Gale Force

My recent blog posts have not been nearly geeky enough…I mean my Blog’s tagline is “Family Man + Geek at Heart”. You’ve certainly gotten a glimpse of the “Family Man” part of the equation…but now I’m gonna hit you with some pure geekitude!

There’s a new programming language that has the coding community all abuzz (thanks Pete for bringing this important technology to my attention!). I don’t generally give too much credence to new programming languages…but this one has the potential to redefine software engineering as we know it. May I humbly present…LOLCODE.

Let the code samples speak for themselves:

Example 1: Filezorz

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
PLZ OPEN FILE "LOLCATS.TXT"?
AWSUM THX
VISIBLE FILE
O NOES
INVISIBLE "ERROR!"
KTHXBYE


Example 2: IF/THEN/ELSE

HAI
CAN HAS STDIO?
I HAS A VAR
GIMMEH VAR
IZ VAR BIGGER THAN 10?
YARLY
BTW this is true
VISIBLE "BIG NUMBER!"
NOWAI
BTW this is false
VISIBLE "LITTLE NUMBER!"
KTHX
KTHXBYE


Simply the best implementation of natural language programming ever.  I encourage you to familiarize yourself with this emergent technology.  It won’t be long before employers will be requiring a working knowledge of LOLCODE for any serious software engineering position.  The following links should start you on the path to LOL zen

• LOLCODE Home
• LOLCODE Examples Page
• LOLCODE Implementors
• LOLCODE Keyword Documentation

For additional inspiration you may also want to check out

•  ICANHASCHEEZBURGER
• LOLBOTS

This weekend was the big Orem city summer festival, or Summerfest, as they like to call it. My family and I took in all that it had to offer including the 5k Fireman’s race, the Rotary Club breakfast, the booths, food and fireworks…and of course the CARNIVAL! I love the annual invasion of the carnies…strange people from strange lands coming to your town to amuse ripoff, entertain swindle and bedazzle jade the locals (or “townies” as we’re affectionately known).

Although I doubt there is a formal application process to become a carny, I am convinced that if there were it would look something like this:

Section I: About You
Name or Alias:
Age or rough approximation:
Address (N/A acceptable):
Highest grade level completed (circle one): 2 3 4 5

Section II: Please Answer the Following Questions
Do you like children Y N
Do you have any experience around or near children Y N
Do you have any children of your own Y N

If you answered Yes to any of the previous questions, we’re sorry but we are unable to accept your application at this time.

Seriously though…I did not catch even the briefest suggestion of a hint of a smile from any of the Carnival staff the entire day! Where do they get these people (OK I doubt I really want to know the answer to that)? I swear there’s a massive untapped market for Carnivals where the operators are 1) friendly 2) can speak English 3) have most of their teeth and 4) have a wardrobe consisting of more than wife-beaters and jean shorts. But what do I know…

In parting I would like to share a few informative links:

• Carny Lingo - The Ultimate List
• Carny Entry on Wikipedia
• Photos tagged “carny” on Flickr

Can’t wait until next year…

I’m not sure how it evolved, but over the years my friends and I have come up with Garbage-Pail-esque names for many of the restaurants around town. We generally use this alternative naming convention (ANC) when we’re trying to decide where to go to lunch. A typical conversation might sound like this:

“So where do you want to eat today?”

“How about Taco Smell.”

“Nahh…we ate there earlier this week…maybe Pizza Slut?”

This invariably goes on for 15-20 minutes before a decision is finally made, but I thought it would be fun to document all of our alternative restaurant names for your reading enjoyment.

• Of course there’s the afore mentioned Taco Smell and Pizza Slut
• Up-Chuck-a-Rama
• Sindy’s
• Burger Schwing
• Up-Chuck E Cheese (let’s be honest…anyone that used “Chuck” in their restaurant name was asking for it)
• Scary Queen
• Barftic Circle
• El Pollo Grosso
• Grodey Yogi
• Papa Cajones
• Sbarrfo
• Wienerschnitzel (no alternate necessary…I giggle every time I hear it)
• Appalling Burger (Apollo Burger)

Do you have any “pet names” for places you like (or dis-like) to eat?

We went all out on Jachin’s birthday party this year. After being inspired by another mom who put on a sweet Mario party I was confident I could do something similar (the confidence faded quickly).

