Lewies Blog

I got up early and got my flat rubber tire taken care of. I went to the place that we went to the last time someone got a flat - Guarenteed Used Tires. These guys didn’t have my size, but they had one that was just a little bigger. They swapped the front with the rear and put the newly used tire on the back. $20 for tire, $7 to mount, $3 to dispose of the flat tire, and $7 for computer balance. Odd … I stood there the whole time and didn’t see a computer. I just watched a guy switch tires and throw the newly used one on.

In other news I got some audio components to connect a record player up to my computer. I ran into some problems when it came to background noise. Audacity has this nice feature to remove noise from an audio file. It removed it all rite, but it removed half of everything else as well. I tried to set it up so that it wouldn’t remove so much and I was left with some random computer jibberish in the background of all of the audio.

The noise itself is very familiar. I remember hearing it with my dads old stereo and a few other old stereos growing up. I guess as technology advanced, the manufacturers somehow figured out how to reduce the amount of noise. The other problem is that the audio is either too loud or too low - but usually not good quality. I’m wondering if it has to do with the needle, the vinyl of the record aging, or the record player itself. I’m going to start looking into what it will take to get a new needle. Maybe I should just give up. I don’t know …

After playing with the record player a little bit, I fell back to sleep. My trip to the zoo just wore me out yesterday. On another note, my brother “Krozy” decided to leave funny notes and tags on all of those images on my flickr account yesterday. Funny guy …

I woke up and my mother in-law was here with the kids. I looked around and the place was a mess. I had been trying to keep it clean for the past week by putting every little thing back in its place. She kindly informed me that it was my sister in-laws birthday and that there was cake in the kitchen. Wow, I sure slept through a lot. After she left with the kids, I treated my wife to a grand dinner at China King Buffet. We didn’t get too artistic with our food like we usually do, but we did have a good time. She always says that they get our fortune cookies mixed up between us two.

For the rest of the night I surfed the T.V. with boredom. The End.

Tags: Rubber, Vinyl, Birthday, Flat, Tire, Audio, Record Player, LP, Noise, Audacity, Sister In-Law, Cake, Fortun Cookies, Chinease Food, China King Buffet, Dinner, TV

Today I went to The National Zoo in Washington, DC. Angel tried to talk me into staying home and getting some take-out chinease food from China King Buffet. Somehow, I got out of it and still went to the zoo alone. I had a good time and did a lot of walking. The heat was unbearable and I was almost dehydrated. I drank plenty of lemonaide and it did the trick. I tried to stay inside most of the houses while I was there as well. On the way home, my front passenger tire blew out on the highway. I had a spare tire and was able to change it without any problems.

I am beat. I’ll leave you with a few photos to enjoy. Hopefully each one is worth a thousand words to make up for the lack of a story.

Tags: Smithsonian National Zoological Park, Smithsonian, National Zoo, Zoological, Park, National, Trip, Outside, Adventure, Heat, Walking, Spare Tire, Blew, Tire, Highway Blowout, Flat Tire

So I’ve had this small pile of records laying up in my attic ever since I moved in. Attics are great to store stuff that you want to hord, but have no use for. Any how, I decided recently that I could look at ebay to get a record player so that I can convert my analog vinyl discs to MP3 format.

Step one has been completed. I not only got a record player, but it works and also has a 1/4″ headphone jack. Perfect! A trip to radio shack or walmart should turn up something to connect it to my computers microphone jack. On top of that, I was happy to see that the player came with a needle that didn’t need to be replaced. I tested it out on a few records and they all sound fine with the players internal speaker.

There was one record in particular that I was eager to listen to. I purchased it off of eBay many years ago and it was still wrapped up. It is Godstar by Psychic TV and The Angels of Light (TOPY H 009). Psychic TV is really old news and was pretty much in the wind when I found out about them a decade ago. However, I like some of the songs that they produced. I already have the Godstar song on a CD here on “The Best of Psychic TV”. The record provided a few remixes. Side A has the Hyperdelic Mix and the B Side has the California Mix. I like the California mix of the two, but I still prefer the non-mixed song on my CD.

