On Gasoline

A quick story that appears to have a happy ending.

Tuesday on my way home from work I decided to swing by the ole gas station and fill up the tank. Now, despite knowing that I can get away with using the 86 octain gas, I opt for 93. It's just something I have always done. It made the Camry run great for all those years after all. Well it seems the 40 dollars I put in my tank isn't exactly what one would call fuel so much as water.*

So, armed with my new tank of water I proceeded to drive 3.3 miles down the road, at which point the water simply wasn't enough to make the ole Volvo go. I really thought my car was efficent, but I suppose it ain't no hybrid... So I am now stuck in the left turn lane on the corner of Houston Levee and Macon.

I get my car towed to the dealership. I am feeling pretty ok at this moment because I am proud of myself for having gotten the extended warranty. Hey did you know that extended warranties don't cover putting bad fuel in your car? True story.

The next day I get a ride over to the gas station, at which point I find out that many other folks have ended up with this same problem. Luckily the guy who owns the station is a nice enough fellow, and he claimed that they would cover all of my expenses**. So I leave somewhat secure in the knowledge that I am going be getting my money back. Then the ole Volvo dealership calls to inform me that my car is going to cost about 1400 dollars to fix.

If you heard a loud sound about 11:45 AM on Wednesday Feb 10th, that was my heart flying into my throat. Luckily I was able to come up with cash to get my car out of the shop.

Here is the really really crazy part, a mere three days after putting the bad gas in my car, my car is completely fixed and I have already been payed back by the gas stations insurance company. Who says large chain corparations are bad***?

It seems that if I had used the 86 I would have gotten actual fuel. Only the 93 and the 89 had a problem.

**Note: I didn't really believe the guy at the time, because...well...I am the kind of guy who randomly ends up with a tank full of water. Things don't always go as planned is what I am saying.


***I do that's who. Though this time they worked in my favor

Where And Means Or and Or means And.

Have you ever found yourself sitting around wondering what exactly it is I do all day at work when not giving you this lovely typo ridden blogs? No? You have haven't...well I gotta say that hurts. Lucky for you I don't care. I am going to tell you any ways. Here is a stark lesson in something I learned long ago and that bit me and a co-worker in the ass yesterday.

So we all know the words And and Or. And means these two things in conjunction. Or means this thing or this other thing. For the most part this logic holds true in computers as well. Save for the situation I am about to show you. Now you need not know a lot about SQL to get this lesson. The part you want to pay attention to is in Italics.

SELECT COUNT(*) AS rowCount
FROM StudentCourse r,
(SELECT StuCrs_Student, StuCrs_Course, StuCrs_LicenseCourse, StuCrs_Completion, MAX(StuCrs_Created) AS maxTimestamp
FROM StudentCourse
WHERE StuCrs_LicenseCourse = 'Course'
AND StuCrs_LicenseCompletion = '1974-10-17'
AND StuCrs_LicenseStudent = 'Student'
AND (StuCrs_Course <> StuCrs_LicenseCourse
AND StuCrs_Completion <> StuCrs_LicenseCompletion
AND StuCrs_Student <> StuCrs_LicenseStudent)
GROUP BY StuCrs_Student, StuCrs_Course, StuCrs_Completion) rh
WHERE r.StuCrs_Student = rh.StuCrs_Student
AND r.StuCrs_Course = rh.StuCrs_Course
AND r.StuCrs_Completion = rh.StuCrs_Completion
AND r.StuCrs_Created = rh.maxTimestamp

See that inner Select statement is how I am getting a ton of items out of our database. Now the symbole which you are likely not familiar with is "<>". That simply means not equal. Why did SQL chose that over != like every other reasonable language? Fuck if I know.

So here is where my cohort and I got into trouble, see if your saying this does not equal this and this does not equal this, and you only need one of them not to be equal you actually want to say OR. Basically this happens b/c I am mixing negative statements (not equal) with positive statements (equals) I know this sounds obvious, but I promise you this trips up more developers then you know. So remember kids, sometimes when you mean And you really mean Or.

