A Programmer's Analysis

Since moving into our house in June 2008, we hadn't had much of an opportunity to organize anything in the garage. Sure, we had a few stacks of boxes, mostly baby clothes, but for the most part there was a lot of stuff strewn around the three sides that we don't drive through in order to enter the garage. Parking often involved attempting (usually successfully) to gauge the distance to the nearest object with no permanent place, such as the lawnmower or a stroller, so as to leave some walking room in between. There were a few miscellaneous boxes left from our move that just weren't convenient to access. Locating and fetching the stroller we needed for the particular task on which we were embarking (we have 5 strollers, all meant for different uses) was a dreaded chore.

All that began to change one fateful day (last weekend) at Costco, shortly after Becky had headed back to the car to feed fussy little Ethan, Eric and I took a detour through the non-food aisles on our way to check out. And what do you suppose I saw? Well, I'll tell you. (I was going to make you type and submit a guess, but I figured that might not work so well through RSS.) A storage rack!

There were two of them, actually. One could be used for industrial purposes and the other was shorter and not quite as sturdy, but looked like it would probably work for what we needed. They were both the same height, so I compared widths and prices and determined that if I were to buy two of the non-industrial-type units I would have more storage space than one industrial-type unit and still pay less. I also compared the weight it's supposed to be able to hold. Both held at least 1,000 pounds per shelf, which was plenty adequate. Not being an impulsive buyer and not having an empty trunk (or whatever you call the back of an SUV), I wrote the information down and we headed back home to think it over.

I bought one unit (just so I could put it to the test before buying any more). I put it together on Saturday afternoon this weekend, with Eric strapped into a high chair and watching from a slight distance. It was a pretty simple design; no fasteners were required. I got it assembled and then filled it up with some boxes. I even took advantage of the adjustable shelf height by clearing a large space for taller boxes on the bottom while leaving just enough room to fit the 2 leaves of the dining room table that we won't use unless and until we have a huge family gathering. I even tried putting the recycling bins on the middle shelf. They fit, but the storage rack was on the wrong side of the garage for that, seeing how we'd have to walk all the way around the car every time we had something to store for future recycling.

We decided that the product delivered the storage solution that we had expected, and that we would need a total of three of them to store all the stuff we had laying around. I slipped into Costco just before closing time on Saturday and returned with two more. Having gone through the assembly process already, constructing a couple more was easy. I did find one defect in one of the angle brackets in the second unit that would have prevented me from assembling the whole unit had the assembly been permanent, but since disasembly just required banging on the bottom of a few beams with a rubber mallet, I was able to render the defect in the bracket irrelevant by switching it out with another bracket that i had already installed. This placed the defective shelf hole in a place where it would be absurd to actually put a shelf.

After both other units were built, Becky and I loaded them with location-appropriate items, cleared out all the extra cardboard we didn't need that had been hiding within the ranks of the unstackable items, and stood back and took a look. I sure wish I had a "before" picture to show y'all (at the time--"before," that is--there had been no motivation to snap a picture, as it just wasn't picturesque). You'll have to settle for seeing the "after" shots.

Labels: eric, pasco house, stuff

# posted by ¡Yo Programo! @ 4/05/2009 08:49:00 PM 2 comments links to this post

My back and side yards are full of trenches. They're supposed to be two feet deep and wide enough to contain the piping necessary to feed 18 sprinklers in 4 different zones, meaning that they start out with four pipes and then at some point the pipes split away from each other so that the sprinklers in each region are fed by a region-specific single line.

I started digging them several weeks ago with the intention of finishing them in a couple of weekends with a couple of friends and then laying down sod on top of them. However, the evening before the Saturday that we were supposed to start I came down with a horribly dreadful disease--yes, you guessed it--the 24-hour strap-yourself-down-to-the-toilet-with-a-bucket-in-your-lap virus. Fortunately, I was feeling better sometime the next morning, though I still had some sort of mild headache

Anyway, I ended up renting the trencher on Sunday and attempting to dig myself some trenches. Well, they don't make those things very maneuverable. It got jammed in the sand as soon as I started using it, at which point I figured out that you aren't supposed to try to go forward with while it's digging. I managed to dig it out, but then the wheels were spinning freely without moving, and I couldn't budge it. I don't own any loose two-by-fours, but after many, many attempts I finally got some cardboard underneath the spinning wheel and enough sand out of the way of the other one to drive it out of the pit it was in. One of my friends then drove over and stopped by long enough to help me turn it around (no easy task; he is much stronger than I am) and I began digging the trench around the edge of my property.

