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- wheatblog.com
I'm porting the blog over to WordPress. The new home is wheatblog.com. More details here. The new RSS feed is feed:http://wheatblog.com/?feed=rss2. - Julian Barnes' voice
Though I wrote a master's thesis on Julian Barnes' novels. I'd never actually heard his voice until today. Surprisingly, he sounds almost exactly like I would have expected him to. I've read a good many interviews with him, but I'd never heard one before now. This one is from several years back, I suspect, as most of the discussion concerns Staring at the Sun (1986). But most of the comments are about writing itself and Barnes' own way of going about it. Definitely worth your time, if you're a fan at all. It's 00:08:36 (hh:mm:ss) in length: stream or download. There's a transcript, too, but I can't figure out how to link it (follow the first link for it). - Thirty-eight Orbits
I didn't take the time to blog my birthday this year. I couldn't think of anything to say other than the obvious ("yo, it's my frickin birthday"). I updated my weird little universe via FaceBook, Twitter, and Google Talk status messages. And I got quite a few feel-good comments via those channels, which was nice.
Today, finally catching up on my feeds, I found this nice birthday tribute from Kat. Which leaves me thinking "aw, shucks, man" and wanting desperately to be in Hot Springs with a chilled six pack at the ready.
I wanted to give some quick thanks to everyone who passed on birthday wishes, phone calls, cards, and gifts. Specifically: Gina, Haden, Vicki, Sonja, Tom, Gary, Jarod, Shauna, Lisa, Donna, Kendall, Kristen, Kelsey, Debbie, Ed, Jack, Mr. Hall, Andy, Alun, and Megan. I think that's everyone (though, sure as I say that, I've missed someone).
It was a good one. Gina and I caught a movie, ate some cake, and basked in our continued good fortune. Thanks to all of you. Number thirty-eight was a good one. - The mysterious NZ() function in Microsoft Access
I need to write up a nice demo with examples, but here's the short version: if you are creating aggregate queries in Microsoft Access 2007 (though it should work in previous versions, too) and end up with funny math because Access won't subtract a null from a numeric value (or add one to a numeric value, or perform any other bit of math involving nulls), you can force it to treat nulls as zeros by wrapping your statement with the NZ() function.
In my case, I had two aggregate columns: 1) giftReceivedAmount, and 2) giftPledgeAmount (both sum aggregates) that I wanted to sum together in a new column called Total. Ordinarily, you do that in Access by creating a new column in your query and calling it something like this: Total: [giftReceivedAmount] + [giftReceivedAmount]. The bit to the left of the colon is the (arbitrary) name you want to use for the column. Everything to the right of the colon is the math to compute the result.
That works fine as long as the columns you are adding both have a value. But, if either of them is null, the result will also be null. To force it, you wrap each column reference with the NZ() function. The second argument indicates that you want the nulls treated as zeros. So the statement for the column looks like this: Total: Nz([SumOfgiftReceivedAmount],0)+Nz([SumOfgiftPledgeAmount],0).
The title of the column is a second "gotcha," as their titles in the Query Builder Grid don't include the "SumOf" prefix. But, since they're aggregated (i.e. the setting on the "Total:" row for each is "Sum"), Access refers to them by this (hidden) name. Leave it off and you get "You tried to execute a query that does not include the specified expression . . . as part of an aggregate function." If you switch to SQL view, you'll see that Access uses an AS in the SELECT statement to rename the aggregate columns (e.g. "SELECT Sum(tblGift.giftReceivedAmount) AS SumOfgiftReceivedAmount, . . . "). - Cutting down on the caffeine...
I've been a rampant soda drinker all my life. As a kid and young adult, my flavor of choice was Dr. Pepper. In recent years, to fight the mid-life spread, I've switched to Diet Coke. I like the taste of soda, but, for me, it's mostly a caffeine-delivery method. I don't have too many fears about caffeine itself, but putting down all these sodas was getting to be ridiculous for a number of reasons:- Cost: remember when you bought groceries to save money? Seems like now they're almost as expensive as eating out. But keeping my supply of diet beverages was costing me quite a bit per week, so much so that I only bought them when they were on sale and stockpiled them in my garage. Grocery stores regularly put the twelve-packs of aluminum cans on sale at four for eleven dollars. That's about .23 cents per can, which is certainly cheaper than the .80 cents they cost out of a machine. But, when you're drinking six or more of them a day, it adds up. And it adds up a lot quicker if you forget to bring one and end up buying some at the Quickie Mart. The economy, after all, is in terrible shape right now. And I'm not alone in trying to find ways to tighten my belt.
- Environmental impact: even though I recycle all of my cans (and I do mean all of them), recycling all that aluminum is still not nearly as efficient as simply not using it in the first place. The companies themselves spend a lot of energy carting the syrupy liquid around, and liquids are heavy. So, though I'm far fro the greenest person you'll meet, I started to feel genuinely guilty about this element of my overall consumption.
- Sleep and health: historically, I always ramp up my caffeine consumption when I'm overtaxed. And the first few months of having Haden around meant that sleep was a luxury. I've never needed as much sleep as most people, and I have the ability to get by on very little for extended stretches of time when I feel it is necessary. And that--the loss of sleep--is bad for you, far worse than any side effects of caffeine itself. There's also the disturbing idea that excessive soda intake might be linked to bone loss and osteoporosis. So, even if that ends up being a wash, why risk it?
So, I've been doing this for a few weeks now, and I'm feeling a lot better about it. In fact, tea is much more refreshing than carbonated drinks (so much so that I wish I didn't have to drink up the Diet Coke I've already bought). - Two Tares vids
A little ego-surfing this past weekend turned up two videos by The Tares (some mp3s here), a band I played in back in 1999. These are both with the original bassist and drummer (i.e. before I joined the band). But they're still fun. The first track is called "Corvairs." The second is "Waiver."