April 19, 2013

Good evening! What a day it's been ... it's after 9:p & I'm just starting this blog for today. I'm only about ½ a day behind. LOL! It was worth it though. :) Yesterday I chatted with Pete on the phone, Updated Java on my PC, made a boiled egg for breakfast, got the mail, cleaned the house, dealt w/ the AT&T repairman that came to figure out why our land line wasn't working,

surfed eBay & added a new photo to my beautiful Lindsay Top Knit & Crochet Patterns that I have listed for sale (2nd pic), checked facebook & took my game turns, spent some time working on my Knit Wit afghan, & then went to update my personal Website & got so wound up in programming that I was doing it until Pete got home from work. I decided to create my random link off of the main page. What it does is take you to a random link from my main page. There are 35 links on my main page, this one just takes you to one of them at random. SURPRISE! There are 37 random links, the 35 original buttons you see on the main page, & the other 2 are the graphics directories for collectors. I have lots of randomness on my Website, but this was a new & different kind & required that I learn a new trick in JavaScript. Instead of just choosing a random line in a file of choices & outputting the choice to the screen (for example a random number between 1 & 10 would simply output the number chosen), this one had to actually TAKE you there. LOAD the page ... not just show you the name of the chosen page. Lots of headache later, I got it working. YAY! While I was doing that I got distracted with another project for my page. A random background generator. Yes, I have a thing for randomness ... I love it! I randomize EVERYTHING! Everything? Yes, damn near everything! I have 720 background & found a way to randomize

the background of my main page EVERY time you load it. With 720 different backgrounds you can hit my page daily for almost 2 years before you see all of them. Maybe even more than 2 years considering it can choose duplicates now & then. I'm

always collecting backgrounds, so that 720 will only increase over time. Anyway, I didn't complete the random background generator last night, I only got the idea for it. When Pete got home he let me finish the random page link & then it was our nighttime routine & bed. My Sim for yesterday, Faith, who lives in Glenwood Cottage in Bridgeport showered, spent time with her pet, worked on her handiness skill,

