Poppy At 15 Months
May 4th, 2009 by alan
Poppy Update - Fast And Furious
Apr 2nd, 2009 by alan





Poppy Spinning
Mar 16th, 2009 by alan
Poppy has long been termed as a “rough neck” and she certainly earns that title, loving to be thrown around and tickled and rough housing with her peers or adults alike.
She has just started spinning around in circles to get herself dizzy.
It’s one of the cutest things I’ve ever witnessed.
The downside is that she already staggers like a drunk anytime she’s tired and sometimes when she’s not… so this just adds to the appearance that she is seconds away from being face-down on the ground.
Oh well, she puts up with the bumps and bruises admirably.

Svn Merge, Making Sure A Branch Is Updated From Trunk, Then Merging Back To Trunk
Mar 5th, 2009 by alan
So I’ve just fought a battle w/ SVN merge and thought I’d post the solution in case others might find it…
Scenario
Our stable code is in trunk svn://svn.domain.tld/repository/trunk
I’ve got a branch of trunk svn://svn.domain.tld/repository/branches/dev
Changes have been made to my branch and changes have been made to trunk, since I branched.
I’m ready to merge my branch back into trunk.
Approach / Overview
Basically, to be safe, I need to first update my branch with the changes from trunk and resolve any conflicts. Then test my branch and code again (since I will likely have resolved conflicts and thus made changes to my code). Then finally, merge my updated branch into trunk.
Step 1 - update/merge branch from trunk
# cd /path-to-my-working-copy-of-the-dev-branch
# svn up
# svn log -q --stop-on-copy
if the last revision listed is something like r999, the branch was created at revision 999… take note of this number in your case. Anytime you see me use “999″ you’ll want to replace it with your own revision number.
# svn merge --dry-run -r 999:HEAD svn://svn.domain.tld/repository/trunk
review the results… conflicts will be prefaced with a C. If you’ve got a long list, you can send the results of the dry-run to a text file and review the results there
# svn merge --dry-run -r 999:HEAD svn://svn.domain.tld/repository/trunk > ../merge-results.txt
after being sure you want to do this, do the merge, updating the branch with changes from trunk
# svn merge -r 999:HEAD svn://svn.domain.tld/repository/trunk
SVN tries to automatically merge changed files as best it can. As conflicts are found, it will prompt you, asking you how you want to handle them. If you are sure your version in the branch is correct, you can use “mf” (mine full) to resolve this conflict… if you are sure the trunk version is correct, you can use “tf” (theirs full) to resolve this conflict. More often than not, though, the differences will take manual looking at and sometimes manual editing. You can use “df” or “e” to do so in the console, but I usually use “p” to postone conflict resolution, which creates some extra files and breaks the conflicted file till resolved.
You’ll probably have several conflicts… that’s fine, postpone as much as you need to and we will clean them up when done.
When done, lets get a list of conflicts
# svn st | grep C
For each of those files, you’re going to need to fix the conflict. Open them in your favorite editor and look for a line starting with
>>>>>>> .merge-right.r### or something like that… that’s where one version starts, at a line starting with
======= is where that version ends and the next starts, and that one goes until the next
>>>>>>> .merge-right.r###.
You can also diff the other file-copies it will create with different suffixes… Basically, your goal is to FIX the file in question, it doesn’t matter what you do with the other file-copies with different suffixes, because the next step will remove them automatically.
# svn resolved ./path-to/file-in-conflict-state.ext
Keep checking for conflicts, and resolving them manually (this is the tedious part)
# svn st | grep C
Once you get all of the conflicts resolved, just to be safe, check out the differences/status of the working copy
# svn st
Test your code
If that looks correct and your code passes QA, lets commit the branch… finalizing our update/merge
# svn ci -m "MERGED: updated ./branches/dev with the latest from ./trunk"
Step 2 - update/merge trunk from branch
# cd /path-to-my-working-copy-of-the-trunk
# svn up
Remember the revision where we created our branch, from step one? Anytime you see me use “999″ you’ll want to replace it with your own revision number.
# svn merge --dry-run -r 999:HEAD svn://svn.domain.tld/repository/branches/dev
# svn merge -r 999:HEAD svn://svn.domain.tld/repository/branches/dev
# svn st | grep C
Fix all of your conflicts. Usually, you can use “tf” (theirs full) to accept the version from your branch to overwrite the version in your trunk… since you’ve just gone through the trouble of resolving conflicts on your branch… but if you’re not 100% sure, manually review them as discussed in step 1.
Once you get all of the conflicts resolved, just to be safe, check out the differences/status of the working copy
# svn st
Test your code
If that looks correct and your code passes QA, lets commit the trunk… finalizing our update/merge
# svn ci -m "MERGED: updated ./trunk with the latest from ./branches/dev"
That’s it.
Easy right?
Not quite.