Every half minute or so I had to strain with all my might to sway it back and forth to try to raise the back end which had sunk into the sand again. Along the back of the property, where there's a fence, after which the soil slopes down sharply to a point well below the street level, I wasn't able to keep it going long enough to continue. I finally gave up on that trench and began working on the one that runs behind the house, past the patio, plus one that runs and the eastern side of the house. Since that's level ground it went a lot easier, but I didn't dare try to dig side trenches coming out of it or even connect the two main trenches, because I knew I'd never be able to lift that thing out of the resulting pit.

After returning the trencher, I began hand-digging the side trenches and trench connections. Unfortunately, Becky came down with the same or a very similar dreadful disease the next weekend. Thankfully, another couple of friends were willing to watch Eric while I dug that day (a huge favor, as I made lots of progress), and then I got some help digging the next day from the friend that had initially turned the trencher around for me.

Now that it's freezing cold outside and gets dark at 4:15pm or so due to coming out of daylight saving time, I don't make much progress during the weekdays. Two weekends ago, Eric "helped" me dig--I gave him a trowel (one of those tiny shovels for gardening) and he dug some dirt off of the piles I had made and then threw rocks into the trenches. That same weekend, we took advantage of the huge JC Penney sale to try to buy all the clothes we'll need for the next 20 years. and last weekend I took Eric to the park adjacent to the elementary school down the street--he LOVED the slides. I still managed to dig out some of the loose dirt that the trencher left behind, for which I'm using the trowel rather than my trenching shovel, because the trencher blade is about an inch or so narrower than the shovel and I don't want to have to widen the trench just to get the existing dirt out. I ended up laying on my stomach--a.k.a. "gut", hence the title--reaching down into the trench to scoop, and lifting my torso up with my abdominal muscles to empty the dirt into a pile in a location that won't interfere with emptying the loose dirt out of the rest of the trench. It's quite a workout.

As for the sod, I ended up planting some grass seed a week or two before it got real cold instead, since I'm nowhere near ready to lay the pipes down--besides having to empty loose dirt by hand for the majority of the trenches, I still have to dig two more side trenches from scratch. We're trying to remember to water it (the grass seed) every day, but haven't been real consistent. We've already seen a couple of tiny little individual grass blades poking through the surface, but I don't know if they'll stick around because it's quite frosty in the morning. At least we know the seed has germinated and didn't all blow away in the windstorm we had a couple of days after I laid it down.

# posted by ¡Yo Programo! @ 11/25/2008 07:09:00 PM 0 comments links to this post

Put the abortion ticker on your site.

# posted by ¡Yo Programo! @ 11/18/2008 09:17:00 PM 0 comments links to this post

Although usually people that are expecting figure it out sometime between "four" and "six" weeks along--"four" and "six" are in quotes because they count from the first day of your last period, and conception usually begins about two weeks after that, so a woman who is "four weeks" pregnant has generally had a baby inside of her for two weeks, and by that method of counting, you can never say that you're "one week along" because at that point you're not even pregnant yet--we didn't realize it quite that soon because there were several things going on in our lives that were significantly stressful enough to produce the same sort of telltale signs that would prompt the average married woman of childbearing age to head straight for the doctor--or perhaps to the local pharmacy for an EPT.

Well, we became suspicious enough to go ahead and use that EPT that we'd already bought "just in case," and this time around, it was unambiguously positive. Eric has a younger sibling! He doesn't understand quite yet, but we've been bringing it up to him a lot anyway (no, not using the word, "brithster"). We had our first ultrasound appointment last Tuesday, and we saw a beautiful little child moving around inside his or her mom. He or she--this is why I like to know the gender as early as possible like we did for Eric--had his or her knees up and gave Mommy a good, powerful, two-legged kick while we watched. We saw an extremely clear profile of his or her entire body, including the face. Whoever he or she is, he or she sure is a beautiful baby.

# posted by ¡Yo Programo! @ 7/29/2008 01:10:00 AM 4 comments links to this post

So, it's been almost a year and a half since I've posted to this blog. I'd pretty much given up on blogging. Partly because my wife, Becky, blogs everything anyway, partly because I've been sooooo busy with work, and partly because I'd taken up a new "hobby" that has been consuming my spare time like an expectant mother consumes a sizable bowl of ice cream (minus 10 points for the cheap shot).

A lot of things have happened in the almost-a-year-and-a-half that I've been AWOL (or UA, as they say in the Navy) from the blogging community. As I've already mentioned, my wife has blogged about them all, but as my brother brought to my attention lately, I have a different way of looking at things and it comes out in my blogs, so I'll treat you all to a Yo Programo-style account of what's been going through my head besides Eric's finger (yes, I plan to post more about that).

