Post-Holiday Blues
An entire week has passed since my last post. That doesn’t feel very “make a post every day”-ish to me. I do feel a twinge of guilt over the matter, letting myself down more than anything because, if I’m not mistaken, no one really reads this thing. A couple of those guys listed in the right column might swing by every now and then, but I don’t have a commitment to any specific person or group. Just myself.
Good Things Come to Those Who Wait but Work Hard During the Interim
Last Tuesday was an odd day. Technically, I logged a vacation day. Realistically, I participated in a conference call with the overlords of development at the company for which I work. We talked about this little PAC toolkit I built to help build applications on the sanctioned platform. My boss and I saw that others were creating spaghetti and I wanted lasagna.
Turns out the overlords knew that they had missed out on that opportunity and decided that my little toolkit should become the standard for app development across our entire organization.
Normally, that’s not a huge statement: across our entire organization. Thing is, “our entire organization” where I work represents thousands of developers.
And, I get to support it. I get to participate in shaping the philosophy and implementation of literally hundreds of applications. That’s pretty amazing.
That’s a legacy.
And, Then, cough
Alas, the next day, I fell victim to the cold snap. So, I laid in bed for a couple of days. Illness affects me in a not untoward manner. I feel somewhat euphoric during my time nestled beneath the comforter in the guest room.
I watched a lot of movies. Well, technically, I fell asleep during a lot of movies. But, I did see Gentlemen Broncos during which I stayed awake, thankfully, because I enjoyed the movie. Kind of a marriage between Napolean Dynamite and The Gamers: Dorkness Rising but with higher production value than either of those.
And, Then, Gifts
Well, not so much for me, but the family. What I did receive, though, met with my high regard.
My brother-in-law replaced my missing volume of The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie, a book that causes me to LOL while reading it.
My sister-in-law bought for me Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card. It fills the gap between Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead. If you haven’t read these and you like character-driven science fiction, then you probably should. Even though the main character, Ender, can get a little whiny at times.
My mother-in-law replaced my missing copy of The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, a brilliant book that turned into an entertaining movie with Sean Connery and Christian Slater. The movie, however, does not capture the depth and nuance of the debate surrounding comedy, the philosophical dual between the Franciscan and Benedictine monks, nor the amazing influence of Sir Roger Bacon on critical thinking in the western world.
My father-in-law gave me a new grill. I haven’t put it outside, yet, but I salivate even now with the thought of grilling up some buffalo burgers.
My other father-in-law blessed me with a mandoline. I still have all of my finger tips, but that may not be the case in the future.
And, Then, More Holiday
Finally, Monday, yesterday, I had too many books to read to want to sit at my computer to type. So I read. And cooked. And dreaded the fact that I had to return to work the next day.
sqlcop Update
It seems that I made 26 commits, last Tuesday, to sqlcop. I finally got to move away from SELECT/FROM statements into richer statements. sqlcop now recognizes the following:
- In the column list
- operators
- literals
- aliases with AS
- aliases without AS
- aliases by assignment
- method invocations
- subselects
- Remote server table names
- SELECT/INTO statements
- The TABLESAMPLE modifier
I was in the middle of adding table hints to the SELECT statement when I decided to go to sleep so that I could awaken sick. Hooray!
Back to that old grind stone, tomorrow, because I have about 1000 emails through which I must sort, today.