- Read 52 books. Today, at 1/4 through the year, I should be at 13 books read. I am at 18.
- Post 180 blog entries. Today at 1/4 through the year, I should be at 45 blog posts published. I am at 24.
- A dSLR photograph a week. Made it all the way to week three.
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Today is the end of the third month, so where am I with those goals?
- Reading goals:
- Complete unfinished novel series. 7 of 24 done. That is 29%. I should be at 25%. So I am a little ahead.
- American History and Decision Making. 2 of 9 done. That is 22%. So a behind 25%. (A quarter of a book would put me back on target.)
- Science. 2 of 8 done. That is 25%. So I am right on track.
- Read 50 books. I have read 13 of 50. That is 26%. So I am a little ahead.
- Publish an average of four blog posts a week. This post makes 57 of 208. That is 28%. So I am a little ahead.
Both 1b books and one of the 1c books were read in the past couple weeks so I could not appear too behind.
I was asked about a month ago how I am able to spend so much time reading. Well, it helps to be single, have no children, and hold one job.
Here is the progress made on my 2010 New Year’s Resolutions.
- Read 12,000 pages. At last count, I was on track to succeed with this one.
- Learn to cook 20 new dishes. FAILED. Made only 10.
- Participate in Project 365. FAILED. I made it to February before I gave up on it.
- Have fun now not later. SUCCESS. Went to more events people invited me to attend than the previous four or five years combined.
What is interesting is the more others talked about my goals, the stronger I pushed on them. So a good goal is one others hold interest in me completing?
Cooking and reading were somewhat incompatible. Cooking is a home activity. I do not read very well at home as computers, television, and any number of things distract me. Failing it was a calculated decision so that I would meet a more important goal.
I recently completed my first resolution for the year 2009: Read 12,000 pages. pp
Check the Reading page for the master list.
Titles in bold are the ones I recommend. (They also are probably the ones I quote the most.)
- Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space – Carl Sagan – 368 pp (368 total)
- Deal with Your Debt: The Right Way to Manage Your Bills and Pay Off What You Owe -Liz Pulliam Weston – 210 est pp (57324+8 total)
- Some Answered Questions - Abdu’l-Bahá – 314 pp (892 total)
- Promised Day is Come - Shoghí Effendí Rabbání – 208 pp (1,100 total)
- The Last Days of Socrates - Plato, Hugh Tredennick (Translator), Harold Tarrant (Contributor) - 289 pp (1,389 total)
- The Trial of Socrates - Isidor F. Stone – 273 pp (1,662 total)
- The Histories – Herodotus – 720 pp (2,382 total)
- Libraries in the Ancient World - Lionel Casson – 173 pp (2,555 total)
- Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins – Steve Olson – 278 pp (2,833 total)
- Why Smart People Do Dumb Things - Mortimer Feinberg, John Tarrant – 265 pp (3,098 total)
- The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle, Scott McKowen (Illustrator) - 328 pp (3,426 total)
- The Seven Mysteries of Life - Guy Murchie – est 661 pp (4,087 total)
- Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average – Joseph Hallinan – 304 pp (4,391 total)
- Next – Crichton, Michael – 431 pp (4,822 total)
- The Ball is Round: A Global History of Soccer – Goldblatt, David – 992 pp (5,814 total)
- A Wrinkle in Time (Time Series, #1) – L’Engle, Madeleine – 224 pp (6,038 total) — for Not Your Oprah’s Book Club
- Ender’s Game – Card, Orson Scott – 324 pp (6,362 total) — for Not Your Oprah’s Book Club
- Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World – Ahamed, Liaquat – 576 pp (est 6,938 total)
- Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives – Specter, Michael – 304 pp (est 7,242 total)
- Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us – Godin, Seth – 160 pp (est 7,402 total)
- Foundation (Foundation, #1) – Asimov, Isaac – 256 pp (est 7,658 total)
- First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently – Buckingham, Marcus – 255 pp (est 7,913 total)
- Snow Crash – Stephenson, Neal – 470 pp (est 8,383 total)
- Ender’s Shadow (Shadow Series, #1) – Card, Orson Scott – 469 pp (est 8,852 total)
- The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains – Carr, Nicholas G. – 256 pp (9,108 total)
- The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation – Westen, Drew – 384 pp (9,492 total)
- Happiness: Lessons from a New Science – Layard, Richard – 320 pp (9,812 total)
- Speaker for the Dead (Ender’s Saga, #2) – Card, Orson Scott – 382 pp (10,194 total)
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Other Stories – Stevenson, Robert Louis – 304 pp (10,498 total) — for Not Your Oprah’s Book Club
- Hyperion (Hyperion, #1) – Simmons, Dan – 482 pp (10,980 0total)
- Parallel Play: Growing Up with Undiagnosed Asperger’s – Page, Tim – 208 pp (11,188 total)
- Xenocide (Ender’s Saga, #3) – Card, Orson Scott – 520 read of 592 pp (11,780 total)
- Something Borrowed – Emily Giffin – 322 pp (12,102 total) — for Not Your Oprah’s Book Club
- Treasure Island – Stevenson, Robert Louis – 352 pp (12,454 total)
- The Sunday Philosophy Club (Sunday Philosophy Club, #1) – Alexander McCall Smith – 250 pp (12,704 total) — for Not Your Oprah’s Book Club
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values - Pirsig, Robert M. – 560 pp (est 13,264 total)
My resolutions for 2009 involved reading good stuff and being more social. More or less they were successful. I read fulfilled the reading goal by October. To fulfill the social goal, I attended most of the BrunchBunch, Athens Flickr Meetups, Athens Strobist Meetups, and even lunches with coworkers. These were by and large successful.