But, I firmly believe the benefits to using SVN far outweigh the headaches. If you’re sick and tired of complicated merge-processes, you should checkout GIT… an alternative to SVN which handles merges and branching and whatnot much much easier and simpler. We are sticking w/ SVN for now because we’re already committed, but I’ve heard nothing but good things about GIT.
Mom And Sam’s Visit To Lousiville
Mar 5th, 2009 by alan
Mom and Sam drove to Louisville for a few days this past weekend+ (Friday - Tuesday).
We all had a wonderful visit and they played with poppy almost nonstop… as expected. We took full advantage of the free babysitting and went out a few nights and on the whole, were less than adequate hosts, but they didn’t seem to mind.
Mom’s posted her photos here, and below is a slideshow
Poppy Update - 13 Months
Mar 1st, 2009 by alan
Poppy is:
- walking well, though she still staggers like she’s drunk when she’s tired.
- sometimes eating vegetables, often not - but always eating fruit and crackers are much better
- starting to learn a few signs… she’s known “more” for a while now, but now she can do eat and drink and occasionally a few others.
- certainly understands many words and phrases and tones of voice, and is starting to mimic more often… sometimes putting a word in context a bit… though it’s a stretch and only her family would recognize these accomplishments.
- has spent a few days at daycare (when both anita and alan are working and sarah is not available to babysit), enough to hate to be dropped off
- loves showing off her belly and pointing to it… then she’ll lift up your shirt and point at your belly, or just wait for you to give her belly a raspberry
- sleeps through the night for the most part, but wakes up early in the morning ~5 to nurse and then sleeps again till ~7
- sometimes naps twice a day, sometimes once - rarely the old standard of three times
Winter Weather Hits Louisville
Feb 3rd, 2009 by alan
It’s been a crazy winter, the last week. The ice storm which took out most of KY’s power only kept us out for a couple of days, but still has some friends down. It was crazy to see all of the trees weighed down and drooping, beautiful and terrible. The ice coated everything, and when the wind blew all of the ice-coated limbs and branched clinked with each other.
Here’s a great photo from a friend of mine, mitch:
And another photo from another friend, ramey:
Luckily, we are all alright and everyone we know is as well. Nice to be reminded how fragile our infrastructure is and how dead-in-the-water most of us are without it.
Op-ed Wall Street’s Jet Setters
Jan 30th, 2009 by alan
Wall Street’s Socialist Jet-Setters By MAUREEN DOWD - Published: January 27, 2009
How are these ruthless, careless ghouls who murdered the economy still walking around (not to mention that sociopathic sadist Bernie Madoff?) — and not as perps?
Bring on the shackles. Let the show trials begin.
Very frustrating indeed, but I don’t know of any means of invoking a change. We can complain on the net and raise virtual pitchforks in anger… but there’s nothing which will come of it. If there was something we could do to force CEOs who are still treating themselves like kings while all of their peasants toil and scramble, fear and get fired… I’d be all for it. But there isn’t - we are in a society where those people (the real aristocracy) make the rules and are for the most part, above the law (or will get the laws changed).
The 5%, the 1% - they got really, really (more) rich over the last 20 years, especially the last 5-10… and their economic strategies are plunging us into the current depression. And you know, that 5% are still perfectly fine… Well, they might have to sell of one of their several vacation houses.
Poppy’s First Birthday
Jan 24th, 2009 by alan
We had a house full for Poppy’s first birthday. Friends came in from Columbus and Lexington, but otherwise we tried to keep it family only… even so we had almost 30 people over and had a wonderful time (at least those who were able to find seats).
She had her cake and ate it too. Anita expected that she might not take to the cake straight away, but she certainly dug in, as soon as she realized that it was food and she was allowed to eat it.
Anita made an applebread cake for poppy and a regular yellowcake for everyone else.
Poppy did wonderfully, not melting down until the last present to open (and there were many more than we expected). She napped, we talked, most people left, she woke back up and played some more.
It was a wonderful birthday, absolutely wonderful. We got a decent amount of video, but we haven’t processed and uploaded it yet… I’ll update when we do, until then, you’ll have to deal with just the photos.
Re: Memo To All My Valued Employees
Jan 14th, 2009 by alan
Here’s my response to the following “letter” which I received as a forward today:
Letter subject: “Memo to All My Valued Employees”
Basic gist of the letter:
Most of my time is now occupied with government mandates and regulations and all the accounting that goes with them. On October 15th, I wrote a check to the US Treasury for $288,000 for quarterly taxes. You know what my “stimulus” check was? Zero. Nada. Zilch.The question I have is this: Who’s stimulating the economy? Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good-paying jobs and serves more than 2,200,000 people per year with a flourishing business? Or the single mother sitting at home pregnant with her fourth child waiting for her next welfare check? Obviously, government feels the latter is the economic stimulus of this country.
