Had a break from running for 5 days or so. I didn't gain any weight back; yesterday I weighed in at a "light" 185#, even after a fairly heavy lunch and hydration. And where 7.5mph used to be a hard 1-lap speed, yesterday I pushed it for a lap and a half. Very, very pleased with progress so far. Family assistance came through, funded stage 2 of resolving financial issues, plus unexpected good news in yesterday's meeting with the accountant. On the work front, financial aid application filing season is d... (...more)

Picked up somebody's CD collection at the thrift shop, some 27 discs for $6. What I didn't account for was the fact that pop music pretty much sucks these days. Panic At the Disco. Fallout Boy. Rihanna. Yung Joc. Chamillionaire. Pink... ma'am, with forgettable pop hooks like that you've got no place looking down your nose at any stupid porno paparazzi girls. Plain White Ts is actually rather listenable. Ella Fitzgerald will get a due listening. Musical theatre soundtracks e.g. The Music Man et al... We'... (...more)

It's often handy to date-stamp (or even date+time-stamp) a record on creation. In MS Access the quick-and-easy way to promote this is by defining a date-stamp field (what MySQL admins would call a "column") with a Default Value of Now(). The Now() function returns a double-precision numeric value, the integer part of which represents the date, and the mantissa representing time. MySQL is pretty forgiving of pure date formats, but if you try to append records from Acc2K containing date/time fields into ... (...more)

A bit overtired still, but palpably recovering. Weather change is helping too; it may seem weeny to complain it's been "too cold", but remember "heating" in my tiny apartment consists of putting a pot of water on my little hot-plate to simmer. And I worry about falling asleep with that on, I don't really have the luxury of ruining my saucepan. Cantaloupe for breakfast, leftover ww fusilli with broccoli-spinach-pesto chicken lined up for lunch. If my issues seem overwhelming, remember, it could be wor... (...more)

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend... (...more)