Good beginning to a week...
Feb. 18th, 2008 08:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnpalmerSo, I had a lovely visit from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kightp this weekend. We stopped at Costco so I could pick up the Really Important Appliances And/Or Furniture to finish my apartment, and we ended up getting cat litter, a silk shirt (that I promptly ruined by letting it get mixed in my wash and drying it on high heat - it now comes to about a half inch below my navel), and a couple of bulk drug purchases. What happened to the microwave and the toaster, and toaster oven, and possible furniture? Well, I found a decent microwave, but didn't quite get over the "do I really need this?" bug that was biting me. So, we left them there.
After some thinking, I ordered a toaster oven from Amazon; if I still need a toaster, I'll get one, but I'm betting I won't.
We also did some light rearrangement of the furniture, and built a bookcase (so now I can empty the last few boxes that couldn't be unpacked until now), and suddenly I realize that I have a home.
It was a nice visit, but busy... never so busy that we didn't have time for loving, though, and I think that's what matters.
Did I mention we hit Trader Joe's, got some yummy bread and cheeses and an incredible bottle of wine? The wine was Velvet Moon cabernet sauvignon... about $7 a bottle, and really tasty. I think a wine critic would probably rate it as "not bad... *FOR THE PRICE*" but as a person who drinks wine only if it tastes good to me, I think it's wonderful. Since most wine critics think about a really good cheap wine as one that comes in the $10-20 a bottle range, it was neat to find a cheaper, yet tasty, wine.
I guess I hadn't mentioned it... but I have now :-).
Pat decided to take the early train back on Sunday, which is one of those weird kinds of things. On the one hand, pragmatically, I agree with the decision. On the other hand, it's three full hours of time we don't have together!
But... well, I've been living by the great philosopher's words (ref: House M.D.. The Philosopher is Mick Jagger - you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need....) since I couldn't have what I want. And since I couldn't have what I wanted, I have to try to get what I need.
I've been trying to bring some heavier discipline into my life. (looks around at people smirking knowingly) No, I mean, I've been trying to work harder at developing skills and making changes.
While it was disappointing that I couldn't get a job near Albany, part of the reason (aside from my own mis-steps) was that I didn't have strong enough skills to do multiple things, which most folks wanted and needed. So, I'm studying more in-depth SQL programming, and C#.
(I've also been exercising muscle groups more. I haven't been jogging as much, but I'm hoping the exercises I'm doing will eliminate my tendinitis problems, which will make jogging easier down the road. I have a much easier time jogging than doing pushups, abdominals, etc. so I'm pushing myself to do more of the latter. I've got the idea that it might be better to have a few pointless disciplines in my life than to end up hitting spots where I drift aimlessly.)
Anyway: Pat had to leave earlier than usual, so I took that time to try to do some studying.
Problem: I don't have C# installed on my home computer.
Ah well... I spent the afternoon installing Linux on my desktop system, so I can do some studying of C++ (C# is just like C++, so there's no point in not developing some cross-training skills at the same time), hooking into my work system at Microsoft, and downloading C# express edition. (I could have downloaded Visual Studio, but it would have taken forever) and doing some reading. It might not have been as much study as I wanted, but it sets me up for later.
But now... now it's time to get to work. Love to you all, here's hoping your weeks are as positive as I'm hoping mine will be.
kightp this weekend. We stopped at Costco so I could pick up the Really Important Appliances And/Or Furniture to finish my apartment, and we ended up getting cat litter, a silk shirt (that I promptly ruined by letting it get mixed in my wash and drying it on high heat - it now comes to about a half inch below my navel), and a couple of bulk drug purchases. What happened to the microwave and the toaster, and toaster oven, and possible furniture? Well, I found a decent microwave, but didn't quite get over the "do I really need this?" bug that was biting me. So, we left them there. After some thinking, I ordered a toaster oven from Amazon; if I still need a toaster, I'll get one, but I'm betting I won't.
