fieldmarshallhradek.com

I have had some great progress building my site yet again. Yeah, so I am hopeless. But its exciting to apply things I have learned. Working with MySQL databases all day at work and seeing them implemented in PHP has been inspiring. So much actually that I created a MySQL database to hold all the music artists that I have heard and like on the radio that I like. It doesn’t include things I already have on CD.

First I had to format and enter everything into the database. So I created a table with id number, artist, title, album, genre and date. Then I formated my text file so it’d be easy to import. I used semi-colon seperated values. Here is one line:

1;Paradise;Nebulus;;;20050426215530

Once I got that all imported correctly, I created the utility file that would connect to the database if called. I also created a non-writing username and password so if someone happened to catch it, they could delete or write into tables. Then I created a my HTML file. I made it so it felt and appeared like the rest of the site by pulling the CSS link into it, making the main table, and so on.

Well I have been having minor problems with my Internet at home lately. Last night it culminated in a tyraid: in my mind. I think something is wrong with my router configuration. There will be lost packets or “modem reboots” every so often. I can’t connect to websites or my FTP connections but I can log into the router. It was especially frustrating because sometimes it’d happen once and I didn’t even notice and sometimes it would happen over and over. Finally I decided to check my X-Box since I want to blame the wireless connection. Nope, my X-Box will report no connection found being connected directly to the router. I unplug my X-Box and have a steady connection for several hours. Odd I think, so I reconfigure my router and added the X-Box to my MAC filter and it fixed it. Also, my Dreamweaver application is having problems locating my host so I end up having to use Passive FTP. Its odd that things have steadily gotten to this point. Maybe my X-Box was confusing things in my router.

I played “Brothers in Arms” last night for a little while. It was really fun. I enjoy the iron sites aiming feature. The game seems like it has an okay story line. We also rented “Shaun of the Dead”… again. My wife hasn’t seen it yet so I have to show it to her.

Yes, this weekend was great albeit short. I didn’t get to go down to visit my family like I had planned. I re-thought the idea and think I will wait until next week. I have been researching disc publishing units. I found three major companies so far. They all seem to have nice units. They can be expensive.

I made beef tartare this weekend. I have found several recipes for this dish. I really love cooking. As a matter-of-fact, I spent a couple hours Saturday cooking some wonderful meat sauce too. If I don’t end up with an engineering or law degree, I have thought about cooking.

My father has broken a rib at work. This really surprised me and clues me in on his age and seeming frailty. I hope he recovers soon. I plan on going to visit this Saturday, for sure this time, to mow their grass. I look forward to it actually.

Yesterday was my wife’s birthday, so my wife’s mom and sister come up and we take her to a really nice dinner. The place is way over priced. Its called the Yacht Club Broiler. You can check out the menu. As you can see its ridiculously expensive for Silverdale. The only thing going for it is the location. Right on the water with a great view of the bay. I didn’t care for the marinade they used on my steak.

After that we went to a friend’s house and watched a movie called “Spanglish”. It was funny with some good moments. The writing in it was fabulous but the overall story and movie in itself was lacking. That’s not fair to say though. Its a small snip into a family’s life which some may enjoy. Finally, one Adam Sandler feature I can stand. I would say its a solid movie rental that you should definitely check out. The night before we watched “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” which was very interesting in visuals and the character portrayals but terrible as far as entertainment. It dragged on and was very predictable. I think this is also a rental but not something you have to see. “Meet the Fockers” was boring. Wait for it to appear on TV. The acting was poor and so was the plot. I don’t really care for the semite humor. We can be funny without it.

Its been a while since we started our diet. It goes really well. We have made a few concessions. For one, egg whites get boring really fast. We compromised by buying organic, free range eggs which are lower in fat but taste better. Also, we buy some low fat milks and hard cheeses like Pecorino Romano which is a wonderful, full flavored cheese.

I came to work at 11 today. I try to be here by 9. But it was hard to get out of bed. I slept really well last night. Maybe a beer or two before bed is working well for me. I never want to use alcohol as a crutch or drug myself asleep. I have seen too many families destroyed by drugs, alcohol and sex. I invite anyone who is dabbling in any of this stuff to self-medicate, escape or whatever the reason: come and visit West Park or other homes around this area and see the effects of escapism, experimentation, lack of moral foundation, apathy or whatever other excuse has been used to justify the support of this behavior. Buying or using mind altering substances has never caused any break throughs at any level. Its not innocent. Its ugly, unnatural, and sad. Giving a supplier or someone at a party the reason to go buy or sell more of this crap only creates more reason to keep this stuff flowing. Don’t get me wrong, everyone has the right to make these choices. Its just my humble opinion that uninhibited drugs, sex and alcohol never made anything better for anyone.

