Funny you should ask..I realized recently that I'm still getting hits on this blog. I have also been shirking these entries merely because they are slow and uninformative. So lets catch up a bit on what's been going on with my life since before Christmas.
My great-uncle Luigi came to visit us for the first time from Switzerland. He was a hoot, and taking him to the Belleville Bulls hockey game was fun. We walked around town a bit, got some sushi and I teased him for dressing like he worked at the south pole when it was a mere -17C. I was only in a sweater and it boggled him.
What else... I got to see the kids on Christmas Eve... for a couple hours... she was late. "I forgot", right. I did the rounds, visited the usual suspects, put in my traditional appearances. I got some cool gadgets, like my new Logitech HD webcam. Which at first didn't want to give me more than 15 fps so it looked ghostly until last night, I actually pushed the resolution up to HD and the fps improved!! Next I need to get my hands on a nice compression mic and an audio interface. If anyone is giving one of these away, chuck'em my way!!
I've picked up some guides & manuals for Python Programming with my Chapters gift cards. The first book was really just a how-to for programming based in Python, so I went through it really fast and picked up some really neat tricks that I never learned to do in VB or VFP. I've come to like OOP now that I can implement it. Java just killed me with all it's intricate coding requirements. And yes Luigi... Python is also a scripting language which should also be supported in PostgreSQL. I can't wait to sink my teeth into THAT!!! But I still need to improve my skills.
I haven't coded in 10 years. However, I've already opened 2 projects based on stuff I learned in-book. The first one I can't tell you too much about other than one of the side effects is that I've produced my own desktop twitter app that is completely functional. Now I don't have to log in or send a txt from the cell. I just double click, type and send. The next step will be to get that app to handle a database full of twitter accounts. Opps, maybe I said too much.
The other project is nearly completed. I have successfully found a compatible (up2date) 3rd party module and scripted a front end which passes file names into it. The module (with my script) reads the ID3 tags usually found embedded in MP3 files. That's right, the information that is stored in the songs you listen to on your computer and tell your media player what song you're listening too are now at my disposal. I have taken that information and coded the script to REWRITE the file name into a decent naming convention. I was so sick and tired of people giving me files that looked like: "08_jumblebeets.mp3" and finding out it was really some house/jungle mixes they had scribed. So I fix the tags (you can do this in winamp or other media players) and run my program and the file now looks like this "Chris Cairns - Right by You (tentwentyfour).mp3" which makes it infinitely easier to file away in my "Music\Chris Cairns\" folder instead of the "My Documents\Misc Trax\" folder they usually end up in. This script works, I just need to tweek it a bit and get it to handle an entire folder of tracks instead of one at a time.
Anywho... I'm also registering for a couple courses at Loyalist College... actually they're hosted by RMC!!! It's call DMAS (Diploma in Military Arts & Science) and of it's 20 required credits, 13 are trasferable to RMC for their BMAS (Bachelors Degree in Military Arts & Science). YEAH BABY!! I might even pick up enough of the right credits to complete my certificate in programming that I failed to finish back in the day. Won't that be nice. I'm sure the scholarship should cover all that. Or I could just wait till I'm already enlisted and then it's almost free.
If you're wondering: "I though you were heading to Basic Training in January?". If you haven't been brought up to speed, I'm not gonna go into details... only delayed.
With that cool camera and some YouTube browsing, I managed to get back in touch with an old kindergarten friend of mine and we've been hamming it up on the internet for all to see. My friend Manuela (you may remember her) has picked up on it and decided to pimp us out. She's now our Executive Producer and may make some call-ins to the show because she's not gonna just pick up and drive all the way here to make an appearance. The image above is actually my production tag, like the ones you see on professional shows on tv... with the dog barking, or the finger puppet saying "grrr... arg!". Mine is easy to remember: The Mona Lisa asking "What? Is there something in my teeth?"
Here's hoping you all had a nice time over the holidays, that you ate too much, gained some weight, failed to quit smoking again and recorded everything for future humiliations.
Yours,
Friar Greg
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