We also did some light rearrangement of the furniture, and built a bookcase (so now I can empty the last few boxes that couldn't be unpacked until now), and suddenly I realize that I have a home.
It was a nice visit, but busy... never so busy that we didn't have time for loving, though, and I think that's what matters.
Did I mention we hit Trader Joe's, got some yummy bread and cheeses and an incredible bottle of wine? The wine was Velvet Moon cabernet sauvignon... about $7 a bottle, and really tasty. I think a wine critic would probably rate it as "not bad... *FOR THE PRICE*" but as a person who drinks wine only if it tastes good to me, I think it's wonderful. Since most wine critics think about a really good cheap wine as one that comes in the $10-20 a bottle range, it was neat to find a cheaper, yet tasty, wine.
I guess I hadn't mentioned it... but I have now :-).
Pat decided to take the early train back on Sunday, which is one of those weird kinds of things. On the one hand, pragmatically, I agree with the decision. On the other hand, it's three full hours of time we don't have together!
But... well, I've been living by the great philosopher's words (ref: House M.D.. The Philosopher is Mick Jagger - you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need....) since I couldn't have what I want. And since I couldn't have what I wanted, I have to try to get what I need.
I've been trying to bring some heavier discipline into my life. (looks around at people smirking knowingly) No, I mean, I've been trying to work harder at developing skills and making changes.
While it was disappointing that I couldn't get a job near Albany, part of the reason (aside from my own mis-steps) was that I didn't have strong enough skills to do multiple things, which most folks wanted and needed. So, I'm studying more in-depth SQL programming, and C#.
(I've also been exercising muscle groups more. I haven't been jogging as much, but I'm hoping the exercises I'm doing will eliminate my tendinitis problems, which will make jogging easier down the road. I have a much easier time jogging than doing pushups, abdominals, etc. so I'm pushing myself to do more of the latter. I've got the idea that it might be better to have a few pointless disciplines in my life than to end up hitting spots where I drift aimlessly.)
Anyway: Pat had to leave earlier than usual, so I took that time to try to do some studying.
Problem: I don't have C# installed on my home computer.
Ah well... I spent the afternoon installing Linux on my desktop system, so I can do some studying of C++ (C# is just like C++, so there's no point in not developing some cross-training skills at the same time), hooking into my work system at Microsoft, and downloading C# express edition. (I could have downloaded Visual Studio, but it would have taken forever) and doing some reading. It might not have been as much study as I wanted, but it sets me up for later.
But now... now it's time to get to work. Love to you all, here's hoping your weeks are as positive as I'm hoping mine will be.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-18 04:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-19 12:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-18 05:34 pm (UTC)It was a lovely weekend, wasn't it? And though I hated to leave early, it was good to get caught up on my sleep last night. (-:
P.S. I loved the cabernet, precisely *because* it didn't have some of the qualities "good" cabernet has.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-19 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-19 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-18 07:12 pm (UTC)If it's a Windows XP box, there's a good chance that you do have it. (The csc.exe compiler ships as part of the .NET Framework.) What you wouldn't have is the full-blown Visual Studio IDE.
(C# is just like C++, so there's no point in not developing some cross-training skills at the same time)
Er, not really. (Unless one overloads the "just like" operator, of course :-) For one thing, C# programmers can usually get away without doing much in the way of memory management; for another, much of the power of C# is really in the various .NET Framework libraries.
Theoretically, you could run Mono on your Linux box and develop in C# that way. But I suspect that anybody wanting to hire someone with "C# and SQL Server experience" will be expecting that experience to be on Windows using Visual Studio.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-18 08:22 pm (UTC)Hmm. Now I'm trying to remember what Java looked like, and wonder if C# actually looks like Java, and it's just that Java looks like C++. I guess it doesn't matter.
The point is, I'd like to be able to do a little programming in C++ as well... enough to fix a relatively obvious bug, or make a minor change, if necessary.
Re: csc, you're probably right about that, but the book I'm reading from is written based on the assumption of having VS2005 on the machine. And dear god, but I would hate to live without command completion :-).