19-II-2003.
Paid the car insurance on thirteenth, but eSurance claims the card number was wrong. Messed with it for a while and solved, and told them
...done this, but had to switch browsers. The Visa card I used last time expired, so I logged in, entered the new card number and clicked next - nothing happened. I'm using Mozilla 1.3a, and this button worked fine last time (September 2002) - I had to resort to using IE (6.0) to get this information through.
Something is not entirely compliant in the JavaScript behind that button. As a colleague programmer, just wanted to let you know.
Time being long while we wait for these in Atlanta to make a move, we took the Lindenblatt shooter, which Greg brought back in 1998, which was getting stuck and didn't want to snap the shots. While it's the precise mechanics indeed, still, is there anybody out there who didn't mess with an alarm clock's cogs... And there's no cost no damages, if we can't fix it we'll surely throw it away anyway, and now at least I have the tools, bought a set of fine precise screwdrivers, real clockwork type, so let's see what's in that black box.
We managed to open it from both upper and bottom sides, and by some fit of imagination found one lever which got stuck. Unstuck it and it worked and even didn't get stuck again. We took it to Go the next time, she'll need it. Garnished it with my old flash from 1974 and the 30mm lens I bought in Amsterdam in 1976.
Later I found that Lindenblatt actually means a linden's leaf.
Among the notes on work for Gary, „moving the furniture around... and still here and there someone's wrong image appears“.
The trouble was that the pictures (i.e. posters) are already with the events which they announce, and we have the data on the bands (and artists and places) were with which event, so we can pick which prominent posters to show with them, automatically to start with, and then he could refine that pick later. So each of them would have six posters attached, and then he'd remove the less important and replace with others, even more than six, but with assigning them some priority, by using an ordinal number. This is where we made it complicated, first by the automatic being far from perfect, the marks being applied not quite equally everywhere, as he did that manually and from memory, and they were applied to the poster itself, equally for all the bands mentioned on it. So for some bands the main poster could be one where they were sixth on the list, and their most important concert could have been missing altogether. This is where we bowled some ten messages forth and back until we dragged it to usable level. Until then, like this:
The code to run to fill the PPTs with 1 to 6 events:
do fill_pptimgIt will first read the existing mark fields from the big grid, then go by events. Keep in mind that this is the only place where marks you made on the big grid in browser are used. If you do some more marking there, you'd have to run this again, but then it may lose some information for the bands (because the bands share the mark field for the event, and the last mark written stays there). So I'd rather remove the mark columns from the big grid in the browser screen - it's not precise enough and may cause partial loss of information (losing selected images for some bands).
I may rework this routine to not empty the PPT of stored image marks (it blanks the mRelated field and rebuilds it) in future versions. Once you start using images page for real, it will be unwise to have such a thing around. For now, treat it as a run-once.
Other stuff:
- new layout of the furniture on the images page, as per your instructions. I've used the leftover space to insert a little grid, which will stay there for a while, just to make sure we're getting the right data there.
- Reworked the logic for writing a record, so now you can write as many A, B, C etc marks, but only one of each of *, 1, ... 5. There's some intricate logic, i.e. you may edit an A to become a 2, and the A record will be turned into a 2 record, while the old 2 record will vanish (and the mark in the grid for that one will be blanked). And vice versa, you can edit a * to become E, but existing E record(s) won't be unmarked.
- There's one trouble, which I'm still trying to fix. If the first mark you use is 1, the underlying XML engine will interpret it as a logical true, and it will show up as a T mark. As soon as there's at least one other mark, next assignment of 1 is OK. I know it's awkward in the least, and that I could have simply added another linked table instead, but I figure XML is something the web guys can use directly.
The "*" mark was really a wild card, as in „use these in any order if there are less than six of manually marked“, or something to that effect. And the exemel stuff... that's a trick which George used at eHosp, to generate page he used none other but xml with a template in which the style was defined, which made the work a lot easier.