Breaking The Rules

Throughout my life I have always been a rather rigid and steadfast kind of guy. This has worked both for and against me to varying degrees. One of the rules that I have always stuck to since the Cyrix Computer Chip fiasco is to never be an early adopter of technology. Always wait a period of time and let the bug reports start rolling in and then make a better decision.

Well, over the next two weeks, I am going to break that rule not once but twice. I am going to be the first person I know* to get AT&T U-Verse. I am simply bored and feed up with the lack of HD content on Comcast.

Well, before my U-Verse gets installed on the 7th, I will be spending the 6th at a Verizon store getting myself a Verizon/Motorola/Google Droid. Will this signal a new more care free me?

Of course it won't. It's simply a phone and a cable provider. Calm down people.


* In Memphis anyways

Your computer lesson of the day

So let's say you finally bothered to get your VPN connection to work going after a year or so of not caring. Let's say you finally get it working. Let's say you can't figure out why your remote desktop software won't work. Let's say over the course of a day or so, and very little effort mind you, that still don't get it working. Let's say you realize it's most likely a port issue. Let's say you look up what port your rdesktop client is listening on. Let's say you decide to try and ssh to your home box and then connect work via VPN. Let's say you do this. Let's say that you forget that by doing this none of your proxy's are set at home and more over this now breaks your ssh session. Let's say that your VPN connection will never disconnect b/c it's a LINUX box and does VPN the right way. Let's say all of these things just happened and that you are now unable to connect to your home machine. I'm just sayin that some of that stuff my or may not have just happened.

Giving Up To Soon

Often times in life I find we give up to soon on people. I am far more guilty of this then most people we know. When the phrase "Oh ye oh little faith..." is uttered, they are talking about me. I am a skeptic at best and a complete disbeliever at worst.*

For years now I have been told that Clay Buchholz would end up being a stud pitcher. I read some of the scouting reports. I listened as writers I respect crowed over his stats and his bad luck. I saw as he was clearly just trying to be to fine and strike everyone out. I watched with joy as he no hit the Baltimore Orioles.** I watched with abject horror as he walked batter after batter after batter. I gazed at the screen with sheer terror as he threw 100 pitches by seemingly the third inning. I lived the emotional roller coaster ride of this young mans carer first hand.

Now, I should I have known better. I went through the exact same thing with Jon Lester. I know in my mind that sometimes it takes young pitchers a while to get it together. I know this at the core of my very being. I also know that more often then not young pitchers simply don't work out due to a myriad of reasons.

So what does this all have to do with Clay Buchholz? Well, I had given up on him. I knew he was in the minors destroying people, but I didn't care. I didn't think we needed him after all we had John Smoltz and Brady Penny.*** I thought how the team didn't need to put their faith in this roller coaster of a pitcher. Of course it turned out I was way wrong and the old adage about you can never have to much starting pitching turned out to be true. So all I can say is that I think I was wrong about Buchholz and that his last few games are finally starting to show that pitcher that I think everyone thinks he can be. I leave you with some of his numbers from his last few starts.

September 13th vs The Tampa Bay (Devil)Rays
7.0 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 5/3 K/BB, 12/8 GB/FB, he got a ND but pitched more then well enough to win.

September 8th vs The Baltimore Oriels
7.0 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 5/1 K/BB, 12/7 GB/FB, Took the win.

September 8th vs The Tampa Bay (Devil)Ray (on the road)
6.0 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 3/1 K/BB, 10/11 GB/FB, Took the win

August 29th vs Toronto
8.1 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 9/2 K/BB, 11/7 GB/FB, Took the win.

Now these are not exactly the numbers of a number one starter (I'd like more strike outs), but if this is your third starter, you got a real chance to be good. Let's hope he can keep it going.



*Note: This isn't about religion. I promise.

**Yes they are a real team Doug


***That sound you hear is me slamming my head into my desk. Those guys were terrible with the Red Sox and now look like GODS in the N.L.

A lesson learned over and over again

Drinking mid week is a horrible idea, and yet I continue to do it...