I was going to give you a numbered list of everything significant that's happened that you could click on to expand that portion of the post, but I became convinced that this was a bad idea for the following (expandable, numbered list of) reasons:

1. Nobody's attention span is that long.

   If I haven't found the time to post a blog in a year and a half, how likely is it that all my "readers" (if that's what you call someone who keeps checking a stagnant string of posts, month after month, to see if maybe, just maybe, the stalactites and cobwebs have randomly combined to form the words of additional post that is somewhat legible) are going to try to catch up on a year and a half of missing commentary in one sitting? Hm, about as likely as it is that Monica Lewinsky will be the next president, or that or that "Planned Parenthood" will spend the money that the government gives them on encouraging anyone to be a responsible parent. (Okay, I'm done, you [imaginary?] readers can add more comparisons in the comments if you are so inclined.)

2. I'm tired.

   It's past midnight. I've spent a good portion of yesterday evening and this evening thinking I would make a lot of progress, only to get one and most of another "section" (a.k.a. post to follow) written, and it's getting harder and harder to be witty or make sense, and I've still got 4/5ths of a work-week ahead of me.

3. I'm using my expandable list anyway.

   Being reluctant to see all the work I did making the expandable list work on a blog go to waste, I have succeeded in (cleverly, I would like to think) integrating it into this post so I feel a sense of accomplishment even though I've actually abandoned its initially intended purpose.

# posted by ¡Yo Programo! @ 7/29/2008 12:46:00 AM 5 comments links to this post

Whew!!!!!!! It feels good to have the budget up-to-date.

Some background: I wrote a budget computer program about nine years ago that I've made new versions of periodically. The latest version of the one I use is about four years old. I successfully used the versions I wrote while I was in the Navy to keep track of what I was spending money on and use that to fine-tune the monthly allotments to each category (I have about 25 of them). Back then, I stuck to it with a firm discipline and saved up enough money to buy that Trans-Am that I ended up wrecking last year.

The whole idea of the budget program is that you figure out how much of what you make each month you can allot to each category, and then you spend less than or the same as that amount of money on that category, and your balance carries over to the next month. Since Becky and I have been married, though, the only purpose the budget has really served is tracking our expenses. That was mostly due to the fact that for a lot of that time, we really weren't making enough to meet our essential needs, so watching a bunch of negative balances grow more negative didn't tell us much about what we could spend on each category. It was also due to the fact that I had found a bug in the program (which I fixed before making the project-based version) that was messing up some of the balances, and I hadn't had the time since then to recalculate what the balances really should be.

Well, this weekend I finally found that time, and I ran some reports from the back-end database to compare monthly income to monthly spending. I figured out that we're still spending hundreds more per month than we make, and that even by cutting out all non-essentials, we're still spending significantly more than we make. So, Becky and I discussed what we could do about that. We've identified some individual expenses within a few essential categories that we're going to try cutting out of our spending over the next couple months to see if that's really feasible and how big of an impact that makes. Maybe we'll find some more things that we really can cut out if that works. The other thing is, we really need to move--but either to a bigger apartment where we pay hundreds less than we pay now for more space than we have now or into a house that, from what we've seen, would really have to be out-of-state for us to be able to afford it (since living in a gang or drug infested area is on our not-going-to-do-that list). Perhaps first an apartment in a lower area relatively close to family and then a house later, but it doesn't look like we'll be able to just cut our costs significantly enough to pay a few hundred dollars more in mortgage than we're now paying in rent and still expect to make ends meet. That's a bit of a disappointment to us, but better that we see reality for what it is than get into something now that ends up destroying us financially a few months or a couple years down the road.

# posted by ¡Yo Programo! @ 3/05/2007 12:17:00 AM 2 comments links to this post

Well, to update you all on the whole supporting the fight against abortion thing, I did find a very supportable network of pregnancy resource centers known as Heartbeat International. Know what else? About a week after I started supporting them, they, along with one or two other such networks, are now the cover story of the latest issue of Time magazine. I'm not sure at this point what else I can do other than financially support them. I looked up the closest center in the area, but I haven't contacted them. I think I will, but I'm not sure that I have any skills that are in high demand there. Plus, I'm not sure how much longer I'll be in this area. Hopefully not long, but you never know.