The fact is, if I deducted (read: stole) 50% of your paycheck, you’d quit and you wouldn’t work here. Why should you? That’s nuts. Who wants to get rewarded for only 50% of their hard work? Well, I agree, which is why your job is in jeopardy.
The first comment on the post where I found the letter posted, which I like:
December 30th, 2008 at 9:32 am
One has to seriously question the motivation of a business owner who would send this to his employees. Essentially, this letter is sour grapes bitching to those who can do NOTHING to change the situation. 14 employees are not going to stem the tide of tax law changes about to come in. No way on earth will that happen. Instead, all this fellow has managed to do is to de-moralize his employees and leave them in a state of fearful agitation for the holidays. This is illustrative of a certain sort of behavior common among very small business owners that serves no good purpose and only harms their business and their credibility as worthwhile leaders. The oldest rule in leadership is that bitching runs uphill (hat tip to Saving Private Ryan). The mailroom worker complains to the mailroom manager and he in turn complains to the operations Vice President and so on. All this fellow is doing is showing that he is an inept leader and that he wants everyone to know it. Failure of leadership is really what’s killing this country - at all levels - and this highlights that perfectly.
More to the point though… no matter who is getting taxed, they aren’t going to like it. The email makes strong sounding points and I can certainly see the logic in them, but they are not the only points to make and there’s more than enough comparable rhetoric on the opposite side of these issues.
The basics of which I would think might sound something like: “if you tax someone who has money more than someone who doesn’t, the burden is spread according to the money in question.”
This has been the case for a long time and the current tax changes proposed are simply an alternation of where the lines are drawn, in fact putting some of the lines back in place.
Check out this from Date: 09/19/2008 By: Senator Bernie Sanders:
The top 0.1 percent now earn more money than the bottom 50 percent of Americans, and the top 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent. The wealthiest 400 people in our country saw their wealth increase by $670 billion while Bush has been president. In the midst of all of this, Bush lowered taxes on the very rich so that they are paying lower income tax rates than teachers, police officers or nurses.
You can’t make everyone happy. The wealthy and powerful are more likely to get their way in most things, because of their wealth and power. They are already at an advantage. It is only fitting to have a government that helps even the playing field a bit - One our country’s principles has always been humanitarianism and care for those less fortunate. “Give us your tired and poor. Your huddled masses yearning to be free.” Right? Isn’t that who we are?
Yeah, not really. Not any more.
http://clevelandhomeless.blogspot.com/2006/10/give-us-your-tired-and-poor.html
We have elected Obama, and the country has taken on a mantel of hope again… but we are still very self-centered and interested mainly in our own profits and wealth and safety and comfort. Virtues and Moralities are mostly buzz words used to sell something anymore, and though many great things are done in this country by great people in the spirit of our past… the country as a whole is not focused on helping the world by being a shining light of hope… we are interested in keeping our lights on, and the searchlight and guards on the fences we have been literally and figuratively building.
In closing…
Sorry, I can feel sorry for business owners who are going through hardships… but not enough to think that we should be taxing the poor or lower or middle classes more. Hell, they’re not even talking about increasing taxes for people who make < $249K a year. I suspect that most of the people who do make more than $249K/year could afford to give their employees a raise if they wanted to… perhaps they should just take it out of their salary until they get down to $249 and then they wont have to worry.
thanks,
-alan-
Poppy Is Babbling On All Syllables
Jan 14th, 2009 by alan
Penelope is really talking these days. There are still no really discernable words, and for the most part, no reliable mimicking. We can not prompt her and expect a desired response. But she is certainly mimicking speech patterns on her own including intonation and cadence. She’ll do so while toddling around the house carrying a toy or article of clothing or piece of trash. She will also babble back to you, when you’re talking to her.
We’ve been very excited by this milestone, and are looking forward to real words.
We are also entering the phase of another milestone we are not as happy about. She’s figured out what we mean when we say “no” and she doesn’t like it. Often, when she realizes she’s not getting what she wants, she will throw a little fit, and though we know they are quite small at this stage, they are still awful for us to see and deal with. We are just used to her being perfectly happy and easily redirected… now she’s crying and sometimes screaming for a little bit, once or twice she did the limp-baby treatment. Again, this is minor and an important developmental milestone… Stubborness is required for a baby to get back up after falling a few dozen times. It’s just a reality check for us.
Photobooth Photos From Scott And Tami’s Wedding
Jan 12th, 2009 by alan
Poppy’s Room, Now With Mural
Jan 5th, 2009 by alan
My mom and her friend Joanne painted a wonderful mural on Poppy’s room. I decided to play with a very fun tool called photosynth to stitch together several photos into one unified picture or the room in 3-D (sort of). It will not work except on IE and FF and you may need to install a viewer (it’s safe, but an annoyance). Regardless, this is my first photosynth and I may make more… not sure at the moment.
Or view it on the photosynth site at: Poppy’s Room