So, in thinking about 2010, my intentions for this year are:
- Read 12,000 pages. Unlike last year, I am not going to restrict the type of content except to say it must be in a book. Magazines, blogs, and news do not count. If they did, then I’d make the goal in a couple months.
- Learn to cook 20 new dishes. Considering I don’t cook, this is by far the most ambitious resolution. I’ll need to buy a cookbook.
- Participate in Project 365. (tips to get started) I considered 365 Days, but I don’t think I am up to daily self portraits. This is a Flickr group where people post daily submissions for every day of the year. I’ve previously failed this one, but I made it to 99 photos. Will be interesting with just an SLR and a bad phone camera.
- Have fun now not later. I haven’t visited the local state parks or much in Atlanta or even taken a personal trip. I keep procrastinating expecting it to be better later, making me an exemplar of Procrastination of Enjoyable Experiences. (Also Carpe Diem? Maybe Tomorrow in NYT)
There lots of other things in the back of my mind for things I ought to accomplish this year.
- I only went out on one date for all of 2009, which is actually more than 2007 and 2008 combined. Assuming I don’t chicken out, I may equal that in January 2010?
- I need to cull the blog list down from 403 subscriptions to around 200.
- No flying at all for 2009? The furthest I drove was to Panama City, FL? Obviously I should travel more.
Last night I read Uncle Bill’s Christmas letter. He mailed it, but he apparently doesn’t have my postal address so I got the electronic version. Woohoo! His letter recaps the year for his family. Do any of you have such a tradition? Or a family member who does? Oddly my blog doesn’t provide much basis as it is devoid of personal information.
So here goes….
Family
Mom went off to Houston in January to consult with one of the best doctors in the country about a health issue. How things fell into place to allow her to get better amazed me daily. I got to grandparent sit for a week where I made Nannie tell stories so I could post them on Youtube. 
William married Nicole, his high school sweetheart. I finally have a sister. It rained on us briefly, so if you are into superstitions, that means either: 1) kids, 2) money, or 3) good luck.
I met Dad’s girlfriend, Sally, this year. She is definitely very nice. I’m happy with the match.
Friends
My only New Year’s Resolution for 2008 was to read 25 books this year. I completed that goal back in October. I’m thinking for 2008 to do a similar resolution. This time I’ll count up the number of pages and set a goal to read 20% more pages.
Some fellow Flickr users started an Athens Flickr Meetup. I’m hoping this is something to continue in 2009 as the weather improves. (Though who knew Georgia would be 20 degrees Farenheit above normal in December?)
Adrianne and Britt asked me to be the photographer for their wedding. I spent hours looking at professional photographer portfolios for ideas about what I should capture. You see, while I do have a camera, I had never really taken photos at a wedding. Heck, few people invite me to weddings, so I was a little unclear what happens. In the end, I think it all turned out pretty well. Adrianne is happy. So I am happy. Working in computers became a profession because it was a hobby. Maybe photography will end up the same in the end? Posted 840 photos to Flickr this year. Started freelovephotography.com to show off my photography.
Las Vegas in July? Dumb. Star Trek: The Experience made my geeky heart soar.
NCC-1701-D @ ST: TXP
So I wanted to open a support ticket. However, in thinking about what I can ask for the company to do arrayed against what they are willing to offer for support, I realized… I am not going to get a resoultion for the ticket.
- It is functioning as designed.
- They are just going to tell us the workarounds we have already implemented.
So, what is the point? Other than distracting employees of the company with something they are never going to solve, I get no benefit. I just get to be the passive-aggressive, CYAer, paper pusher who gets to point at the fact I opened a pointless support ticket to justify my employment.
Yes, the problem could trigger a cascade of events which would result in the failure of services for about 3,000 active users. We stood at the brink twice yesterday and the day before. Because we DBAs are responsive, we saved it. The next time we will do the same.
The company is not going to release another patch for the product unless forced to do so (aka glaring security hole). So even if we could convince them of a bug, then no resolution would be provided in this version. I’ll have to replicate to see if the same problem exists in a newer version they do adequately support. If so, then I would have justification in opening a ticket.
Now… how to I identify an 8GB section archive…
I just read:
Clients are receiving responses to and closures of long-outstanding tickets. In the past quarter we’ve reduced the number of outstanding tickets by 15% (1500 tickets).
We closed several tickets because it was decided no resolution was ever going to be provided after the ticket was open for 6 months without the tier 3 or higher folks providing a single response other than, “Maybe we can look at it next week.” Hopefully these were not in this count.
On the other hand, an attempt at a fix for a critical bug may actually be tried? Right now we have one campus with about 1,500 students affected. Those numbers will bloom to 30,000 or more students by the start of Fall term.
Clusters can making finding where a user was working a clusterf***. Users end up on a node, but they don’t know which node. Heck, we are ahead of the curve to get user name, date, and time. Usually checking all the nodes in the past few days can net you the sessions. Capturing the session ids in the web server logs usually leads to finding an error in the webct logs. Though not always. Digging through the web server logs to find where the user was doing something similar to the appropriate activity consumes days.
Blackboard Vista captures node information for where the action took place. Reports against the tracking data provide more concise, more easily understood, and more quickly compiled. They are fantastic for getting a clear understanding of what steps a user took.
Web server logs contain every hit which includes every page view (well, almost, the gap is another post). Tracking data represents at best 25% of the page views. This problem is perhaps the only reason I favor logs over tracking data. More cryptic data usually means a slower resolution time not faster.
Another issue with tracking is the scope. When profiling student behavior, it is great. The problem is only okay data can be located for instructors while designers and administrators are almost totally under the radar. With the new outer join, what we can get for these oblivious roles has been greatly expanded.
Certainly, I try not to rely too much on a single source of data. Even I sometimes forget to do so.
Disclaimer
This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer. Except where my employer vetos what has been written.FeedBurner
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