More RMS

I got the solution completely restructured now, and I have all the layers defined, and a couple of functions working in each layer, right now centered on updating/creating new users for the site.  Now that the base stuff is complete, adding new functionality to it is easy, and I hope to have all the functionality they initially wanted complete by next weekend.  The only issue I can see taking much time is security on the pages, as that isn’t part of the framework that was constructed.  I’m going to have to look at incorporating that into the framework at some point, but right now I have another framework that I can use, it just won’t be as easy to use or maintain at the moment.  I’d go ahead and incorporate it, but that will take considerably more time than the kluge way, and I want to get the initially functionality out there ASAP.  I’ll have time to go back and retrofit it later.  Hopefully it won’t be too much data conversion involved, if any at all.

Still really busy at NTelos during the day, their rollout to production is scheduled for 3/31, and there is quite a bit to go before we’re ready for that, especially considering that we have to leave time for the ICMS (an AS/400 program) people to go through and check to make sure the stuff we’re putting into their databases looks correct, and make that billing cycles run.

School was out on Friday due to snow.  Once it had stopped, we all went out and played in it, the kids loved it, and the snow was just about perfect, just the right amount of wet to make great snowballs and snowmen, but not too wet to get you soaked and freezing.  We stayed out in it for about an hour before they got cold and ready to go in.  That was only the 2^nd real snow we’ve had this year, which is a little low for us.  Don’t get me started on global warming though, the fact that these morons pushing that the earth is warming up just drives me up the wall!  The fact that they have maybe 100 to 150 years worth of data, and the Earth’s climate probably changes in cycles that are at least thousands of years long doesn’t deter them from screaming that people are causing the planet to heat up dramatically.  This kind of politicized “science” drives me up the wall.  Oh well, I have bigger fish to fry than that for now.  Have to choose my battles, or I’ll have no time for any of them.

RMS

I’ve gotten a lot of work done on the RMS project I’ve been working on since June(?).  I have restructured the solution to incorporate all the parts that I purchased/obtained(open source) into something of a whole, still have a little bit of work to do there, but it is coming along quite nicely.  I am incorporating a lot of what I have learned from the Amentra team that has been mentoring the NTelos people.  The framework they have set up is quite nice to work with, and makes things very easy to maintain, and easily extensible.  This should go well with the project, as we are planning on customizing/extending it as necessary for different types of clients we plan on selling it to (schools, churches, sports teams, etc).

 

My contact at Harmony Web has sent me some info on a .Net project he may be getting, supposed to be hearing back from them soon, which would be nice as opposed to the VB6 work he normally has.  The guy from Derivia that I did some report work for sends me this nasty email the other day after I email him 3 different times about the bill that he hasn’t paid that is over 60 days late.  Says the quality of the work was poor.  I felt like writing back that if he actually gave me some requirements, and definitions to work with, and MAYBE if he actually paid his bills, well, then I may have been more inclined to do the work, but I restrained myself.  I just consoled myself by re-depositing the first check he wrote (90 days past due), since it was returned NSF.  In his defense he did send a cashier’s check, but my kids managed to get hold of it somehow, so he had to put a stop payment on it.  Supposedly his bank waits 90 days before they put the funds back.  I waited exactly 90 days from when he said he put the stop payment on it.  That was about 5 days ago, bastard better have the money in the account.  Ah well.

 

I found out about another DUG, this one in Charlottesville.  The organizer is a professor of technology at UVA, Eric Meier.  Mike was going to speak there tonight, but I don’t have time this week.  Hopefully I’ll be able to go to some of these meetings soon and make some contacts, I’d like to get some more contract work going.

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Well, Deanna had a bad day yesterday.  She had a migraine pretty much all day.  Nothing seems to be working for them anymore.  I told her to tell her doctor about it when she goes in for her diabetes test.  She is supposed to call today to get in sometime this week for the test, her blood sugar levels spike whenever she eats something with sugar in it, so she may be pre-diabetic.  She has been doing the low-carb Atkins diet for a while, so that has probably kept it in check.  She also just had her thyroid checked by her gynecologist (although why he would be checking it I don't know), and had blood work done for that, and it checked out normal.  She is also doing a store bought test for pre-menopause, but you're supposed to test twice, about 2 weeks apart, she has another week to wait for that one.  She's trying to figure out why she has been feeling exhausted all the time.  The first test from the pre-menopause kit said she was normal.  I hope something is found soon, the constant exhaustion is driving me up the wall, because it makes her moody and bitchy.  I'm sure it's not pleasant for her either.

 

The three older kids all got their report cards recently, they are all doing excellent in school.  It's been relatively warm here recently, so I've been taking them outside when I get home in the evening.  I need to get a bigger swing-set for them, the one we have only has 3 swings on it, and it is pretty short.  I may do something like my dad did, and put a board up between a couple of trees to hang the swings from.  I want to get them some of the nice playground equipment that parks have, or some of the tube things that are in the fast-food restaurants.  We are planning an un-birthday party for them on May 14^th, we're going to rent an inflatable moon bounce, an snow-cone machine, and a cotton candy machine.  Deanna also bought a bunch of prizes to give out to them.  We're going to let them invite 5 friends each (not including siblings of friends, who can come as well), and any kids from the family that want to come as well, so there will probably be 25-30 kids there.  Hope to get my parents, Kim, and some of the other kids parents to stay and help keep them corralled.  They're going to love it, I'm sure.

 

 

Aging

I just joined the Methuselah 300 group.  Check out the web site: www.mprize.org.  You should also join up, give as much as you can, it's a worthy cause, aging is a disease no one has survived yet. Maybe soon that won't be the case.

 

 

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I have yet to have my meeting with the person at NTelos who is supposed to be hiring me.  My contract is up on the 28th, I hate when people leave something like this until the last minute.  I have a feeling that I'm not going to be particularly happy with what they offer me, but thankfully I have 3 other irons in the fire, so I don't have to take it if I don't want to.  I hope it works out though, I do like it there.  I've been doing a lot of updating of my links this week, I just discovered the virtues RSS news readers, and have been moving a lot of stuff I just had bookmarked into a RSS reader, hopefully that will save me some time reading, as I don't have to visit the sites now to know if there is something new on them.

 

Just got my corporate taxes paid, wasn't too bad, the dates said that corporate taxes weren't due until March 15, but I haven't been paying estimated taxes, so I don't know if I owe late penalties or not.  I'll try to talk to my accountant about it at some point, but I'm not too worried about it, I didn't owe that much anyway.

 

The house is still moving along at a snails pace.  I did find out today that the guy across the street is willing to deed us driveway access through his land to the road, so that will help out.  Now I just have to get the in-laws moving on deeding the piece of land we are going to build the house on to us.  That seems to be the sticking place at this point.