Farewell and Adieu wordpress.com!

My Blogspot blog is benkruger.com
http://www.benkruger.com

Please update your RSS reader for posts http://www.benkruger.com/feeds/posts/default

Please update your RSS reader for comments http://www.benkruger.com/feeds/comments/default

Anyway, here comes a good guy, lets call him Stan Van Gundy and Pat Riley recognizes that the Miami Heat have an awsome team. So he pries the Miami Heat away from his cold dead hands and then goes on to win the Championship. Now that the team is struggling, he is walking away. What a loser and not that I have ever respected him but now I lothe him.  He is he worst type of sportsman!  Plus doesn’t he look seedy?

A week later when I came home from work my wife exclaimed, “I know what you bought me for Christmas”. I was like, what are you talking about… She went on to show me a letter we got from The Sharper Image. The lame bastards sent a letter to my house just to say that I shipped the package to a different address. Now I have been buying items online since 98 and I have never had a letter like this sent to my house.

So I wrapped her present and put it under the tree and she opened it on Christmas day. She of course liked the present but it was much much larger IRL and from the pictures online. She wanted a smaller one. I proceeded to read the return policy and call a local store. I certainly didn’t want to bother with returning it via the mail. That would have taken 6 to 8 weeks and the hassle and worry, who needs that! Luckily the local store said they would be able to refund my credit card.

We trecked all the way into San Francisco to one of The Sharper Images. When we got to the counter, luckily we had the assistant manager, he was very friendly and I explained the story. Of course when I went to give him the receipt, or what was the receipt things got complicated. The receipt that they sent me was nothing more than a packing list with an order number and item number on it. Anyway he went into his pathetic little DOS type interface computer and came back to me and basically called me a bold faced liar. He said I paid for this with a gift certificate and could only get store credit. I explained to him again how I purchased the item. He went back to his pathetic little DOS type interface computer and came back and said, wait, I see you paid for it with a voucher through Sky Mall. I actually laughed at this and told him I didn’t. I paid for it with my AMEX. Long story short, they were unable to give me a refund.

Later I called The Sharper Images corporate office and complained. The customer service woman was extremely nice and after she talked with a couple people she basically said that there policy with amzon.com was weird and there was nothing that she could do.

Bottom line, The Sharper Image ruined my Christmas surprise for my wife and I certainly wont do business with them again and I warn anyone else of the same!

1. Little Bunny Foo Foo
2. Head Should Knees and Toe
3. Tony Chestnut

When did the Santa Racket begin? The whole thing just makes me so angry. I remember a time when Santa would show up at a Mall and the children could all go sit on his lap and tell him what they wanted for Christmas. Now, it will cost you at least $14.

It’s a crying shame

It is a shame that we don’t live in a shame based society!  How can people think it is okay to steal other peoples property!  I find it simply outrageous.

Today he was off on an interesting rant, Does Writing Code Matter? and I have a few thoughts on the subject. First and foremost it does! A codeslinger enjoys his ways and has not only a swagger but a look in their eyes. So, again, first and formost, it matters.

However, Jeff went on to make a very good point, one we all already know in the back of our heads. He says “Become a better writer. Become a better speaker. Improve your personal skills. Participate in the community. … That’s how you distinguish yourself from your peers. And that’s ultimately how you become a better software developer, too.”. While I completley agree with this statement it is not that easy. The vast majority of developers are poor at this skill set and either don’t want or can not obtain it. So while it is a lovely idea, it isn’t practical and has nothing to do with writing code.

Now I work a lot with MS SQL Server, which I enjoy working with much more than my old friend Oracle. So this is no way a reflection on one POS Database or another POS Database.

Anyway, if I can tune a query, shouldn’t the Database be able to do it for me? Why is the optimizer more often then not wrong? Why do I need to use join hints and join types? Why will it even allow me to add a redundant index? I’d really like to see some improvements in these areas. I feel so limited in what we can do with DSQL with a POS optimizer. Imagine a world where you write a query and the Database figures out how to make it run fast. I don’t care if it re-writes the query for me. Why should I have to worry about join order and indexing? Can’t the database figure out I need an index and what columns should participate in that index? Java has done a fairly good job with their Hot Spot Technology.

It is time for the Databases to shape up since there is no way they are going to slim down in todays world of unsurpassed data.

1. Always pick a team coming off of a bye week.
2. Never pick against New England.
3. Never pick Arizona, they are the new Cincinatti. No matter how much you are tempted
4. Make your picks after the Sunday Night Game while everything is fresh on your mind. This saves you a lot of time during the week thinking about it.
5. Don’t adjust your picks during the week unless a significant injury occures to a key starter.
6. Never join more than one pickem league, this can lead to your down fall if one of your leagues is doing poorly.
7. Always go with your gut!

I’ll be riding to a first place win this year if I can follow my own algorithm.

Lets bring back the fun games like Legs, 727, Baseball, Del-Solar, even 5 card draw and not forget why we got together in the first place.

Who is with me?

But I want to drive the M5 and M3, So please donate so I can go experience The BMW Performance Driving School

Chad is clearly using these hack days for recruiting and my buddy Paul is making money off the backs of young naive codeslingers.

1. Cut out soda.
2. Cut out alcohol.
3. Cut out snacks.
4. Cut out ice cream.
5. Eat less.
6. Exercise daily.

Now is it just me or all we are weak as song so blatantly states?

One of the amazingly great things about the web is the anonymity of the whole thing. Being able to move around and say what is on your mind without having to say who you really are is huge! It is like the old masquerade balls where people could be more free. I think it really lets us exercise our freedom of speech. Anyway, some people take things seriously and want to know who you are. Does it really matter? I find these same type of readers often use Gestapo intimidation tactics. This I find horrid since it stifles the very openness and anonymity of the whole thing. This gives me a particular distaste in my mouth, often times the one who shouts the loudest is heard, even though they have dreck to say. These type of name callers and intimidators just make me sick. You can get your point across without berating or belittling someone.

Another etiquette taboo is that when a Blogger Blogs, they state what they have to say in the Blog. Why would they comment on comments?

Blogs are not message boards and are not meant to be ones.

So I come at it like this, for Type 1 situations, why not put money back into your house each year. The dollar amount that you save by not moving in property tax money can keep you house up. There is just no need to run your house down!

Moving on to Type 2, if you concider the number one rule of realestate again, simply buy a house that you cant afford in the right neighborhood. I think most people underestimate what they can and can’t afford, Leave that to the banks. You might have to cut out extranious expenses the first couple of years, but average 3% cost of living raises will soon make your unaffordable house affordable and now you are all set.

I am actually building to something here…

I often get asked about moving again or people laugh when I state that I am done moving, I’ll die in this house. I am dead serious! I bought in the perfect neighborhood and I am reinvesting in my house each year. To move, well I would just be paying higher property tax in a neighborhood that is par or below.

“I was never horribly self-obsessed or wrapped up in my own weirdness, but when my daughter was born, suddenly there was clarity,” he said. “I wasn’t angry anymore. It was the first purely selfless moment that I had ever experienced. And it was liberating. In that moment, it’s like you become something else. The real you is revealed.”