Subtle Coolness

Today while doing some programming work I had the opportunity to take a closer look at CSV and JSON. My programming experience up to this point has really only included consuming these formats. Today I wrote code to produce these formats.

We have an application where I work that exports data to a MySQL database. A while age, I wrote a very simple web app to make viewing reports from that data easier. Until today, the reports were only available as tables in an HTML page.

After the work I did today, the same reports are now available as CSV (to easily import into spreadsheet apps like Excel and Numbers) and JSON (to easily pass the data to other external applications).

It was enlightening to learn about the quirks of both formats. I had never before considered things like what characters need to be escaped in strings and what character encoding I ought to use.

It seems like whenever I get deep into programming where text input and output is concerned, I always run into problems with character encodings. I complain about this to my programming-minded friends often.

I honestly don’t know what use the JSON output will be, but I was in the mood so I added it.

I hope to write about my web app in greater detail in the future.

As a working man, it is usually difficult for me to truly appreciate the work my wife does at home. The only insight I am privileged to receive in this area comes when Rebecca is sick. For the last two days I have been mostly running the show at home.

Rebecca rang in the new year by lying in bed with a fever for most of yesterday and today. Today was supposed to be my first day back at work after the holiday break, but that got postponed due to Rebecca’s illness.

To make things interesting, my 12-month-old daughter Molly has an incessantly runny nose. Whatever illness is inflicting itself upon her, it is making her sleepy a little more than usual and cranky when she is awake.

She also takes offense to having her nose wiped. I have an aversion to snot, especially when it comes in volumes that Molly seems capable of producing. So we butt heads over that throughout the day. My one consolation is that she does sit still (and seems to enjoy) when I rub lotion on her chapped face.

The weather has been relatively miserable: cold, wet but not rainy, overcast, depressing — much like what I remember from my winters spent in England. That makes it hard to conjure up anything resembling a desire to leave the house.

I must be a weak one, because on only my second day of being in charge I longed for a chance to get out of the house. I managed to contain my excitement when I learned that we had some books that needed to be returned to the library. My daughters were well-behaved even though Emily (3) chose some two-star books to take home. I think for her checking out books from the library is like rolling dice — she randomly pulls a few books from the shelves and we hope they turn out decently interesting. She had bad luck today.

Emily was excited to hold on to the dime I brought so I could pay a late fee. She proudly presented it to the librarian when we checked out, and now I’m square with the library.

I felt like we had not enjoyed being out of the house long enough so we made a stop at the grocery store and I let Emily choose something from the donut shelves. She picked out a pan dulce only because it had pink frosting. It was big but she finished the whole thing by the time we got home.

One thing I really enjoy about being in charge is cooking dinner. Last night I made fettuccine Alfredo. Rebecca liked it, but the real barometer by which I measure the success of my cooking is how much Emily eats. Happily, she cleaned her plate last night and had even more for lunch today.

Tonight I made baked potato soup. This was great because the recipe called for an entire package of bacon.

Rebecca seems to be on the mend, so I imagine I will be back at work tomorrow with my nose to the grindstone.

One of my goals for 2013 is to get rid of clutter. I started by throwing away a bunch of hangers that had been hiding in the back of my daughter’s closet for at least a year. If I haven’t used them for a year, chances are I won’t use them at all.

I also threw out some Xbox controllers I had in my office. I don’t even have an Xbox. I haven’t had one for a long time. I just have this tendency to hold on to things I believe might be useful someday. I can usually make a case for anything being useful eventually.

I have spent enough time on Pinterest that I have started to see crafty ideas everywhere. I was recently at Lowe’s with my three-year-old daughter Emily when we walked past the paint department. I decided to pick up a few color samples in the hopes that I could do something with them that would entertain Emily for a few minutes.

The Christmas season is upon us, so I asked Emily to pick out a green card and a red card. It wasn’t long before I had the idea to make this Christmas tree. Cut a triangle out of the green card, the shape of a Christmas tree. Use a hole punch to make ornaments from the red card (or any colored paper you have on hand). Stick the ornaments to the tree with a drop of glue. To stand it up, cut a small rectangle from the green card, then cut slits in the rectangle and the base of the tree. Slide the pieces together to make the stand.

Emily loves using the hole punch and the glue, so she was more than happy to help put this together.

There are a few variations on this idea you can try:

• Cut identical triangles out of the red and green cards, then punch holes in the green triangle and paste the entire red triangle behind the green triangle. The “ornaments” will show through the holes you made in the tree. This is a lot easier than trying to glue a bunch of tiny ornaments onto a tree.
• Instead of making a tree stand on the bottom, punch a hole at the top of the tree and loop through a piece of ribbon or string to turn the Christmas tree into an ornament itself.
• Make two trees then paste them together back-to-back so it looks nice from both sides.

It’s not even December yet and I’m already getting into the Christmas spirit!

My cellphone service provider sent me this dog tag. I like it.

For our fifth anniversary my wife made me this nativity advent calendar.

The pieces go in the pockets, and each day of December you take a piece out and build the scene. This is just like a calendar we had in my home growing up.

The craftsmanship here is wonderful, and what amazes me the most is that Rebecca was able to keep it a complete secret from me for months while she worked on it. I really had no idea she was doing this.

Doritos and pie in my lunch? What a surprise! I have the best wife ever!

I got to hold a Purple Heart in my hand

Mario got off the bus right after I did.

26 May 2007, we weren’t even engaged yet.

Halloween party last Saturday night. Do we look excited?