Rampid Byter

I wanted to like this movie. It had the girl from Juno, and it had a pretty decent cast (minus sarah parker.) I really wanted to like the movie, did I mention that? It turned out the movie was like listening to a musical note that is very flat, and I meant very flat like when my firewall wasn’t sealed correctly driving 65mph with it deflating.

I watched the whole thing while programming for a client I’m working on. I kind of listen to things instead of watch them anymore because I can’t afford to not pay attention to what I’m doing. Anyway, it was a bad movie. It was dry it was not droll in any sense and the conversations in the movie you couldn’t tell whether they were trying to piss you off or just bore you. The title of the professor’s book was called ‘you can’t read’ and I think that would have been a fine title for the movie, but with the correction of ‘you can’t watch.’ I didn’t want to watch, I wish I hadn’t, but I did.

I appreciate things that are prophetic, and I encourage movies to be a little on the border of what I’m used to. I don’t, however, appreciate movies that have no plot. I guess the plot was not to educate yourself because you’ll end up drunkenly kissing your adopted uncle in an incestuous lustful disassociation of emotions. I felt like the two plots were just too far varied to make any sense, the story left me lagging behind where it wanted me to go, and really with the mellow down trodden tempo of the story I could have fallen asleep pooping with more excitement that I had with the run up to the ending. I suppose I can take one thing away from the movie. Don’t do something you’re not even remotely interested in because you think you should, do the things that inspire you to want or do more and be dammed the consequences. I wish I had been more inspired to turn the movie off.

Movies

It’s official. I am now a home owner. After offering a very low ball offer then being countered something unrealistic I walked away from the deal. However one day after turning down the deal I got a call from my realtor saying their realtor was trying to reach me about another proactive counter. The family doesn’t want to wait any longer for the home to sell, which sounds like one of those ploys to get someone to sucker into a bad deal. From my estimates I was guessing a level where they’d just break even considering what they bought the house at, the time in the home, and what would be left after sellers fees. The number was about 8k less than what they were asking.

After offering something ridiculously low I was countered with something still too high that would have left the owners a profit of around 4k. After declining they countered again with something that would leave them about 1k from the deal when all is said and done, at least from my guesstimates, and well it was pretty tempting. The number was actually right at my ceiling number where I’d consider the value. After thinking about it I get a fridge, oven range, microwave, and dishwasher out of the deal. So all told probably totaled 3k in added appliances that stay, and with that in mind it was a decent deal.

So needless to say I went for it and now am in the process of taking ownership of my own home. Sweet, 9 foot ceilings, vaulted living room, three bedroom, two and a half bath with rough-in in the basement, and plenty of leg room I own a home. Man, I was hoping it’d fall through and I’d not have to buy a new home, but man looking at it now I’m still pretty good with the deal.

Offbeat

Well this past Sunday I made an offer on a new home. It was a terribly involved process that required a lot of paperwork and to my dismay because I made too much money it’s going to end up costing me more! Go figure that the more you make the more people want from you. So because I could I low balled the heck out of these people I think I dipped below 10 percent of what they were asking, which was reduced about six thousand from three months ago when they first listed.

Wouldn’t you know that while I’m out making a bid on the home we get one of the worst wind storms I’ve ever seen in my life in this area. I was driving home over power lines that were stretched across the road, business signs were flying across the road, or signs were bent completely out of shape. I drove past toppled trees, and had to avoid the jerks who were either too ignorant or young to know about four way stop rules when traffic lights are off. There were people actually running through every light as if they automatically had green, and I did observe most were women but that’s a whole other discussion.

So I’m in limbo at the moment because things should be going faster than this at getting a response on how they liked or disliked my offer. It was going to be sent right away but because of the power outage it wasn’t delivered until early this afternoon, 9am to be exact, and they were due to have a sit down discussion of the offer at 6pm. I can only imagine what that had to be like. I mean seriously I low balled the heck out of these people and I’m sure they’re sitting there either cursing my name, or hoping to goodness that if they counter I’ll accept. Since my realtor called their realtor several times it seems his cell phone must have died and because of the power outages I assume there was little chance to get in touch.

So I’m sitting here tonight wondering what those people are thinking. It seems they either can’t afford the home they have what with two children and a big house like that to afford. It’s strange to think that there is a possibility that tomorrow I could be on my way to be a home owner, and it’s a little scary. Seems that once all is said and done it will cost me about 9k out of pocket in putting money down on the house and on the closing costs/warranty/fees to actually buy the home. I can think of a million other ways I could spend that money, buy a dodge viper (partially), new computers, new desk, new bed, apartment rent for a few months, tons of new books, cloths, shoes, a monkey, and a miscellaneous list of other things I could do.

