice. It came time for Oreo to go.

Knowing that Oreo liked me and that I'm single they asked me if I'd take him in. Welllll I didn't exactly want him to pee all over my house too, but I liked Oreo, so I agreed to take him in on a trial basis.

Best decision I ever made. He's a wonderful cat and has really boosted my mood since I've had him. Ya, he's peed on my bed a few times too, but that stopped a long time ago, so I think we're out of the woods in that department. For some reason he loves to lie on top of paper. Right now he's laying down next to me on top of my mail. It's so cute. He loves felt too. Cheryl gave me his Christmas stocking last winter, he liked to lay on top of it so much I never got to hang it up in front of the fireplace. He's also close to 15lb's (he's not particularly overweight, just BIG), so when he decides to lie on your lap you really start to feel it after a while, likewise when he wants me to hold him and take him for a "walk" around the house. He loves that and purrs up a storm.

Recently a friend had to move unexpectedly so I took in another cat, Mindy. Oreo's really struggling w/ this. He doesn't jump up on the couch or sleep alongside w/ me in bed like he used to. I miss that a lot. I'm still hopeful he will get used to his new "friend". I've had Mindy for about 3 months now and they're slowly getting used to each other. Although Oreo still seems unhappy about the whole thing.

I love my big, black cat very much and will miss him a lot when the day inevitably comes that he passes away. Thanks Steve and Cheryl for such a wonderful gift!

A work in progress

More fiddling w/ the blog today. Back in college I spent one summer doing database entry for my residence hall. They had an old system called the IBM 5520 (if I remember right) that used templates to control the output to the printer and the screens used to enter data. The person who had originally set it up created a system that worked, but extremely inconvenient to use. I had a lot of fun fixing up the templates and developing a series of form letters. By the end of the summer the system worked very smoothly.

The HTML and CSS codes remind me a lot of that old system. As you might guess, learning the ins out outs while customizing my blog template brings back some old memories. Today I added the email link and fixed up the About Me box. It really bugged me how none of the profile info. lined up with the picture, the fonts so huge and the picture so small. Also happy to report the XML feed works fine, just took a few hours before the My MSN reader picked up anything.

Fixing up the About Me box ended up involving more that just changing the CSS styles. Blogger uses a prepackaged approach to the HTML part of the code that handles the profile section, so I couldn't just insert the email link like I wanted. After some searching on the web I discovered you can click on Source in the View menu of IE or FireFox and see the underlying HTML code. So I brought up my blog, clicked source, and the mysterious black box of the Blogger Smart tag <$BlogMemberProfile$> revealed itself.

I relied heavily on the web site W3Schools to help me learn the basics of HTML and CSS. There are still a couple things I don't understand about the Profile and Sidebar Boxes sections which frustrates me, but I'm learning. For instance if I remove this section nothing changes, so what does it do?

.box p {
  margin:0 0 .6em
  }

It seems the Blogger code fairly advanced, the W3School examples pretty basic, I couldn't find any examples that looked like this. Eventually I'll figure it out, but for now I'm excited that everything seems to work on IE and FireFox.

All Things Technical - The world of HTML, CSS, XML, ATOM, ...

Today I worked on adding the little XML button to my blog page. At first it seemed simple according to the Blogger help pages. Add some HTML code w/ a link to the appropriate .gif image. Well, not so fast. No one wants to give away free bandwidth so I can have a cool little XML button on my blog, not even Blogger. Although they will let me access the Blogger .gif file for free.

After doing some web searches I discovered something called CSS which makes it a lot easier to manage stylistic elements across pages. It also can create the little XML button right from within my Blogger template. So I've spent the last 3 hours or so inserting code and getting a feel for how it works.

So I proudly present my new XML button, drum roll please, ...

XML ATOM Feed
If you want to learn more about the CSS method for creating buttons check out this article (My first embedded link in a post, Hurray!)

I added my blog to my My MSN page along w/ the feeds from Dan, Noel, Sean, Rubber Ducky Adventures and Mission Safari. So far nothing has come through. Not sure if this a time issue or if something a little off w/ my feed. Guess time will tell.

I've also modified my links so they open up in a new window.

Puttin on the show

For the past couple weeks I've built up a list of folks at work and the grocery store I shop who wanted to see Revenge of the Sith. I wound up with about 10 names, and after consulting w/ my friend Sam, decided on the 6:05P show at NCG this past Tuesday. As promised, although a bit later than I anticipated, I sent out an e-mail over Memorial Weekend to everyone on the list to let them know the time Sam and I planned to go. In the past, I had tried to work w/ everyone's schedules and quickly discovered that doesn't work. So this time I went w/ the pick a time and see who comes approach.

Watching movies a pretty passive activity. You talk a little before and afterwards, but for the most part you sit, watch and keep your mouth shut. When I go out to do things w/ people I enjoy the personal interaction the most. Seeing I don 't have a very big circle of friends, one of my favorite things about going to see a movie, besides the movie of course, is going some place afterwards to hang out. As it turned out, three of us showed up to check out the main attraction, Me, Sam and Grant. They both had a lot of stuff to do, so this ended up one of those times we just watched the movie and left, a downer for me. Afterwards, I didn't feel much like rushing home, even though I felt pretty hungry by then. I looked at DVD's at Sam's Club for a while and then bowed to reality and went home to make up some dinner and hang out w/ my two cats.

Ya, OK, whatever, but what about the movie??? Right, the movie ...

Lines definitely down now, compared to a couple weeks ago, about 20 of us in the whole theatre. Turns out Tuesday a great day to see a movie at NCG, it's $2 for a small pop, popcorn or candy. Assuming you bring a water bottle along, you can see a movie and enjoy some nice fresh popcorn for under $10 bucks.

It took me about 1/3 of the movie to really get into it. I had forgotten a lot about the episodes I and II so I had trouble getting my bearings at first. My impressions similar to most everyone else who's seen it already, a lot more action, characters more relaxed (telling jokes and such again) and all the loose ends tied up. So when the last DVD comes out, you could watch I - VI in order and have it all make sense; assuming of course, you can overlook the jarring change in the detail of the special effects and sets between I - III and IV - VI. R2D2 and Yoda kick ass in this movie (R2D2? you may ask, when you check out the movie you'll see what I mean). Compared to the other 5 movies there are a couple scenes that are on the more gruesome side, I've seen a lot worse.

All in all, a must see if you've followed the Star Wars movies over the years.