The Time Sink

Well, I think we maxed that three day weekend. The home projects got some serious things knocked out, we rested when we had to, and the kids had more play time than work time...

Yep, we're ready for summer here. Shelley is ready to clean and catch up on the accumulation from the busyness of the school year, I'm way past being done with not being able to sustain a project (either in time or space), and the guys are just flat ready to be kids for a while...

Well, I can see I'll be running late this week! ...but last night lasted too long for me to be able to use "Dave's Time Machine" to post ahead.

Yesterday evening was one of those parental nightmares where each kid had to be a different venue at the same time. ...and where trying to sync up later just wouldn't work well at all. Shelley took Brad to his baseball game while Daniel worked on his homework until he hit a stopping point. They he and I headed off to catch a couple of innings of the game:

Yep, his lead off third pretty much took care of that play... They won; the last game is Saturday...

After another at bat for Brad, Daniel and I took off for one of the local high schools where Daniel's junior high choir instructor had set up a "Serenade Under the Stars" performance for all six of his choral groups. ...and that turned out to be one heck of a late, but very relaxing night.

Each group performed three songs and received their awards for the year. One group had even performed at Carnegie Hall earlier in the Spring! I have to say that spending the time in the amphitheater as the sun went down and the moon came up worked out very well.

Posted so I'll have it logged and maybe help someone else: we just cleared up round two of confusion on some database problems that cropped up as we transitioned registrars for one of the sports teams. The state level body had updated the program from the one in use and provided it to the new registrar. They'd also been kind enough to request the current database files from the current registrar via email and provided those and some updates (things like zip codes) to the new registrar on a second CD. Troubleshooting came my way when the program wouldn't run and would error out...

Over the weekend I did the usual song and dance and stripped the install from the new registrar's computer. The reinstall went fine and the data files copied across just fine. ...but no go: the thing rebuilt the indices just fine but I'd get this "cannot reposition the cursor" error. I even remembered some of the tricks we used to get it running two years ago, but the program just didn't want to play. So I emailed a screen shot of the error off to the head geek at the state level and we chatted later in the week about the maybes...

Here are your clues: a new install of an upgraded program with no problems reported on other systems (using FoxPro, but we won't go there). Known good database files copied from a currently running system and provided to the new user via CD. A program that will start and rebuild the indices, but that will error out as soon as that process is finished. Got it yet?

Okay, here we go: the data files were transferred to a CD to simplify the delivery process, -right? ...and they were copied from the CD to the data directory and that went fine. ...but how are the permissions going to be set on a file that comes from a CD? Umm... Hmmm... Yeah, 'read only'. Sure. ...and since the program was looking to write those indices and update at least one of the database files with the current working date? Bingo!

The bonus was that I was able to walk the end user through the attribute change over the phone so I didn't have to miss blading this evening <g>. ...and now she's officially a geek since she got to mess with the twiddly bits. I'd like to say we all lived happily ever after, but...

...and another week bytes the dust. Yeah, like that. Sometimes the three-day weekends can really come back on you the other four days <g>...

...but we only have one more week of school left for the guys, and hopefully it will be light on homework. Well, I would think it will have to be since grades were due in today.

...and tomorrow is Brad's last baseball game of the season. That will be a bittersweet time because we won't see some of these kids again. ...but the pizza party afterward? Yeah, that will be a welcome break from the routine.

Those pics pretty much say it all. An undefeated season, one fantastic come-from-behind win, the last game yesterday another comeback to end in a tie... Yeah, these kids worked for it. ...and I don't think I've ever been around a better coaching trio as far as encouraging the kids to have fun and to learn and to grow. Yep, it was a very good season.

...and the pizza party afterward led to a nap <g>. ...but I bladed later and then did a bunch of household stuff and then tried to kick back a bit.

Click image for larger version

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke, "Technology and the Future"

    Thanks for visiting!  
All content Copyright 1999->2004 Daniel C. Bowman. Most rights reserved.