made autumn salad for dinner & went to bed JUST as it was time to get up for work. Poor Faith, she was NOT happy. She went to work at the military base, came home & passed out ... literally, she passed out in the front lawn & then finally made it inside & downstairs to bed. She slept a VERY long time & when she woke up she made autumn salad for dinner, showered, spent time with her pet, & then went back to work at the military base where she finally met a man. A co-worker named Victor Sharpe & he is CUTE! Back IRL, when I woke up this morning (& it was actually a decent hour believe it or not), I took the dogs out & then immediately called DirecTV to upgrade to the new Genie. Last time I called they said I had to wait 4 days, remember? Well it's been 4 days. After a long call with customer support it was finally decided that I can't do it yet. Call back on Monday. Aw come on! I still had the random background generator idea in my head & rather than wait until it was time to work on my Website again, I went all OCD on it & had to do it NOW. Right now, screw my schedule or the rest of my day. Anyway, how long could it possibly take? HAHAHA! Stupid question. This again was new JavaScript for me & the learning curve took a while, then there was those 720 files. Holy crap! OK, I sorted through thousands of graphics & pulled out only the backgrounds & copied them to a Backgrounds sub-directory off of my Website's directory on my PC. Then I had to make a directory listing which requires old DOS commands to print the directory listing to a file. Then take that file, remove all the crap at the top & bottom, then figure out how I'm going to get all 720 file names into the code ... 1 per line, with code before & after each file name. Oh hell ... this is going to make my head explode. I did test the code to make sure it worked with 4 file names. It worked. YAY! Now ... 720. I'll be here for a year typing. No way, find another way. I copied & pasted my way through the code until there were 720 lines of code. Now ... all the code says image[1]. They need to say 1, 2, 3, etc., all the way to 720. Bite me! I copied & pasted the code into Excel. 720 rows. Good. Break up the code into 3 columns ... everything before the number, the number, then everything after the number. The column that had the number ... delete everything in that column, they were all "1". Start over. Line 1 (1). Line 2 (2). Now that I've established a pattern, highlight those 2 sells, grab the thingie on the bottom right of the highlighted cells, & drag it to the bottom 720 lines down. Let go & WHAM! Numbered from 1-720 in a second! Love it! You can do that any way you want. If you put 3 & then 6, it'll recognize the pattern & fill in 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, etc. Pretty cool! Now that that part was taken care of, I created another column for the file names, copied the file name list & pasted them into the new column. Done! Take it back out of Excel, needed to do some editing in Word (I can't remember exactly what I did in Word, but I remember jumping back & forth from Excel, NotePad, NotePad++, & Word. When it was finished, I tried to upload the 720 files to my Website online. Can't do that on the normal WebFTP page because I'd have to choose each 1 individually. Nope, I need an FTP client for this. FileZilla. The best. Wouldn't connect. Tried & tried & tried & tried until I got a headache, couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong. All the settings were correct. I finally went onto Yahoo & tried to find the phone # for customer support. They do NOT make it easy to call them! I finally found the #, got a really nice guy on the line who spoke ENGLISH, explained my malfunction, he tried it & it didn't work for him either. HA! It's not me!! I hoped I was smart enough to use an FTP client. Sheesh! I am. Phew! After a VERY LONG call, he decided it's not me, it's not him, it must be FileZilla. He sent me to some Website out of the country to download an FTP client that I've never heard of. Cyberduck, from cyberduck.ch in Switzerland. Hmmm ... if their FTP clients work as well as their watches, we'll be in luck! 1st shot, it worked. WOOHOO!!! I uploaded all 720 files, it took an hour. Then I uploaded the actual code page for it, ran it ... nothing. WTH?! Again, nothing. Again, nothing. The page was there, but the background was blank white. Oh NOW what?! I went line by line through the code & removed all spaces, uploaded it, tried again. Nothing. Went through all the code line by line & removed all special characters, uploaded it, tried again. Nothing. Sonofa ... I'm already HOURS into this project, now it doesn't work? I tested it! It worked! Now it won't. I started removing blocks of code & pasting them in another window. Maybe it was a problem with the length. Maybe 720 lines is just too much. Nope, each block deletion, each re-upload, each retry ... failed. Back down to the original 4 lines, failed. Head is about to explode. Never one to walk away, never satisfied until it WORKS, I plodded forward. Rechecked EVERY line ... if there's just ONE " missing or misplaced, it won't work. Nope, it's all there. I finally tried to edit the file from Yahoo's WebFTP page. I never do that. I had no reason to do that, but I did it. When the code loaded in their editor, every single " was replaced with funky special characters. WTF?! I looked back at my copy open in NotePad++. They were ", but special FANCY ones. I hadn't noticed that! Every single one had been replaced (probably by Microsoft Word) with fancy graphical versions of ". I was pissed ... and relieved. I found the problem! I did the find/replace thing on the entire document, re-uploaded it, tried it & IT WORKS!!! FINALLY!!! Phew! ::: fall forward & bap head on desk ::: finally finally finally! I should mention that in the middle of all that hell, I got a text message from my old bank, checked the old bank, checked PayPal, checked eBay, called PayPal, called eBay, no one could fix the error that PayPal made, & now I have to go to the bank tomorrow & call PayPal again & yell at them for screwing up. When I say "X" is my primary bank & is SHOWS that "X" is my primary bank, WHY did a large charge get charged to bank "Y"?! Idiots. They don't even know, they were clueless. Their official stance was "It wasn't supposed to do that." Ya THINK?! Kyle & Pete both called during all of this, too. SEVEN hours after I woke up, I finally pulled out my bead banner. Usually the 1st thing I do on Friday mornings after taking the dogs out. SEVEN HOURS into the day. Ugh! I finished the bead banner (1st pic). My banner collection is the 4th pic. I finished the banner, hung it up, took pics, uploaded the pics ... then I decided I was too excited about the next one to wait until tomorrow. I love brand new projects! So exciting! I designed a houseplant (6th pic). Kind of a houseplant at night (I have a lot of dark blue to use up so I'm using that for the background instead of white like I normally would). After designing the banner I went through my rather extensive bead collection & chose all the colors, making sure I had enough of each one to complete the project without having to go to the store (since running out mid-project can END a project when you get to the store & they no longer sell the beads they had there just a day earlier). It's 100% ready to go now. I'll start the actual beading tomorrow. Ahhh ... Sims! My totally non-productive pleasure. Today I'll play a beautiful home built by a talented other. It's called Bridgeport Heights (5th pic) & I placed it in Bridgeport since I assumed that's where it was created. I then made Robert. Poor guy doesn't really have any good traits. Robert is absent-minded, a vegetarian who is over-emotional, hydrophobic (figures, he has a pool), & he's friendly (finally a good trait). No useful traits though as far as money-making. He wants to join the science career, like vegetarian fish & chips, custom music, & the color black. He's a Virgo. His furry buddy is a MinPin named Edward who is adventurous, clueless (gets along great with absent-minded owners), & a genius. A clueless genius? Odd. They started off in the summer. BEAUTIFUL house ... kudos to the creator! He joined the science career & then drove into town to buy a book on gardening (1 of the 3 needed skills for the science career). He drove back home & read it until he got to skill level 1. Then he went to one of the many nice bookshelves in his home & read a book on handiness (2nd of the 3 needed skills for the science career) until he reached level 1. Then to work on the 3rd needed skill, fishing. He drove to the resort (I never knew there was a resort in Bridgeport until today) & went fishing, again until he reached level 1. Now he has level 1 of all 3 skills he's going to need to master someday. He drove back home & spent time with his dog, made mac & cheese for dinner, & headed to bed. He woke up just in time to go to work, then went home & showered, went fishing at the resort again until he hit level 2, went home & cleaned up the old papers from in front of the gated entry to his driveway (celebrity home), did the laundry, & paid the bills. OK, I got some Sims in today & decompressed a little from the past 24 hours. Sheesh! Tomorrow we're off to Denton for the Jazz festival while others head up to the Onion Festival in Princeton.