First I made the invitations using some awesome graphics I found on the Nintendo website and the ever-cool Super Mario Bros. font. I also created some “coin boxes” using 4″x4″x4″ boxes that I purchased from Uline. I used this Question Mark Brick graphic, scaled it to 4″x4″ and printed them 4 per page then attached them to the boxes using a glue stick. Once the boxes were done I put the invitation, some easter grass (don’t ask me why) and some bubble-gum coins (chocolate coins were preferred but too expensive) inside and had Jachin deliver them to all of his friends. While I was going I made several extra boxes to use as decorations for the party.

Whew…invitations done…on to the cakes!

Being the lazy efficient person I am, I chose two Mario characters that would be easy to re-create in cake-ity goodness. First, the innocuous Goomba. He’s brown (chocolate icing) and he’s mushroom shaped (no artistic skills required). Next up, Blooper. He’s white (vanilla icing) and squid-shaped with few defining features (again…no artistic skills required). Perfect! Here’s the inspiration and the final product:

You should know that I have neither expertise nor skill in the area of cake decoration. For those of you who actually know how to decorate cakes, I apologize for my amateurish foray into your world. Case in point…the ultimate Mario cake. /bow “I’m not worthy”.

Invitations, check. Cakes, check. On to the piñata.

Desirous to have all aspects of the party stick to the Mario theme we decided to make a Chain Chomp piñata. We found a basic round smiley face piñata and painted it to look like a menacing Chain Chomp! The kids loved it.

Invitations, cakes, piñatas oh my. By this point I was exhausted and frankly I had lost some of my ambition. I had big ideas for cool party games but we just didn’t have the time to do them justice. In the end we let the kids decorate their own “coin boxes”, we played “pin the star”, we broke the piñata then we let the kids play some old-school Super Mario Bros. (including a “who can complete world 1-1 the fastest” contest).

Overall I think it was a big success. The kids had fun and I’m sure Jachin will remember this birthday for years to come. I have posted all of the party pictures online in the Gallery so feel free to browse them there!

“I’m sorry but our princess is in another castle….”

I’m watching the Jazz game…San Antonio is leading by 23 points.  But wait!  That’s not the worst part…the worst part is that it’s still the first quarter!

<deep breath>

Unfortunately for Jazz fans there are a lot of questions and few answers.  When did things go horribly wrong for the team?  How could they advance to the conference finals and then play like they did against San Antonio?  Why kind of bad mojo affected Mehmet?  Who has cooler tattoos: D-dub or Booz?  Why is AK such an emo?  We may never have the answers…but at least we have the entire summer ahead of us to think about it.

Post Game Update: As expected, the Jazz lost…and they did it in craptaculous fashion ultimately trailing by 25 points at the final buzzer.  It’s going to be a long plane ride home for the team…I hope they can tell themselves they left it all out on the court, but from what I saw in game 5, nobody did.

The Jazz Have Left The Building

PS - Sorry Suz…I thought for sure they’d make it back home for game 6 :(  I’ll still give you the tickets for the game…they’ll make a nice bookmark.

I took a page from Colonel Sanders’ book…I put an addictive chemical in my blog writing that made you crave it fort-nightly. And now that I’ve been away for a bit I can only imagine the jonesing that must be going on. Well I’m back with a vengeance (I always wanted to say that) and here for your reading pleasure is another quality post.

Let’s talk about frugality.

I’ve been accused of being cheap. I like to consider myself “frugal”. Let’s take my son’s eighth birthday as an example. Jachin really wanted a new bike and because this was a big birthday for him I decided to take him to the REAL bike shop instead of Wal-Mart. As you’d expect, bike prices at a REAL bike store are considerably higher than those at Wal-Mart so I’m thinking he needs to pick out something that will last him a really long time (read: until he’s old enough to drive). First he tried a 16″ BMX bike. It fit well and had those really cool front and rear pegs that make you think you can do awesome stunts. He liked it but we convinced him that a mountain bike might be a better choice. We tried a 20″ mountain bike that fit him perfectly. He did a few laps around the store, grinning ear-to-ear the whole time. He was the Lone Ranger and had found his Silver. All I could think as I watched him ride around the store was “boy…at the rate he’s growing that bike will last him 2 years tops!”. I’m a horrible father I know.