I finally brought my headphoens to work. I have a good time listening to various stations on my start page. I have been stuck on Puls Radio for a long time. Rant Radio makes a couple come back here and there.

I plan on going to my parents house and working on my Mercedes. I think its got a dead battery so I will need to jump it. Maybe all that cold was really hard on the battery. I will also stop by my brother-in-laws and help him with some recording. He wants some piano/keyboard sound into his tracks and quite honestly some of the clipping on some of the tracks indicates he needs some production advice.

Last night I helped a lady I have been helping with her computer order a Dell. *gasp* I completely dislike pre-manufactured computers but in her case, someone who needs a fancy word processor and e-mail/Internet browser doesn’t need a custom built computer. Plus the 2 years of support hopefully puts her into their hands for help.

I have a unique oppurtunity to always be online at work. While my friends have to divide their time between work, girlfriends, school and whatever else, I have around eight hours a day I can tune my online presence. I make an ass out of myself in making assumptions. *sigh* Don’t get me wrong here; I do work, its just very convenient to be available all the time.

I e-mailed the co-ordinator for the local public access station, BKAT, which is down the street from me. I found out some more information about membership and orientations. I am really excited to start filming some things. I just need to have people who are willing to help out and participate.

Yes please. Check out Checks and Balances for some information about its history. Here is the text of the document. To summarize, this piece of legislation passed within 6 weeks of an incident in New York City, gives sweeping powers to the federal government to monitor everything from bank, morgage and credit applications and transactions to surveiling anything and anyone suspected of terrorism. Its un-patriotic to support this legislation. Emotionalism and fear is what passed it and both of those things never result in rational outcomes. What upsets me most is peoples’ complete ambivolence to the situation and lack of drive to have laws like these reversed and not passed in the future.

Anyway, you now know my opinion. Maybe I am missing something. Anyway, back to other things.

Ok ok, so maybe I am getting a little carried away. I am trying to give my site a new look and all. Maybe somewhat uniform. As you see I’ve done a bit. Check out the “site history” link for more info.

Oh and I learned some really cool features so I can call specific style sheets for different browsers. You see, IE ignores scroll bars and others do not so I had to compensate my top frame margins. Its amazing. Here is the code that picks one style sheet for all non-IE browsers and another for IE browsers:

<![if !IE]>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="site_styles.css" type="text/css" />
<![endif]>
<!--[if IE]>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="site_styles_ie.css" type="text/css" />
<![endif]-->

Okay, I have to boast. I have got a handle on PHP, the <div> tag, tables, and CSS becuase I was able to format those things and get this b2evolution blog to fit and resemble my site. Yeah, it took a couple weeks. I will try to make more improvements too but for now, it all seems fine. There are a couple formatting issues I have yet to resolve.

Here is an example of three of the 4 things I have worked on. First is the <div> tag and you see how it calls a class. That class is referenced in a style-sheet. The PHP code is a fancy way of calling data from somewhere else (usually a MySQL database). In this case, a HTML link will be placed into the quotes.

<div class="bSmallHead">
		<a href="<?php $Item->permalink() ?>"
</div>

Here is the corresponding CSS code for the class mentioned above:

.bSmallHead {
	font-size: 80%;
	color: #999;
	margin: 2ex 0 1ex 0;
}

Anyway, if anyone needs help with this stuff I can always help. Just e-mail me.

I have been at work and my head hurts. Its one of those temple headaches where it hurts to even have my eyes open. I had a few gulps of Pepsi a few days ago as a treat during my wife’s birthday. Am I suffering for it. While I am thinking of a title for my entry, I wonder, do masochists enjoy headaches? I can’t imagine they do.

I have messed around with a few new softwares. I was thinking of using a DHTML menu on top to help create more room in my menu but with frames things may be difficult. Also, I really like EastWest software for music creation. I think they are a subsidiary of Native Instruments. The EastWest Vapor Synth is amazing. I updated my start page and the links page.

Its a meager post. I am really out of it today. The weather is really nice though.

I slept really well last night. I had a few beers before going to bed so I am sure that helped. My beer list right now is:

• Guinness Extra Stout is my preferred beer right now. Heavy and full flavor. Curently holds my “Sweet Nectar” title.
• Pilsner Urquell comes in at second. Golden beer. Good flavor but not watery like Becks.
• Heineken is my third choice. Light; when the above two are not present.

I have been working a lot on my site. I got all the pages to look uniform. I am trying to get this blog to match but that will take time. Today is my wife’s birthday. I am not sure what to do for her. With our trip to Hawai’i coming up soon, we don’t have a lot of leeway into our budget.

Anyway, I am pretty tired since its Monday. Its been raining a lot lately. The cloud cover has been steady.