Other vinyl that I have here are:

1. Induction - I won this one from a college radio station
2. Found these records when my room mates and I moved out of an apartment

1. River Ocean featuring India - The Tribal EP (Missing first record)
2. Yulesville
3. Christmas Carols Around The World - The Mormon Tabernacle Choir
4. A Very Special Christmas
5. The Pittsburgh Hispital presents Christmas is Fun and Love
6. Sweet Sounds of Christmas
7. The Beatles Christmas Album (1970)
8. The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole
9. Carols & Candlelight Great Songs of Christmas

It’s not a big collection. However, the nostalgia of opening that old record player and playing some christmas songs just brings you back to the good old times that I never had. I just wish I could pass some good times onto some little ones.

Tags: Record, Record Player, Phono, LP, Topy, Godstar, Psychic TV, PTV, Angels of Light, Psycodellic, Conversion, Album, Music, California, Hyperdelic, Vinyl, Christmas, Christmas Songs, Attic, Antique, Old Junk, Nostalgia

Although names are merely a way to identify nouns, they can be problematic for people (and computers) to identify the correct name for the correct object. The large variety of names given to people to uniquely set them apart from others is the source of most programming nightmares. On top of that, you also need to take into account that a ton of problems can be thrown in to make it even hard to identify the correct person when comparing there full name to a list that you already have:

• Misspellings
• Abbreviations
• Nick names
• Similar sounds
• Foreign names
• Missing first, middle & last names
• Multiple middle & last names
• Initials only
• Apostrophes
• Reversed first/last names
• Have different variations
• Non-English characters (Unicode)
• Different phonetic spellings
• Titles
• Suffixes
• Prefixes
• Organizations

So why am I suddenly interested in names? I’ve got a little parsing that I’m working on. I have a list of thousands of foreign names. A good deal of time was spent making some algorithms to parse out the first, middle and last names. Due to the lack of perfection, I am retaining the original name on my list along with the other parsed information.

I was able to parse out all of these names, but the real problem is something different. Now I need to support the ability for someone to give me an additional list of names to compare against. I am told that I need to account for just about all of the problems that I had just mentioned and return a list of possible canidates for each name.

Sometimes it just seems impossible. I came into a bit of luck today with the discovery of the soundex phonetic algorithm. The codes are built up against a names consonates and allow you to compare similar sounding names. For example, my last name “Moten” has a soundex code of M350. Several last names share the same code such as Madden, Maiden, Mathena, Matheny, Matney, Medin, Medina, Metheny, Mitton, and Motion. The database software that I am using has built-in support for soundex.

Well, it helps out a bit for phonetics and some spelling, but sometimes it returns too many results that are not likely to be a match. As the database grows in size, I can only imagine that it will get worse. The other problem is that this little feature only works wonders if you have complete names in the list to compare against. If the first name is missing, or you only have an initial, then you are out of luck.

If I had my way … There I go again. I am always thinking that I can force everyone to do as I wish. The best scenario would be to force people to always submit a first, middle, and last name when comparing, and to also get someone to fill in all the missing data in the list. That would waste a lot of time. Can you imagine someone looking at a large list and filling in the missing portions of each name for thousands of people?

So I need to skip the best scenario because it isn’t the best for anyone else except me. For now, I’ll have to work on making many queries against the list to compare exact matches, soundex, initials and names without first or middle names. There has got to be a better way around this.

Tags: Name, Searching, Programming, Troubleshooting, Misspellings, Abbreviations, Nick Names, Foreign, Data, Initials, Variations, Phonetics, Soundex, Algorithms, Parsing, Impossible, M350, Database, Work

Google maps now lets you overlay the satelite maps with the road map data. It’s a nice feature. So this is where I work. I walk around that big old pond down there sometimes. My building is to the lower left of it.

Tags: Google, Maps, Satelite, Road Map, Satelite Map, Features, Work, Pond, Walking, Building

I just got home after a 11.5 hour day and I’m all worn out. Fortunately I came upon a little aide to help me destress. Check out this little flash link:

Bubble Wrap

Tags: Stress, Work, Destress, Flash, Bubble Wrap, Bubbles

I got a phone call this morning from work. I looked at my clock and the alarm wasn’t set. I then realized that the time was blinking as well. I really didn’t want to go into work but I said I would leave rite at that moment. My manager said not to come in if I wasn’t feeling well.

The good news is that I had already done what they were calling for. I just told her where I put some installation files to upgrade some databases and she was ok. Another coworker called later for help running the scripts and I told him where the directions where to upgrade a database.