After some coaxing I convinced my son to try the 24″ version of the same bike. The bike absolutely dwarfed him…it was almost comical watching him try to mount this behemoth. When he finally got on he could barely touch the pedals and the handlebars were entirely out of reach. Not wanting to give up so easily I asked the sales rep if it could be adjusted to fit someone of his size. A whirlwind of allen-wrench tweaking ensued…first the seat was dropped down about 6 inches then the handlebars were lowered all the way and rotated forward. The pedals were even moved forward on the cranks to accommodate a shorter stride. When it was all said and done, Jachin could actually get on the bike and he even managed a few laps around the store. He still looked ridiculously under-sized on that bike…but he was riding it. “Perfect!”, I declared triumphantly and headed toward the register.

So what do you think? Frugal, cheap or horrible parenting in general? You should know, however, that the story has a happy ending. After a few hours (OK minutes actually) with his new bike Jachin absolutely loves it! He quickly made the adjustment from a 14″ bike to a 24″ bike and has figured out the gears and hand brakes. Every time he gets on his bike I catch a glimpse of that same smile he had at the bike store when he was riding something that actually fit him. Besides…he looks really good on that bike with his pants that are rolled up 4 inches, the shirt that is 2 sizes too big and the shoes that have padding in the toes that I can take out when his feet grow…

By Devin Hansen - Inaugural Guest Blogger

Greetings, Gale Force readers. I’m honored to be guest posting on the increasingly famous Gale Force Blog today for the first time. How unfortunate that the monumental occasion comes under such unfortunate circumstances.

But before I get into the meat and potatoes, let me preface this by saying that I’m a glass half-full kind of fellow. I’m a self-proclaimed optimist at heart, but I also try to ground myself with a healthy sprinkling of realism to keep my expectations of things at a reasonable level. So when the Jazz made it into the playoffs this year, I was hopeful they would turn the junky end-of-season play around and pull out a series win against the Rockets, and they stepped up and made it happen, just for me. Then they moved on against the Warriors, and I said to myself, “Self, the Jazz are going to win this series, I’m fairly sure of it.” And again, they did not disappoint.

Then it was on to the Western Conference Finals, and the story changes here a bit.

You see, it’s not that I’m disappointed that the Jazz have lost the first two games, and it’s not even that I’m abandoning all hope that they could still pull out a win in the series and go to the finals (hope is dim, but still burning). The issue is the manner in which the Jazz lost. We, the citizens of Jazz Nation, have now had to suffer through two nearly identical games. Jazz start out strong in first quarter, fall apart in second quarter, enter half down just shy of 20 points, fight their guts out in second half, come up short still by 10 or so points, never closing that defecit to closer than 7. Now I wasn’t so suprised to see that in game 1. It was a big transition from playing the run and gun Warriors to the inside power Spurs, so there was going to be some effort required for the Jazz to shift gears, but I expected (in all honesty) a much closer, more evenly matched loss to the Spurs in game 2. My expectations were realistic, I believe, but went sadly unfulfilled.

Now I could go on at length in an analysis of why the Jazz lost the way they did (and believe me, there were plenty of reasons), but instead I want to post my snapshots of the problems the boys in blue created for themselves and let you, Gale Forcers, analyze to your the content of your collective hearts. So here we go:

1. All five starters need to play like starters! Boozer and Williams posted great offensive games, but without help elsewhere, they can’t beat a team like the Spurs.
2. I’ll excuse Fisher a little for shooting so poorly, but Memo’s game-long string of bad shot choices and lame-duck, half-hearted efforts to post up get the stink-eye award.
3. I could strangle AK for making bad pass after bad pass, trying so hard to do too much in clever passes that only went straight to the Spurs.
4. Is anybody on this whole team going to ever defend a baseline 3-point shooter? Good grief!!!
5. The Spurs could put their grandmother on the court and the Jazz would have given her a lane to drive the basket.
6. Leave Millsap on the floor! He was the only bench player who hustled without looking downright frantic. Giricek always screws up, and Harpring didn’t play up to the level I usually expect from him. And let’s see Rafa get some more minutes. He’ll certainly make the Spurs pay for driving in, even if he doesn’t mean to…he’s just that big.

That should about cover it for now. I’m building up another head of steam and I don’t know if I can keep from Hulking out again if I start thinking about it. My hope for the Jazz now is that they do what they did against the Rockets and Rally themselves back into contention on their home court. So get it together for Saturday, boys. You may lose the series, but I expect you to put up a fight at least.

You’ve all seen the email going around the ‘nets that asks you to fill out some “getting-to-know-you” info and pass it along to all your friends. Well I got the 2007 edition of the email just this week but instead of spamming my email list I decided to post my answers here.