Finding an organization that fit what I was looking to support was an encouragement, but alas, I heard some very disappointing news today. I don't want to share all of the details, but it has to do with a friend of mine from the Navy (he's been out for a few months) who was betrayed by his wife. What she did to him and what she's doing to him now is heartbreaking, and her getting virtually rewarded for it by the court system makes me sick. I was confident that the Lord was going to set things right in court, but it was not to be. It makes me feel like I somehow failed; like I wasn't praying often enough or earnestly enough for him. I also feel helpless, because there's nothing else I could've done to stop that from happening, as I have not seen him in person since before their little girl was born.

On a completeley different note, Eric is going to bed earlier, even though I haven't come close to mastering the art of getting off work at a decent time.

Oh, and for those of you wondering what we're doing about his formula, some background info first: from day one at the hospital, Eric wasn't keeping down milk-based formula, which he was getting due to a nursing complication which is still keeping his daily supply of mommy's milk down to a small percentage of his daily diet. The hospital gave us lots of free samples of soy formula, which we continued to use as a (major) supplement. Any time Becky had any dairy products, though, Eric would get a rash all over his face, which would go away after a few days when she took care to rid her diet of all of them. After getting an article from my mom via email a few weeks ago regarding the possible dangers of soy, we bought some milk-based formulas that were supposed to be easier to digest and reduce colic based on milk allergies, and we set up an appointment with Eric's pediatrician. The article, after all, was written by a journalist, not a doctor, so we wanted to see what he thought and we wanted to ask him what the alternatives were in case the more digestible milk-based stuff didn't work out.

By the time the appointment came, it was apparent that Eric was getting his rash back from the milk-based formula. He was also spitting up more and was fussier at night. The doctor skimmed the article, said he hadn't heard of any such concerns about soy, and told us that he fed his kids soy formula and they're all fine. He also gave us a whole box of free samples of a soy-free formula that is used for babies with lots of allergies. He says it doesn't have any dairy in it, though the label says that the powder is 17.5% "hydrolysate (derived from milk)." It's the nastiest formula I've ever smelled (and the soy stuff is quite nasty, though it really doesn't compare), but we were eager to find out how Eric would react to it, so we started him on it. We could tell from his first feeding that it wasn't going to work. He absolutely refused to drink it (what a smart little boy; I'm so proud), but when we held his head still and were just as stubborn back to him as he was being to us, he did give in and drink it--and then his throat turned into Old Faithful (I probably needed a shower anyway). We switched back to one of the other formulas and tried to sneak that one in at least once a day, but that little boy knows what he doesn't want. So, we tried the same thing from a different brand. It wasn't as bad, and we thought it was going to work at first, but he still wasn't eating full meals of it, and wasn't keeping it down enough for it to work as a meal-after-meal food. So, we're back to soy. We boil the water first like we've been doing ever since the second time we've gone with powder, and he still drinks a little bit from his mommy in the morning, at bedtime, and as part of a feeding or two during the day.

I'm attending the Spanish service at Calvary Chapel more regularly now. Last week, they had a guest speaker, who sounded like a native speaker, which is the exception at this particular church. I was having trouble keeping up with him, so I moved to the very front so that I could concentrate more on what he was saying. I did understand some of it, especially toward the end. I wish I could immerse myself in a Spanish-speaking culture and not come out until I'm fluent, but that's just not a viable option right now, and probably won't be in the forseeable future.

# posted by ¡Yo Programo! @ 2/20/2007 12:09:00 AM 2 comments links to this post

This is my first post in about two months. I haven't intentionally boycotted blogging during that time period; I've just been busy and tired lately, with work and taking care of Eric and all of those high priorities. Yes, plenty of people have successfully blogged and done all of those other things, but I believe those people don't prioritize sleep as highly as I do--and I don't even go to bed as early as I want (it's been consistently around 1am lately).

So, besides all that, what've I been up to? One of the main things I've been looking at is how I can be effective in the fight against abortion.

The Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of Congress' ban on partial birth abortion. That's good news to me, because even though it means that the ban has been challenged, it also means that the Supreme Court, the originator of the ban on laws prohibiting abortion in general in their Roe vs. Wade decision, will be considering the ethicality and constitutionality of abortion practices. They will have to decide if there is a line to be drawn, why it is to be drawn, and where to draw it. Since the argument used to nullify all laws prohibiting abortion in general uses a far-reaching rationality based on an "implied right to privacy" in "the due process clause" (which in my understanding only applies to criminal investigations and legal proceedings for people charged with a crime) as its core foundation, and since there is a possibility that there are now possibly five out of nine conservative-leaning judges, I hope and pray that a decision will be made that affirms that the preamble of the Constitution makes it clear that all persons, born or unborn, have a Creator-endowed right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that the judicial system of this country must recognize and enforce, as it already does in double-homicide cases where a person murders an expectant mother along with her unborn child.