I feel asleep until 3pm at the sound of my sister in-law and her boyfriend arriving. I instantly fell into depression. Angel told me that they were not supposed to be back until later tonight. I laid there in my bed not wanting to get up. I then figured I could go bring a few things over to Mom and get away.

I got to see how the baby kittens were doing while I was at moms house and I took her over to Borders to look around. We then headed on over to Jerry’s subs & pizza and off to Shoppers Food Warehouse after that.

I played with the kids for a while with there building blocks. Afterwards Mom helped me load a few things in the car. A computer that I gave them a few years ago was no longer needed, so it was comming back home to me. She also had my Harry Potter book. I am considering if I should start reading it or not. I figure I’ll let Angel read it first. Mom also gave me a set of old wind chimes that her daughter was replacing with a new set.

Tags: Phone, Phone Call, Work, Missed Work, Electric, Brownout, Blinking, Time, Clock, Manager, Installation Files, Installation, Databases, Database Scripts, Scripts, Database, Upgrade, Sleep, Depression, Kittens, Borders, Jerry’s Subs & Pizza, Jerry’s, Shoppers Food Warehouse, Shopping, Groceries, Building Blocks, Computer, Harry Potter, Book, Reading, Wind Chimes

There are a few bizzare religions and belief systems out there. I was just hearing these questions on a podcast (a minor technicality) and started laughing my butt off. After a little research on the net, I was able to confirm that these questions really are a few of a set of questions that are normally asked with a strait face.

1. Have you driven anyone insane?
2. Have you ever killed the wrong person?
3. Is anybody looking for you?
4. Have you ever set a poor example?
5. Did you come to Earth for evil purposes?
6. Are you in hiding?
7. Have you systematically set up mysteries?
8. Have you ever made a practice of confusing people?
9. Have you ever philosophized when you should have acted instead?
10. Have you ever gone crazy?
11. Have you ever sought to persuade someone of your insanity?
12. Have you ever deserted, or betrayed, a great leader?
13. Have you ever smothered a baby?
14. Do you deserve to have any friends?
15. Have you ever castrated anyone?
16. Do you deserve to be enslaved?
17. Is there any question on this list I had better not ask you again?
18. Have you ever tried to make the physical universe less real?
19. Have you ever zapped anyone?
20. Have you ever had a body with a venereal disease? If so, did you spread it?

This could turn out to be one funny meme that can be passed on the internet. So, go ahead my friends - post these 20 questions on your blog and answer them with any funny answer you deem appropriate.

Tags: Religion, Bizzare, Belief System, Questions, Podcast, Podcasting, Minor Technicality, Funny, Insanity, Kill, Murder, Poor Example, Earth, Evil Purposes, In Hiding, Hiding, Mysteries, Confusing People, Confusing, Philosophize, Act, Crazy, Go Crazy, Persuasion, Desert, Betray, Great Leader, Smother, Baby, Smother a Baby, Deserve, Friends, Castration, Deserving, Enslaved

I don’t feel like I’m 30. I feel like … me. However, looking back 10 years, or even 5 years, I feel like I’m looking at an entirely different person. This person is part of the building blocks of who I am today. In a sense, they are no longer alive, but there memories are carried with me.

I usually don’t look at what I have not accomplished. I go the other way around. I always look at where I am now compared to a year ago. Finances, Quality of life, achievements, ending of problems, etc. I’m usually doing a little better.

The next marker is 35. The framers of the Constitution felt that you needed to be at least 35 to have enough experience to govern a country. Being at least 35 years of age is one of the requirements to become the president of The United States. Although I do not plan to become the president, it is a lower number to look forward to rather then the age of retirement.

Tags: Thirty, 30, Looking Back, Different, Person, Building Blocks, Who I am, Who am I, Who am I?, Life, Memories, Experience, Accomplishments, Finances, Quality of Life, Achievements, Problems, 35, Thirty-Five, Constitution, Govern, Country, President, Requirements, The United States, USA, United States, The President of The United States, Retirement, Thoughts, Age, Opinion

My sister in-law left for the weekend with her boyfriend. Although Angel was sick, we got to spend a nice quiet day at home and also go out with each other.

As we headed out, we came accross a squirrel in the middle of the road. I stopped and the squirrel just stood there looking at us. Angel and I looked at each other and giggled. I was thinking about taking out my camera when I noticed a car pulling up behind us. The squirrel then decided that he had enough fun and let us pass.