1. What time did you get up this morning? 6:52 (seriously that’s what my alarm is set for)
2. How do you like your steak? Rare as you dare
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Shrek 3. Disappointing.
4. What is your favorite TV show? Heroes
5. What did you have for breakfast? Egg Beaters egg white omelette
6. What is your middle name? Richard (Ricardo for you latin-America types)
7. What is your favorite cuisine? Bar-be-cue (have you ever watched the BBQ challenge on Vs. TV? SWEET!)
8. What foods do you dislike? Italian, white onions
9. What are your favorite chips? Chocolate
10. What is your favorite CD at the moment? “Favorite” is so dependent on the day. For argument’s sake let’s say Sade’s Greatest Hits
11. Who is your favorite singer? Neil Diamond
12. What is your favorite song? Six by All That Remains…good workout song (see “favorite” disclaimer on #10)
13. What characteristics do you despise? Despise-ination
14. What are your favorite clothes? T-shirts that are 2 sizes too small
15.If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go? Nebraska
16. Favorite brand of clothing? IZOD
17. Where would you want to retire? Near a golf course
18. Favorite time of day? Quittin’ time!
19. Where were you born? In the hospital
20. What is your favorite sport to watch? College football or Jazz basketball
21. Who do you think will not send this back? N/A
22. Person you expect to send it back first? N/A
23. Pepsi or Coke? Diet Coke
24. Beavers or ducks? Uhhh….beavers?
25. Are you a morning person or a night owl? Night
26. Pedicure or manicure? Yes…no…maybe!
27. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share? Yes, but not with you.
28. What did you want to be when you were little? Rich
29. Your best childhood memory? Riding BMX bikes
30. Piercing? One ear for one night before a Nitzer Ebb concert
31. Ever been to Africa ? No…but I hear it rains down there
32. Ever been toilet papering? I plead the 5th
33. Been in a car accident? Never as a driver
34. Favorite day of the week? Friday
35. Favorite restaurant? Any place with flair!
36. Favorite Flower? The one from Bambi
37. Favorite ice cream? Something nutty (as in: contains nuts)
38. Favorite fast food restaurant? asterisk TACO asterisk (all things taco)
39. How many times did you fail your driver’s test? Zero…but I failed hunter’s safety 4 times by accidentally shooting my instructor.
40. From whom did you get your last email? Deborah Gillman
41. Which store would you choose to max out your credit card? Newegg.com
42. Bedtime? Nahh…I just got to work
43. Who are you most curious about their responses to this? Donald Rumsfeld
44. Last person you went out to dinner with? My family
45. What are you listening to right now? Joss Stone
46. What is your favorite color? Of what? Car: black, Hair: red, M&M: Green, Dirt: brown.
47. How many tattoos do you have? Do surgical scars count?
48. How many are you sending this email to? N/A
49. Favorite magazine? How about favorite blog (I no longer read printed material)? Lifehacker
50. What time did you finish this email? If by “email” you mean blog post…then 9:39

Well I survived the vacation…barely. To summarize my experience I have chosen to write this informative Q&A guide. Enjoy.

Q: What was your vacation destination?

A: The Green Valley Spa and Resort in St. George Utah.

Q: Why did you choose that location?

A: Because I am cheap thrifty. Because the weather is nice. Because the drive is only 500 miles round-trip.

Q: Where is the switch to turn on the sink disposal in a Green Valley Spa and Resort condominium?

A: In the appliance garage behind the coffee maker. Duh!

Q: Where can I get the best ice cream in St. George?

A: Blue Bunny

Q: In what year was the microwave oven introduced?

A: 1967. There’s an original model on display in unit 1634 at the Green Valley Spa and Resort.

Q: What activities did you enjoy while on vacation?

A: Swimming, eating, shopping, hiking, ice creaming (YES, “ice creaming” is an activity), sight-seeing (site-seeing?), sleeping, Phase 10.

Q: Did you take any pictures?

A: Yes

Q: How much money did you spend?

A: More than $200…less than $8,000.

Q: Did you see any hot chicks at the pool?

A: Yes. Two, actually.

Q: Dude…get a tan!

A: That’s not a question.

I’m on vacation!  I’m pretty sure the last time I had a vacation proper was during the Clinton administration…so I definitely deserve this.  The fam and I are staying at the Green Valley Spa and Resort in sunny St. George Utah.  Stay tuned for pics and commentary…