Monday
For a day that started off slowly, it ended with a pretty decent bang.

Being a Monday, one of the first thoughts that crossed my mind was: “I don’t want to go to work…” However, once I dragged myself out of bed and got moving, it wasn’t too hard to maintain the momentum.

Work was… work. I spent the day working on a new template in ColdFusion. It was similar to the one that I created on Thursday, but with a little more functionality. The procedure, for most of the day was:

  1. Write the code.
  2. Test it.
  3. Have it fail.
  4. Debug.
  5. Repeat Step #2.

By the time that 5:00 rolled around, I was getting a wee bit frustrated. I had the logic for the template figured out (after some trial-and-error), but I couldn’t get a handle on the structure and syntax. I talked with Adrian about it; he showed me a few examples and gave me a few tips – not “gimmes,” but just enough to point me in the right direction. So, back to the drawing board I went. A couple of hours later, I had… something. About 2/3 of the template worked correctly, but I was getting an incorrect final output. *ARGH*

Once again, Adrian came to the rescue. He went through the code with me and pointed out a few syntax errors that I had made. I re-ran the program… and it still didn’t work. But, I caught that problem a few minutes later. A couple of minor patches and I tried it again…

…AND IT WORKED!

It took a few minutes for it to finally settle in, but it did: In just over a week – and with no previous experience – I had written a fairly lean version of a ColdFusion processing form that we will be using at work!

And that was pretty damned cool… even if I didn’t leave work until after 8:00. It was worth it. The next step will be to add a few more functions to the page. And, building upon what I have now, that should go fairly quickly.

Song of the Day
Once again, whomever has the tuner for the radio in my head was getting their merriment at my expense. So, today’s SotD is the song that popped into my head about 00:02 after I woke up this morning: Doctor My Eyes by Jackson Browne.

Stray Toasters

  • It seems as though “The Star Wars Kid” has become famous, possibly even infamous, for his exploits with his broomstick lightsaber. This morning, I came across this article. There are a few things that I thought about while reading the article and for a long time after it. I will elaborate on those things later this week, when I have more time to devote to them.
  • Tonight was World of Darkness night after work. In the words of a dying Captain James T. Kirk: “It was… fun.”
  • Utah drivers. I would love to take a random handful of them, drop them into rush hour around the D.C. Capitol Beltway… and watch as they all had aneurysms, heart attacks or just cowered in the floorboards of the car.
  • : That sounds like a possible plan. Let’s talk about it more sometime this week.
  • Condoms. Pastries. Corn-on-the-cob. Mute vampires. Orange Spree®.

That’s it… I’m tapped. Time to wander the lands of The Dreaming.

Namaste.