I suppose I’ll know tomorrow just how desperate these people are to move and for me to take over the house. I think it’s a pretty neat house, and I really love it. I mean it’s the perfect house, big yard, but I hate the neighborhood. I don’t hate it I guess but it feels like I just walked past where a person just sneezed. You know it’s probably safe to do that but you get the tingle on the back of your neck thinking about what could be on you. I suppose that’s how I feel about the neighborhood.

I’ll tell you this. First thing I’m doing when I get the house is turning on the fireplace, and buying a nice couch so I can sit in front of it. Sounds nice. If I don’t get the house no loss, at least financially, I’ll be a little bummed, but some things are just not meant to be if they don’t work out. I wish some people would take that advice on many levels, but then again common sense isn’t common.

Offbeat

Frankly they’re doomed to failure because someone decided to save money by outsourcing overseas. I’ve worked on several projects that dealt with outsourced code and each one was a borderline complete failure until an on-shore developer cleaned it up. I’m sitting here looking at code created for my client and it’s a complete mess.

That brings me to a correlation I never thought possible. If you take code created in India that was an outsourced project the results of this may be a working project on the outside. However, the moment you start getting into the guts of the application it’s the same quality as if you threw three fourteen year old teens into a room that ‘think’ they’re awesome programmers, give them one reference book to share, and provide free liquor to them through the whole project. Some of it is good (the simple aspects), some is a complete mess, no standards, no documentation, no structure, repeated code everywhere, and the spelling of English words and phrases is ridiculous. That reminds me the word ‘please’ has an ‘l’ in it. I’m so tired of having to correct spelling on output message from “Pease” to “Please.”

For those of you who consider outsourcing keep this point in mind when deciding how much you really want to have to rework. I’ve been working on this project for three days, consolidated about 15 pages into a base page class, consolidated five master pages into one with a new custom user navigation control (only difference between them all was menu options), and have had to actually put exception handling into this project. From the time stamps, and fixed copyright dates I know that this project took from 2004 until 2008. Pathetic software development turn around for such a small project. The backend was developed on LLBL Gen Pro with a custom front web application UI, and let me tell you everything on the UI side almost nearly has to be rewritten. This isn’t unique, I wish it was, but I’m just saying I hate the quality of code brought back from overseas.

If you think you’re saving time by having developers overseas who can develop while you’re asleep so you think you get more done, or the costs justify the move just think twice. You may complete the project on time and under budget but the project will be so unstable you’ll just end up eating the costs of poor judgment based on fiscal desires, heck look at Microsoft’s initial launch of the Xbox 360. Cheap material (or code) equals freaking expensive rework costs.

Business, Programming

Today I’m putting a bid in on my first home. I’m more afraid than I am excited. I’m afraid they’re going to accept my bid! I want a home, but at the same time I don’t want to have to pay for a home. It’s nothing to do with not wanting to move out. Far from it. In fact when I was 18, three or four days after in fact, I moved to Arizona on my own, nothing but a suitcase, and a crazy dream to go with me. I went to the north western tip of Arizona, Bullhead City, and it was one hell of a journey.

Most people know where they’re going to live, or at least have an idea. I got off the plane in Las Vegas with nothing more than my luggage, too young to rent a car, and too poor to really do anything about that fact. I managed to bum a ride down to where I’d live and all I remember from the first day was getting sick in a restaurant bathroom from feeling so alone.

I managed to find a place to live the next day, I did play a trick though, they said they didn’t have an apartment available and I told them how I flew all the way there to live there because one was available on their website (which it was.) They looked around and found they had one of the ‘delux’ apartments available in two days and that because of the inconvenience to me they’d rent it to me at the standard price. It was still 568$ a month for a one bedroom!

Anyway, so I stuck it out for a while and while biding my time I went job hunting. I found the only job in the area related to technology was working at the local Office Max, and I really needed a job so I applied. Of course I got the ‘you’re overqualified’ speech but managed to convince them they were getting a great deal, I had no options, and that I really wanted to work there. They offered me, I think, $7 to start, but I talked them to $9. I was desperate but it’d be hell to afford living by myself on just $7 an hour, and I could at least manage it at $9 since the casinos had really cheap food to eat. So I’d never have to worry about cooking or buying groceries, except for mt dew for my apartment, and man did I ever stock up.

It was hot there, the kind of hot that burns your flesh if you’re in the sun, but not the hot that really makes you want to pass out. I remember the nights in the apartment where I had the ceiling fan on full blast, the A/C off because I couldn’t afford an electric bill over $100 a month, and that left me most nights just falling asleep in a pool of my own sweat. The funny thing about that is when you sweat that much with a ceiling fan blowing on you you’d be surprised just how cold it can get, but if you cover up you’re in worse shape.