On, I guess, twentieth, I talked with some chick from m$. They may be the last place where I'd agree to work, but on the other side if the dough is good and if I'd get a chance to gather enough inside insight to later publish a book on their inner workings... So this was a job interview which led to absolutely nothing. This was really more a getting to know each other and to get me filed somewhere for future reference. But there, this is a point I reached.
On 22nd, response arrived: „Thank you for your inquiry regarding employment opportunities within Microsoft and for the time you spent talking with me. Although your background is impressive, we have decided to pursue other candidates whose qualifications and skills more closely match our needs. We will keep your resume on file for the future and a recruiter will contact you if anything comes available that would be a good fit with your skills. Again, thank you for your interest in Microsoft. Best wishes for success in your career search.“
So, there it is, nice words and nothing to write home about. The main reason for the nothing was that I'm not doing C, and they don't need anyone doing fox. Amazingly, the source of her email shows none of the half mile long css, it seems they still haven't made Word into an email editor, and there's also no signature from anything Outlook, the source is actually quite concise, with no other sign of Redmond but the server name and url. Not too many years after this, any email coming from m$'s software would have at least 10K of various fluff and gold plating before arriving to the point where text to send actually begins.
By 22nd the plan had already crystalized - I'd go to Atlanta early in the month, work there for two weeks, find an apartment, then back to A-burg to bring the girls. I'd probably leave the car down there, and take a rental, or better airplane for the trip north, and then the truck for the move.
In the afternoon we drove to Richmond, took that Lindenblatt too. This time we treated the girls with grub from a chinese restaurant, namely american chinese, where the food is adjusted. There are real chinese [ones], where it's served as if in China and the recipes aren't americanized - Ricardo once was taken there by a pal, and he claims it's the weirdest meal of his life. This restaurant is fit out as completely normal, perhaps the fake leather (ser. skaj aka sky) on the seats may resemble a dairy restaurant, but the colors... starting from the shop window framed with purple neon, to the walls in five colors (not attaching any image here, the minolta didn't match the violet at all).
The grub, then, was cheap and copious. For 35 dollars six of us had our fill, plus they'll have one more meal, and Lena had some for the road, so we can count this as nine or ten meals for the money. In the smaller boxes (plastic laminated cardboard with wire handles) is the rice, in two more the spaghetti (the original, not what that Marco from Pula wrote down the recipe and carried over to Italy), and in the rest the vegetables and meat. We also got a dozen little bags with sauces, and of course a fortune cookie each. The fortune isn't much of a prophecy, more a proverb or some such, and on the back of it there are your lucky lotto numbers... so believers will believe :). Didn't get any chopsticks, though, got plastic forks.
The red pack on the right edge of the table are her cigarettes, „Black hawk“, bought at Smokin' Joe's. Or did we switch to ordering online already.
In the evening it fell on our mind to, as we already have the red (ser. black) wine in a bag, make a musulin. At home, by equalizing by sound of it, they call it musolini, but nope, it's musulin in dalmatian. That's wine over the pulp orange juice, poured slowly so it doesn't stir, and then you sit and watch the wine slowly come down into the orange. As per description I shared with Škrba and Boća, „held the glass in one hand, coffee spoon in my mouth lowered into the glass, and operated the tap with the other hand so to aim the jet into the spoon, so it doesn't hit the liquid, to prevent turbulence“. To which Škrba [replied] „I'll pretend that I didn't read this (((:“.
It ain't bad at all, though I wouldn't drink it more than twice a month. (... 14 words...)
In other news, Vanji is gone to Libya, his new job is some 700 km away from Tripoli... Don't know how will he manage without wine there. It's a jamahirya, they don't drink. Though, if they hired Yugos, there'll be fuel.
Mentions: 07-X-2024., Annenburg (A-burg), Božidar Sokolović (Boća), eHosp, fox, Gary Brandywine, George Whiteley, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Gradivoj Škrbić (Škrba), Greg Reubenthal, Jelena Sredljević (Lena), Majkrosoft (m$), Ricardo Manuel Bariero (Ricardo), Vilmoš Baranji (Vanji), yugo, in serbian
2-IX-2024 - 18-II-2026