May Memories, week 4

I did work on Blackwork Band Sampler this week, although I didn't get that much done. I'm working on a point de reprise section, so my work consisted of four-sided stitch, cutting, and binding threads together. I'm almost done with the binding, then I should be able to start weaving. After that's done, I'll actually have something to show.

This was a fun class, and is the one after which Teresa and Jill and I started to hang out. Although I had seen Teresa before in one of Rae's classes, we had not really met. I sat near her in this class, and afterwards, Jill came by to meet up with her because it was dinnertime. We were all staying in the conference hotel--me by myself, with no car. I had eaten dinner the night before in the hotel's Italian (and only) restaurant, and it was pricey and not that great. Living in a downtown area where there are many restaurants within walking distance, I had expected the same in Winston-Salem, but it was not so. I was stranded facing another night of bland expensive pasta. As Jill and Teresa discussed where they were going to eat, I watched them with giant, wistful puppy-dog eyes. They decided to take pity on me, so they hauled me along with them. At some point Teresa asked, "What do you want to eat?" I replied, "Cow!" (I was in major need of protein at that point in the day...I'd probably been in class non-stop since 8am.) This began my tradition, when I am particularly hungry, of bellowing, "Somebody cow me!" We found a place similar to golden corral or Sizzler, where you could order steak but also partake of the vast food bar. They were low on customers that night, which I'm sure is why the manager (or whoever he was) took us on a guided tour of the various "stations". "Over here we have soups," he'd say, which was ridiculously obvious given the vats with soup ladles sticking out of them. However, I cannot fault the food or the cleanliness of the place. It was a great meal, I got cow, and I made some great friends that I am priviledged still put up with me to this day.

Movie Meme

Name your all-time top five favorite movies.
Are you kidding?? That's like asking me to name my top five all-time favorite meals!! Maybe I could do top five in each category.... OK. For the purposes of this meme, I will try.

• The Princess Bride


• Singing in the Rain


• The Gay Divorcee


• A Little Princess


• Sense & Sensibility (Emma Thompson version)


• Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope


• The Incredibles


• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring


• The Matrix


• Signs

OK. That's 10. That's really the best I can do. I had to cut out a bunch of winners to do that (Holiday Inn, Bringing Up Baby, The Emperor's New Groove, The Sound of Music, The Music Man....)

What’s your favorite movie line?
It's probably, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." (The Princess Bride) Or possibly, "Peach preserves! Say, I really go for those! Why, they're great with.... Or even plain!" from Holiday Inn, and it's all in Fred Astaire's delivery. But the one I probably say the most is "Stay on target...stay on target!" (That's Episode IV, in case you didn't know.)

Who’s your favorite movie character?
Erm...that's a tough one. I don't tend to have favorite characters outside the context of the movie. I'll go with my favorite Disney character...Meeko. =)

What movie do you love that most people hate?
I have no idea. I do love Treasure Planet, and that didn't do very well in the theater. Most people just haven't seen it, though. Same with Atlantis.

What movie do you hate that most people love?
Citzen Kane. Please, people, it's so obvious what Rosebud is at the beginning. Also, Shrek. I was totally done when Fiona made the bird explode.

What was the last movie you saw?
In the theater, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.

What’s your least favorite movie ever?
The Piano. As in, you couldn't pay me to see it again. We were supposed to be going with another couple, who told us, "Hey, we like you guys and we never do anything. Let's go see a movie right now." Er...OK...and against my better judgment, we decided on this one. On the way to the theater, though, they decided they needed to "talk about their relationship" and ditched us. We spent the whole movie wondering what had happened, and the only reason we didn't walk out of this horrible flick is that we didn't want to abandon them.

What one movie have you seen that you would never ever watch again?
Didn't I just answer this one? LOL! I'm trying to think of a movie I liked that I won't watch again. Ah, I've got it. The Ring. Best opening of a suspense/horror flick, ever. (Not that I see that many.) But I wouldn't watch it again.

What was the last DVD you saw?
Curse of the Golden Flower.

What was the first DVD you remember buying?
The real question is, do I even remember ever buying a DVD?? Usually that's DH's job. In the early days I would order them from Amazon, so that doesn't really make a real impression, either. I'm going to say Wallace & Gromit's Adventures.

What actor/actress would you like to look like?
Well, DH likes brunettes (go figure =), so I'll stick with brunettes, although I personally think Nicole Kidman, Grace Kelly and Kate Winslett are gorgeous. I wouldn't mind looking like Jennifer Garner. She's not too "showy", but she's got a nice willowy figure (which I'll never have...). Or Julia Roberts...she's beautiful. Oooo! I've got it! Anne Hathaway! She's so pretty!

What classic movie have you never seen?
When Harry Met Sally. I'm putting this one, not because I think it's necessarily a "classic," but because people always look at me like I've grown another head when I say I haven't seen it. I also haven't seen Jerry McGuire.

What song would you choose to be the theme song to the movie of your life story?
Now this is an interesting question. I would like it to be "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" because I'd like people to praise God from seeing His work through me. But I'm a long way off from that.

What’s your favorite movie genre?
Musicals! Or action/adventure/kung fu!

Who’s your favorite actor/actress?
For current actors/actresses, I really like Jim Carrey, though not when he does the Ace Ventura type stuff. Loved him in The Majestic. On the actress side, I love Geena Davis and Julia Roberts.