Working life was ok, zoned a lot of isles, worked in Office Max’s top ceiling technology retail location in the entire country where we sold about 60 to 70% technology and the rest office supplies. I made one friend there named Julia who I called my Hispanic Vanna because she’d price the shelves and was from Mexico (legally.) She was very nice and made my days at least more sociable since most of the time I was either approaching people to ask them for help, or stocking something. I worked 45 hours a week if I remember right, and was just barely making money. So I decided to start my own computer repair business on the side and under the table for the customers who were buying PC components, but didn’t have anyone to install them. I had heard the guy whose position I replaced was doing it pretty routinely for about 20-25 an hour, and that sounded nice to me. So that’s what I did for about six months.

I’d work all day, and then I’d drive around the city working on computers for people. Turned my 40+ hours into 60+, and then take into account the girlfriend I had there whom every morning I’d have to drive her to high school. She was 17 and I was 18 so don’t get that last statement out of balance.  I’d hang out at her house most of the time and we’d watch soap operas a lot, or we’d sit and read novels together. It was pretty nice until the arguments and the cheating happened, and that brought about a lot of changes in my life. I had a crash after that happened, mentally, and it took me a long time to get over. I bought an old 79’ F250 pickup at the end, decided I didn’t want to be so alone anymore, and I packed up to move back where I had friends and family. I took a walk into the desert one night to clear my head and that’s the night I realized that absolutely everything in Arizona has pointy barbs, and there are a very disproportionate amount of coyotes to human ratio in the desert. I guess that’s why people don’t walk in the desert at night. Man, I’ll give Jesus some credit for doing that for forty days that guy had gumption.

I guess my point is I’m nervous about buying the house and it has me in a very reflective state of being because there are so many things to consider when buying a home. Location, location, and location. Did I mention location? I wish there was a way to slow each day down so that time never really moved on and we’d be able to savor the days longer without so much change having to happen in our lives. Anyway, I suppose I’m off to go make a bid, and knowing my luck buy a home.

Offbeat

Frankly they’re doomed to failure because someone decided to save money by outsourcing overseas. I’ve worked on several projects that dealt with outsourced code and each one was a borderline complete failure until an on-shore developer cleaned it up. I’m sitting here looking at code created for my client and it’s a complete mess.

That brings me to a correlation I never thought possible. If you take code created in India that was an outsourced project the results of this may be a working project on the outside. However, the moment you start getting into the guts of the application it’s the same quality as if you threw three fourteen year old teens into a room that ‘think’ they’re awesome programmers, give them one reference book to share, and provide free liquor to them through the whole project. Some of it is good (the simple aspects), some is a complete mess, no standards, no documentation, no structure, repeated code everywhere, and the spelling of English words and phrases is ridiculous. That reminds me the word ‘please’ has an ‘l’ in it. I’m so tired of having to correct spelling on output message from “Pease” to “Please.”

For those of you who consider outsourcing keep this point in mind when deciding how much you really want to have to rework. I’ve been working on this project for three days, consolidated about 15 pages into a base page class, consolidated five master pages into one with a new custom user navigation control (only difference between them all was menu options), and have had to actually put exception handling into this project. From the time stamps, and fixed copyright dates I know that this project took from 2004 until 2008. Pathetic software development turn around for such a small project. The backend was developed on LLBL Gen Pro with a custom front web application UI, and let me tell you everything on the UI side almost nearly has to be rewritten. This isn’t unique, I wish it was, but I’m just saying I hate the quality of code brought back from overseas.

If you think you’re saving time by having developers overseas who can develop while you’re asleep so you think you get more done, or the costs justify the move just think twice. You may complete the project on time and under budget but the project will be so unstable you’ll just end up eating the costs of poor judgment based on fiscal desires, heck look at Microsoft’s initial launch of the Xbox 360. Cheap material (or code) equals freaking expensive rework costs.

As I mentioned before I started a company. It’s been going pretty slowly, had some ups, had some downs, slowdowns that is, and it seems things are back on track. I am still working to complete an in-house software product but the development cycle was halted so that I could upgrade my knowledge base to LINQ and ADO.Net Entity Framework. During this knowledge gathering period I’ve had a lot of personal life events taking place, getting near a marriage, looking for a house, and getting myself into a regular schedule. Development at work has been going well, slower than I thought, but going well none the less.

Today I sold my companies services to a midsized printing company. The initial project has been slated as a six month task with many more projects waiting in the wings. I’m looking forward to starting on this project, but of course have to do some initial project requirements gathering. From there I’ll talk about the business processes that are currently un-documented, and get an idea of the pain points in the data entry roles. So far the client has been nothing but cheerful and pleasant to work with, and I’m looking forward to a very successful delivery of an updated website ready to deliver the results they’re looking for.

In other news I recently took part in a Frisbee golf game that netted me the first hole in one of my life. I think the hole was more than 280 feet and I was able to toss the Frisbee in such a way that it swopped down, hit a tree, and fell directly into the hole. It was fantastic, truly a one in a million accomplishment that I’m sure I’ll never repeat. I can’t wait till I witness another one of my comrades performing the same maneuver.

Business