We first took a trip to the movie theater and watched Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. I loved Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory ever since I saw it as a kid. The new version of it is more up to date and more fun. The Oompa-Loompas are not so scary, but more of a funny nature. Although they do sing, I wouldn’t consider this a musical. In fact, there was one area at the beginning where I just kept repeating in my head “Please don’t start singing, Please don’t start singing …”. I also liked how a few characters had flashbacks to explain why things are the way they are. Charlie & the Chocolate Factory has a better ending in my book and teaches you a few valuable lessons. One of my favorite lessons is to never mess with a squirrels nuts.

After the movie we headed on into the mall to find our friend Amy who owns the Jade Dragon booth. On the way, Angel found a booth selling rice and she thought that a grain of rice would be a nice gift for Amy.

Perhaps I should go into more detail. The grain of rice has Amys name on it and it is in water with a little bit of sand. Then the tube of water is on the end of a necklace.

After picking up the necklace we stopped at the lego store. Angel liked some of the large models that they had built out of the small building blocks. There was a dragon, a gnome, and a fortune teller.

We went into Spensers and I found some tiny decks of playing cards. She picked out one that she liked and we went to go pay for them. As I handed the cashier the money, Angel was playing with an odd pencil holder that talked with delight when you placed a pencil in the end of it.

We found Amys booth but the woman said that Amy wasn’t there. Angel left a note along with the necklace and we moved on.

We walked out of the Food Court entrance into some blazing hot heat. In what seemed forever, I felt exhausted and slowed down. We found the car and it was hard just to keep my hands on the steering wheel. Angel had a Gatoraide waiting for her and I told her that she was cheating. She offered me a drink but I declined.

We headed on over to the pet store and I picked up a 30 pound bag of Nutro to feed our cats for the next 2 weeks. I also found a small chinchilla house that I picked up for my gerbils to play in. It was a busy day at the store so Angel and I kept warning each other about fecis and urine in different areas in the store from peoples pets. That is the worst thing about these big super pet stores.

We went on home and relaxed for a while. A few hours later Angel was hungry and I treated her to the Chinease Buffet. This is one of her favorite restaraunts. Tonight we remembered to ask for chopsticks first and had some fun. They had some stuffed mushrooms that were particularly tastey. I also enjoyed some boneless spare ribs.

I started eating some flounder and stopped. Angel looked at me and started asking questions. “Too Hot?”, “Rubbery?”, “Cold?”, “Rotten?”. I would shake my head and waved for her to wait a moment. I was suprised when I found that I had a mouth full of bones. I tried removing a few one by one. I had so many bones that I eventually spit it all out into a napkin.

Angels second trip resulted in a bowl of seseme rolls. We later asked the waiter what they were and they just replied that they were Seseme rolls. Angel clarified herself and asked what they were made of. The girls had a tough time trying to say “brown sugar”. One hardly spoke English and the other was trying to explain that it was more then just sugar.

My second trip up resulted in a plate full of sushi. Angel was asking about the different ones that I picked out and I told her what each one had in it. After I was done we started playing with the sauces. I just played around and told her that I was making sea urchins. She thought I had made a sun and a comet. Angel took a crack at the sauce art and made a Viking woman with a sword and then added some raging hair.

Today was a good day. I got to go out with my wife and enjoy a quiet evening around the house.

Tags: Angel, Wife, Quiet, Home, Out, Dining, Squirrel, Driving, Giggling, Fun, Movie, Movie Review, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka, Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, The Chocolate Factory, Chocolate Factory, Chocolate, Factory, Willy, Wonka, Charlie, Review, Oompa-Loompa, Singing, Squirrel Nuts, Nuts, Mall, Amy, Jade Dragon, The Jade Dragon, Gift, Rice, Necklace, Lego, Models, Dragon, Gnome, Fortune Teller, Spensers, Playing Cards, Deck, Cards, Booth, Food Court, Gatoraide, Cheating, Pet Store, Shopping, Nutro, Cats, Chinchilla, House, Gerbils, Fecis, Urine, Pets, Store, Relaxation, Hungry, Dinner, Chinease Buffet, Buffet, Chinease, Chopsticks, Stuffed Mushrooms, Mushrooms, Shrooms, Spare Ribs, Flounder, Bones, Spit, Seseme Rolls, Brown Sugar, Sushi, Playing With Food, Playing, Sea Urchin, Viking, Woman, Sword, Comet, Sun, Art, Food Art