Realistically, my favorite actor is probably Cary Grant, followed closely by Fred Astaire, Gene Kelley and Donald O'Connor. And my favorite actress, Judy Garland. Or Olivia de Haviland. Or Rita Hayworth....

What actor/actress do you refuse to see their movies?
Colin Farrell. I find him to be a revolting individual, so I can't enjoy anything he's in. I also dislike Russell Crowe intensely; I think the only movie I've seen that he's been in is A Beautiful Mind.

What genre would you choose not to watch?
Horror/gross-out comedies.

What’s your favorite theater concession combo?
Junior Mints! No drink...don't want to have to leave during a vital plot point, LOL!

Front row, Back row, Side Seats, Aisle or center?
Center, first or second row of upper area in stadium seating. Which is pretty much all there is around here. If for some reason it's a smaller theater, wherever I'm looking slightly up at the screen but not too much.

What am I doing here again?

We have a contractor at work. He's actually very nice, but I don't find him that competent. The questions that he's asked me so far have seemed like questions he should be answering himself...as in, Isn't this your job??

I'll try to explain the question he asked me in the non-geekiest terms possible. He is helping us set up an identity management (IDM) solution. In layman's terms, that means that someday, our users will not have to log in to every single application they use...once for Windows, once for email, once for each database, once for this application, once for that application, etc. They'll just log in to Windows, and everything else will "know" who they are. So anyway, he is setting up a connection between our current database of user information and the IDM solution. He has to call something to create a user, kind of like this (bear with me, you're going to see some pseudocode here!):

String firstName = "Heather";
String lastName = "Lott";
String password = "myPassword";
Statement statement = "insert into user(?, ?, ?)";
statement.setPlaceholder(firstName);
statement.setPlaceholder(lastName);
statement.setPlaceholder(encrypt(password));

Pretty simple, right? Everything's in a variable, and the password is encrypted before it's set (that's what the "encrypt()" around the password variable does). So he comes to my desk because the sample code I gave him (above), once he's modified it to use the connector stuff, is throwing an error, and he thinks the error is coming from my method (the encrypt()). The error is

Error near string [PASSWORD]

Now, he's getting the name and password out of a Map rather than setting them in variables (don't freak out, non-techies!! A Map is just a way to refer to things by their name! It's like going to the library and saying, "I want the book labeled 'First Name'"...then you are given the book and can see what information is inside.) Here's how he modified the code:

Statement statement = "insert into user(?, ?, ?)";
statement.setPlaceholder(myMap.get("FIRST_NAME"));
statement.setPlaceholder(myMap.get("LAST_NAME"));
statement.setPlaceholder(encrypt(PASSWORD));

Stay with me, non-geekies...anytime you have a String, it's in double-quotes. Anything NOT in double-quotes is assumed to be a variable.

Now, anyone see why he might get an error near PASSWORD??? There's no variable named PASSWORD!!! Hel-LO! Please turn on your brain! Or have some protein!! Do you even know how to program??

For the non-geeky, that last line should be

statement.setPlaceholder(encrypt(myMap.get("PASSWORD")));

Did any non-geekies understand me??? =)

Limp-through

Last night we had another walk-through of the new place. I took some new pictures, which I hope to post tomorrow...but tomorrow's going to be a busy day, so it may be Friday. Yesterday was kind of miserable...we were supposed to meet the architects at 6:30. I didn't leave work 'til about 5:45, picked DH up at 6, and we didn't get home until almost 7. We ran in the loft and trucked over to the new place, me still in my black linen pants from work (a fabulous outfit for a walk-through in a drywall-dust-covered venue). We didn't finish until 9:30 (which is when we ate dinner...I was nearly dead by then).

Things still are beautiful, but it's hard to tell because they're still covered in filth. I almost fell over when one of the architects told us they were planning on "broom cleaning" the place before they handed it over to us. That's going to have to be one killer broom!

The good: The deck is sealed and gorgeous, the new tile we got for the laundry closet/downstairs closet is in and looks great, the kitchen counter has been finished and is fabulous, the bathroom vessels sinks no longer wobble, our bedroom fan is like a hurricane, the pocket door hardware rocks (none of those annoying flippy latches like I had growing up) and the "window seats" are the coolest thing ever. The bad: A bunch of stuff was "extra" that I didn't think would be (like painting brick vs. sealing it??), still lotttttts of stuff to repaint, and I would guess maybe 1/4 of the punch list was done and a new punch list was created that has 2/3 more things on it. Also, no good solution on the stairs (the good news is that the architect thinks that the price of replacing our "homemade" stairs with real stair parts is about 10 times less than what DH thought). The ugly: There's still plastic over some third-floor windows, there's nasty scratches on my pretty bamboo floors, and the kitchen floor sticks out over the stairs coming up to the second floor. I seem to be the only human on earth who thinks this is ugly, though.

Tonight we get to put little sticky notes by all the scratches on the bamboo floors (and, I am going to sticky all the stairs that are chipped/splintering). Hopefully I can get some exterior shots while it's still light out!

May Memories, week 3

Even less got done this week...I'm so frustrated with She Maketh Fine Linen...I hate picky little projects where I'm changing threads every five stitches. I'm going to switch to Blackwork Band Sampler, even though I did not meet my goal of finishing the stitching on the thimble keep. It seems like a chore every time I think of working on it, and stitching shouldn't be like that.

Of course, the real reason that I didn't get that much done is that we've been playing the Halo 3 Beta every chance we get. And the one movie we sat down to watch, Curse of the Golden Flower, was subtitled...impossible to stitch and watch!