Ah, I’m back in Chitown after my Myrtle Beach adventure - I had a great time and you should see the nice singe I got after being on the beach all day on Sunday. I’ll post a pic of my leg later - I kind of look like a lobster. And before you say anything, I DID wear sunscreen and reapply it throughout the day!

Happy Mom’s Day to my wonderful Mother. I gotta say, she did quite a good job of raising me. Unfortunately, I decided to spend the weekend getting a burntan in Myrtle Beach instead of spending time with her. On that note, Myrtle is great, wave-swimming has been fun, and I’ve been getting my tan on and now need to lather on aloe like butter.

Now it’s time to wreak some havoc on the mini-golf course!

For those that like pictures, I just posted a few from my (somewhat) recent trip to San Francisco for the RSA 2004 conference. I also put up just a couple shots from my apartment - pictures of the duck on the rooftop and some snow from this past winter.

Did I mention I got stuck twice this winter? No? Well I did…trying to get out of my garage. How pitiful is that? Rear-wheel drive with all-seasons doesn’t do too well in several inches of fresh snow, oddly enough. The first time I was coming out of my garage and stopped to run out and grab something, when I found my left front wheel in a snow pile. A few handfuls of snow and that was remedied. The second time, I just plain got stuck trying to nose cautiously out into the alleyway. After some help pushing my car back in from a nice man walking his dog, I was able to speed recklessly into the alleyway and avoid getting stuck a third time. Ironically…I was leaving to get some weight to put in the back of my trunk to help with my traction.

Well that was annoying. I was messing with the primary auto_increment key on one of my tables and set it to “-1”. Little did I know that when you specify a value for an auto_increment column, MySQL sets the next auto index to MAX(auto_increment_column)+1). Well, when you use “-1” in an unsigned column, the next auto index value turns out to be the max value for that column. That means that you can’t insert any more rows into that table! Oops!

The fix, referenced on mysql.com is simply to use the following command:

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ALTER TABLE tbl_name AUTO_INCREMENT = value

where value is the auto index value you want to use.

I suppose that’s what I get for editing primary keys…

I woke up sometime last week to find a duck sitting on the rooftop of the house next to my place. How odd, I thought, that a duck would simply be chilling on the roof. Not really moving…just kind of chilling and enjoying the nice weather.

Now what made this occurence even more notable was this goose that decided to settle down next to my car the night before. It did the usual goose thing and hissed at me as I tried to sneak past it to hop in.

And now, I just realized I was also taking pictures of a pigeon while in San Fran recently. What’s with the birds?

Well, it’s that time of year. I’m in Cleveland again!

This time though, I’m not flying back home between the two weeks that I’m here. No, I’m flying to Myrtle Beach instead for a little relaxing in the sun and tanning. I’ve determined that I need to get outside a little bit more this summer. I don’t mind sitting inside and coding all day, but the glare from my arms tends to have negative effects with the social life. The one benefit is I don’t need glo-sticks at the clubs!

In any case, time seems to have moved faster tonight and it’s almost my bedtime. I need to try to not collapse on my bed too much this week…

wow

I woke up at 4:30am today. That’s right, O-dark-30. Why, you might ask? Because I crawled onto my bed and fell asleep at 10:30, all sprawled out on top of the covers. I’ve been doing that a lot this week, but then I’ve been getting up pretty early and heading into work too.

So there it was, 4:30, and I just rolled out of bed and got started on my day. I’m still going now, at 11:30ish, and not feeling like I should be passing out. I managed to get a decent amount accomplished, between preparing and giving a “hacking” presentation at an undisclosed location in Chicago, getting in a good run, doing a massive cleanup job in my room…oh, and doing a good amount of research about SharePoint. … :)

And now, I think it’s time to properly go to bed for…probably the first time this week. The “stumble into my room and collapse on my bed” method is enjoyable only for a limited time.

This biggest city list is kind of interesting. I live in the 3rd biggest city. What I didn’t know is that Rochester, NY is the 84th largest city! You wouldn’t know it by living there… ;)

The stats on Chicago are pretty interesting too.

I went home last weekend. It was very nice to go back to the woods and relaxed. I climbed trees, and walked, and played some nerf football wit my bro. I primarily went out for a family gathering for a great Uncle who hit 90 - not too bad, if I say so myself! It was great to see old family that I hadn’t seen for who knows how many years. It was a great gathering.