Nothing is Too Impossible

There are a gazillion sites out there related to the topic of striping one’s lawn. Some folks love stripes, some folks hate them. If you’re in the former group, I may have discovered something to make your life easier and alleviate some wear and tear on your lawn. Pretty simple, really. If you have no idea what I’m talking about but somehow have made it this far, reading a little about David Mellor may sharpen your blades.

Note: In the various diagrams in this post,the green indicates lawn, and the arrows indicate mowing paths.

Ok, so say you wanna make nice parallel stripes when you mow. With a push mower it’s pretty easy… mow to the end of your lawn, and turn around 180 degrees and mow back toward where you started, then repeat -as opposed to the spiral pattern of just going around and around and around til there’s nothing left to mow.

With one of those z-mowers, it’s much like using a push mower - pretty easy because of the tight turns that are possible.With the average lawn tractor though, you either have to make a huge tear-drop shaped turn at the end of each run, or make a 3-point turn shifting to reverse and back to your forward gear. Both of these are less than desirable for obvious reasons. Depending on your property the approach below may or may not work, or you may come up with something even better. Read the rest of this entry »

No matter who you are, you can benefit from this post if you ever drive in CT. For it is here that I will reveal the secrets of successful driving in what some folks might refer to as “the state with the worst #^%$ drivers in the nation” and quite possibly, the world.

Allow me to qualify this a little further- when I say CT, I am not really referring to the whole state of CT… I am placing much if the focus on the southwestern region, from Fairfield to the NY border. But these principles I will outline may apply to drivers outside this region as well.

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http://www.archive.org/download/mc1987-04-11-sennme80.flac16/mc1987-04-11-sennme80d2t10_64kb.mp3 

Well, I’m not sure who wrote this tune (maybe TM will stop in with some info) but I couldn’t find any info about it on the net (other than Max Creek performances). Always been one of my favorites and I got a request for the chords the other day. So I broke out an old version (epic, thanks Mark!) and I posted the lyrics and chords in the Max Creek Lyrics & Music Archive.

Usual disclaimer applies: The chords & lyrics are 100% guaranteed not to be 100% correct, but close enough for the campfire.

I’ve created some shortcuts in SQL Server 2005 Management Studio - they come in handy time and time again. Management Studio allows us to define “Query Shortcuts”, which are stored procedures that fire when we press a certain keystroke- passing any selected text as a parameter to the procedure. (I think this was the case with Query Analyzer, but I never discovered the feature there).

To define a Query Shortcut, go to the Tools menu in Management Studio, and choose Tools, Options, Environment, Keyboard. Just type in the name of the procedure beside where you see the keystrokes listed.

So here are a few generic procs that I use all the time. You can tweak them to accomodate your business rules.

• util_SearchCode
  Searches the definitions of tables, columns, views, defaults, stored procedures, user-defined functions, triggers, etc. etc. and lists any matches to the selected text.
• util_SearchEntities
  For the db I use at work, one keystroke searches for various customers, clinics, patients, physicians, etc. Either by ID number or by string.
• util_BitValues
  When I select a number I can quickly see which bit values are turned on… Handy for bitmask columns.
• util_Top100Rows
  If I highlight a table name, this proc displays the TOP 100 rows of that table. Great for when I need to ascertain the nature of some data or quickly remind myself of a column name.

Download Source Code
By the way, the util_SearchCode proc is designed for use with SQL Server 2005 and will need some modification to work with earlier versions of SQL Server.

How to Use these Procs
1) Download, unzip, and run the scripts via the link above.

2) Type the names of the procs beside the desired keystroke (see screenshot above).

3) In a Query Editor window, select some text and call one of the procs by pressing Ctrl + the number you assigned in #2.

Note that if you want to pass more than one word to a proc in this fashion, you should surround it in single quotes like a string literal.

Someone please tell me of a definitive site where one can go and find out what that song is from that commercial (i.e. television commercial).

I don’t watch too much tv. Sometimes the thing is on and though I tune most of it out, once in a while a piece of music slithers through into the hey-that’s-a-catchy-tune part of my brain. Or the holy-shit-that-is-a-killer-groove part of my brain. Or one of the other compartments in the grey matter designed for such things.

To the point that my musical appetite is whetted.
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About an hour ago I felt like the cells in my body were imploding. Collapsing in on themselves. I think I was seriously dehydrated, but couldn’t imagine why- after all, I had that frozen pizza for lunch (like I do pretty often) and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I drank some water and I guess I feel a little better now, but what the hell happened? Maybe there was something in that pizza- it was the first time I’d tried that brand…. maybe MSG or something.

I looked at the side of the packaging and the ingredients appeared normal - you know, the usual “contains less than 2% of….”, “soybean and/or corn oil”, and a few items that are probably preservatives or something (BHA, BHT, sodium nitrite).

Then something sort of unrelated caught my eye: “Serving size 1/5 pizza”. That’s right, one fifth. Now it starts getting interesting.

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I added three entries to the Max Creek Lyrics & Music Archive including Borrowing Time, LFS, and Waiting for You. I figured these are kinda sing-along type tunes, appropriate for holiday gatherings. Enjoy!

Please shoot me an email if you know who wrote Borrowing Time or LFS…

Download via BitTorrent at http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=502011

Deep Banana Blackout
November 22, 2006
Toad’s Place
New Haven, CT
Source: Oktava MC012 > TASCAM HD-P2
Transfer: Compact Flash > USB > CDWAV > Sound Forge 8 > FLAC Frontend
Recorded & transferred by Matthew Heydman

Disc 1 - 66:42

1. Bringing Up (3:23)
2. Getch’all (5:13)
3. Layaway (1:36)
4. Homo Lingo (5:29)
5. Can’t Get Next (6:26)
6. Bump & Sway (6:58)
7. Too Funky (4:13)
8. Led Zeppelin Medley (8:25)
9. Custard Pie* (5:46)
10. Shotgun (8:28)
11. Rocker (8:28)

Disc 2 - 60:55

1. God Made Me Funky** (3:23)
2. Me & Baby Bro (5:13)
3. Breakfast at Volo’s (1:36)
4. Super Bad (5:29)
5. Memphis Train (6:26)
6. Tug (6:58)

Encore:
7. Crowd/Chatter (4:13)
8. Its Your Thing (8:25)
9. Boot (5:46)
* with Craig ______ on harmonica
** with Ryan Montbleau and members of his band

Recorded upstairs, in line with PA.

This project discusses a DIY rechargeable battery system for the TASCAM HD-P2 digital audio recorder, using NiMH rechargeable batteries. The project could be easily adapted for just about any type of electronic equipment. Rather than focus on the battery packs themselves, this project explains a flexible approach to connectivity.

Essentially, we build 2 separate rechargeable units, connect one to the main battery compartment of the deck, and connect the second, when necessary, to the DC power jack. This way we can see the battery level of the original set, and if/when it gets dangerously low, we can plug the 2nd unit into the DC jack and the deck will then draw power from the second unit. If we can stop recording for a minute or two (long break between songs, set break, etc.) we can switch the two battery packs so the level of the 2nd unit can be monitored.

The way we do it is to run a line from the internal battery compartment to a female plug, and run a line from a battery sled to a male plug. Plug the two together and we have power. We also build cable with a barrel plug on one end and a male connector on the other, so a battery sled can also be plugged into the DC jack.

I chose specific components for this project, but you can use whatever you have handy or is available at your local store. Minus the cost of rechargeable batteries, the whole thing cost me less than $10. Read the rest of this entry »