There are three groups out there that I've looked at so far. One is called Stand True, the next is called the Thomas More Society, and the other is called the American Life League--more specifically, its absorbed subsidiary, STOPP, which stands for Stop Planned Parenthood.

The Thomas More Society is a legal group whose purpose is to support the pro-life cause in the legal arena. I'm not sure that they're even involved in the fight for the constitutionality of the ban on partial birth abortion, because the only information I've seen so far is regarding a twenty year old case where a bunch of pro-life demonstrators that obstructed the entrance to an abortion clinic were charged with racketeering in an attempt to require that the courts order an injunction on all such activity everywhere in the country. This group is appealing a lost case, trying to argue semantics about whether the case should be overturned because "property" was not "obtained." The opposition is arguing that control of the abortion clinic was obtained by those standing outside and that such control is a form of abstract property. This seems to me to be a side issue, and I'm disappointed that this has been the main focus of an organization with such a purpose for so many years.

Stand True is a small organization whose philosophy is that the best way to fight abortion is to change the point of view (or world view) of individuals in this country one heart at a time by both getting them the message of the Gospel and taking a stand for pro-life views through events such as the March for Life and the annual Students' Day of Silent Solidarity, which is going to have its name changed to include more people next time around. I appreciate their recognition that a society with values such as our society has cannot be pointed in a pro-life direction with those values unchanged, and that Jesus is the only one who can make such a transforming change in so many people. I don't think that the organization has much influence right now (the number of babies they claim to know about whose lives were saved by this year's efforts is lower than twenty), but they are a pursuing a noble course of action and I hope to see their cause gain infulence and their organization grow in size and recognition.

STOPP is, as their name implies, focused on one aspect of the fight against abortion, and that is interfering with and ultimately obliterating the efforts and infulence of Planned Parenthood, an organization who has clinics in every state, many of which do surgical abortions, and others of which distribute propaganda and medications that can be used for chemical abortions. One of the ways in which the American Life League and STOPP fight against Planned Parenthood are by encouraging and supporting Pregnancy Crisis Centers, which offer alternative ways than abortion to dealing with unexpected pregnancies. They help these organizations make their operations efficient, effective, and compliant with all applicable laws, mainly by distributing operating manuals and a newsletter. Another way they wage this war is by making available, through an affiliate, a list of organizations that support Planned Parenthood that are considered boycott targets. As far as I can tell, this boycott is not widely known, though it is known to Planned Parenthood, which has used some tactics to stop the widespread distribution of this list, such as encouraging pro-Planned Parenthood people to overwhelm the affiliated organization with requests for this list to create financial hardships and drain the budget. It worked well enough that the organization is now only offering the list for a cost of around $32.00 for the first copy and a few dollars per copy after that. This is the only reason why I don't already have a copy of the list. I can understand how fradulent, resource-depleting requests for paper copies of the list would inhibit the organization's ability to do its work, but the catch is that there is no free, downloadable copy of this list anywhere. Even though Planned Parenthood's dirty tactic was the main reason for the switch to a payment-required distribution system, I believe that the organization has gone too far and is now relying too heavily on distribution of the list to raise funds for their administration costs and other activities. In my own opinion, an organization with such a cause shouldn't need to rely on list orders for its money, and if it isn't getting enough donations to continue the work, it should evaluate why not and make corrections so that they are, whether that involves spreading knowledge for their cause to the right people with the right resources, getting involved in other activities which are closer to the majority of pro-lifers' hearts, or some other creative, ethical method that I can't pull off the top of my head.

I'd like to hear from you (my readers, if I have any left) about your views on these issues: Do you think that organizations that financially support Planned Parenthood deserve to be boycotted? Do you think that such a boycott, if ineffective due to non-universal cooperation among the pro-life base, should be abandoned until an organization does something more significant that could be targeted by such a boycott? If I were to make the list available to you (for free) in the form of "additional copies" of the paper list, would you want one? If I were to get the information to you (electronically or otherwise), would you participate? Would you encourage others to participate? To give you an idea of what this involves, a few of the organizations that are on the list (per the page that you go to before you pay to get the list) are McDonalds, Time Warner, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson. I for one would need to give up cable TV and cable high speed internet in favor of DSL and staticky antenna TV (because dish TV is expensive and certainly not a part of any internet package), assuming that AT&T (the DSL provider) is not also on the list.

# posted by ¡Yo Programo! @ 12/24/2006 01:00:00 AM 3 comments links to this post