Cities of the world w/ the most billionaires top 10:

1. New York City, USA
2. London, England
3. Moscow, Russia
4. Hong Kong, China
5. Los Angeles, USA
6. Dallas, USA
7. Instanbul, Turkey
8. San Francisco, USA
9. Chicago, USA
10. Mumbai, India

iCanEat:

Want to eat gluten & allergy free fast food? Find safe items from one of top 10 iPad apps in Food category featured in Incredible iPad Apps for Dummies!
Enter your allergen concerns into the iCanEat fast food menu database for 34 US chains. Hide items that contain gluten, wheat, egg, milk nuts, peanuts, soy, fish and shellfish based on your preferences.
Only browse and order what you can eat from the 3,900-plus item database 100% offline with FREE updates provided!
Decide where & what you can order by easily seeing menu options from: A&W, Arby's, Boston Market, Buffalo Wild Wings, Burger King, Carl's Jr, Chick-fil-A, Chipotle, Coldstone, Corner Bakery, Culver's, Dairy Queen, Green Burrito, Hardees, Jack in the Box, Jersey Mikes, KFC, McDonald's, Moe's Southwest Grill, Noodles and Company, Olive Garden, Pei Wei, Pizza Hut, Potbellys, Qdoba, Quiznos, Red Burrito, Saladworks, Sonic, Steak n Shake, Subway, Taco Bell, The Counter & Wendy's.
"Makes eating out with allergies and celiac much easier. Enter your top allergens and/or gluten and this novel app finds safe menu items at restaurant chains." - Allergic Living Magazine
No need to spend time searching through chain websites anymore! Save yourself the effort and let this app do the work for you.
All 34 menus address the top 8 US allergens including wheat. However, only 26 of the chains indicate where gluten is found. Separate gluten-free menus are provided by 9 chains: Arby's, Burger King, Carl's Jr, Chick-fil-A, Dairy Queen, Hardees, Olive Garden, Pei Wei and Wendy’s.
Based on website source data, each chain's menu indicates specific food cautions and considerations.
This app is part of the multi-award winning Let’s Eat Out! series of apps, books and ebooks - purchased by customers in over 60 countries. Created by international technology consultants managing gluten free diets, celiac / coeliac disease and food allergies, this app leverages over 2 million miles of dining and travel experience worldwide.
We are committed to helping you safely live gluten & allergy free everywhere. Your feedback is very important so please contact us at info@AllergyFreePassport.com with any comments.
Works Offline – No Internet Connectivity Required
*****************************************************************
Discover more innovative gluten & allergy free apps:
-iEatOut Gluten & Allergy Free for Dining in Ethnic Restaurants
-Gluten Free & Vegan Pizza
-Gluten Free Chicago
-Gluten Free & Allergy Free Disney World Orlando

I'll tell you how beautiful it was. It was so beautiful today, that King Tut unraveled himself to the waist. It was so beautiful at the beach, I saw a shark wearing a floppy hat, floating in an inner tube, reading Field & Stream. It was so beautiful in the mountains, that Big Foot was seen sitting on a ski lift waxing his feet. -Johnny Carson 1978

Like most of the world's billionaires, Bill Gates & Warren Buffet earned their money, they didn't inherit it. So what's your excuse now?

Make sure the vents all lead outside the home. The weather can cause moisture issues, but some moisture problems can come from inside the home as well. Clothes dryers & bathrooms are both internal moisture sources, & these sources should always be vented outside the home.

Play table-hockey w/ the conference-room drink coasters.

Some things money can't buy, as evidenced by this billionaire Warren Buffet's quote, "I always buy expensive suits. They just look cheap on me."

When we violate the primary laws of love - when we attach strings & conditions - we actually encourage others to violate the primary laws of life. We put them in a reactive, defensive position where they have to prove "I matter as a person, independent of you." Rebellion is a knot of the heart, not of the mind.

Wikipanion:

Accessing Wikipedia has never been faster and easier than with Wikipanion, designed for easy, search, navigation and display of Wikipedia entries. Streamline your browsing with history grouped by visit date, and bookmarking that not only bookmarks individual entries, but individual sections within an entry. Featuring intelligent features such as:
- Table of contents browser that knows where you are in the page
- Multiple search methods including Smart completion with entry preview, Google searching and a full text Wikipedia search
- Dual language searching and language switching (hiding languages you don't care about)
- Bookmark, including bookmarking individual sections of pages
- History, grouped by last visit date
- Full in-page searching
- Wiktionary dictionary term looking without leaving the current page
- Table based category browsing
- Interactive font resizing
- Image saving to the Photo library
- Ogg vorbis audio playback for dictionary pronunciations and other audio content available on Wikipedia
- Contextual knowledge for sending links to specific sections in a Wikipedia entry
- Easily turn on automatic focusing of the search field on launch
Tip: To scroll to the top of a Wikipedia entry, hit the title bar at the top of the iPhone's screen (this works in Safari too).
Second tip: Click into the search bar to cancel a page load request.
See the Wikipanion web site for more details about all of the available features.
Wikipanion is advertisement free.

You forget, on average, 90% of your dreams within 5 minutes of waking up.