A VOLATILE SITUATION IS EXPECTED TO UNFOLD OVER EASTERN PORTIONS OF THE CENTRAL PLAINS AND MUCH OF THE LOWER MISSOURI...MID MISSISSIPPI AND OHIO RIVER VALLEYS TODAY AND TONIGHT. A VERY STRONG UPPER LEVEL STORM SYSTEM AND ASSOCIATED JET MAX WILL QUICKLY OVERSPREAD AN UNSEASONABLY WARM AND MOIST SURFACE AIR MASS THIS AFTERNOON. WE EXPECT THAT SEVERAL AREAS OF SIGNIFICANT SEVERE WEATHER WILL DEVELOP DURING THE PERIOD. THE MOST SIGNIFICANT OF WHICH MAY OCCUR OVER THE NORTHERN HALF OF MISSOURI/FAR SOUTHERN IOWA INTO WEST CENTRAL ILLINOIS AHEAD OF A STRENGTHENING LOW PRESSURE CENTER AND ITS ACCOMPANYING WARM FRONT. THIS ACTIVITY IS EXPECTED TO DEVELOP DURING THE EARLY TO MID AFTERNOON AND RACE EAST-NORTHEASTWARDS THROUGH THE EVENING IN THE FORM OF TORNADIC SUPERCELLS...MANY OF WHICH COULD BECOME QUITE STRONG AND LONG-LIVED. OTHER POTENTIALLY TORNADIC SUPERCELLS ARE EXPECTED TO DEVELOP LATE TODAY AND THIS EVENING ALONG A DRY LINE EXTENDING INTO FAR EASTERN OKLAHOMA AND NORTHEASTERN TEXAS. THESE WILL SPREAD A THREAT OF SEVERE WEATHER...INCLUDING DAMAGING TORNADOES...ACROSS ARKANSAS INTO THE MID SOUTH/LOWER OHIO RIVER VALLEY THROUGH THE NIGHT.

Bye for now. Hopefully I'll have some cool stuff to report later. :)

So work is going to be kinda interesting for a little while, as we're working on a transition from one employee to another. The most recently hired tech put in his 1-week notice Monday, and the end is drawing very near for him to be at the shop. I can only imagine how it feels for him, because he has another job lined up with a little better pay and I think some benefits.

My primary concern, though, is training the new guy. Since November, I have been working with this guy to try and help him learn the primary job function, as well as trying to help him learn the perhiperal job functions (shop cleaning, etc.). I am pretty certain that a good portion of his leaving stems from the disagreement that it is everyone's responsibility to maintain the cleanliness and order of the shop.

So yeah... There's a help-wanted advertisement running in a couple newspapers for the remainder of this week and all of next week, so it will be interesting to see what comes of it. I'm kinda hoping that I can be a little more involved in the interview process, as I want to be able to give an honest and well-informed answer when I'm asked what I think of the interviewees. For now, though, my hours are probably going to be increased to overtime level, which means the shop is going to have to be short-handed and overworked.

Next weekend couldn't come any sooner.

I just want to announce that I am also not Denny. Nor am I Todd, Heather, Kelsey, or Madison.

Furthermore, I am not your uncle, your pet, or your doctor.

And if you call my cell phone...well, that will be quite a trick since I don't have one.

The Stormchaser Technologies Hosting Product Page now has PayPal buttons on it. That means you can order hosting subscriptions and pay for them through a reputable payment processor.

I can post things now! Yay!

Ok, so, um........

hi.

hides

Yes.

That didn't take long. E-Mail me at the address below if you want to be able to post comments. Anonymous comment posting is no longer allowed.

Because I keep getting hit by spam-bots here lately, I'm going to take evasive action on the next round.

To stop all the attacks, I will completely disable the posting of comments to any non-authenticated user. If you want to be able to comment on anything you will need to have an account, which must be created by your's truely.

If you want an account, drop a line to blogs@skudd.com and specify what you wish for your username and password to be. Passwords cannot be changed. If you supply me with the md5 hash of your password, I will insert that directly into the database. Passwords cannot be retrieved once inserted into the database.

If you live within driving distance of Rensselaer, Indiana, are looking for work, and have a basic knowledge of vehicular maintenance, stop by the shop and fill out an application. This position needs to be filled A.S.A.P., so get 'er done.

Disorder | Rating Paranoid: Low Schizoid: High Schizotypal: Low Antisocial: Low Borderline: Low Histrionic: Low Narcissistic: Low Avoidant: Low Dependent: Low Obsessive-Compulsive: Low

Take the test Information about the test

Read about Schizoids. It's not what you think.

Well, in response to the recent spamming attempts on here, I've added a new regular expressions-based banning system. This system will traverse the GET, POST, and COOKIE arrays, looking for matches to certain patterns which I have defined and will continue to update. Primarily, my goal is to block automated scripts from adding their content to the comments, which do not require authentication.

If you happen to see a message stating that you have been banned (which is highly unlikely), and you feel that it is wrong, let me know right away.

I apologize now if this causes any problems for anyone: That is not my intent.

So I woke up at about 3:00AM this morning to the wonderful feeling of my chest hurting. It felt almost like someone had swung a 5lb. sledge at me and hit. At the time, I figured it was just how I was laying, so I managed to get back to sleep for a while.

When I woke up at 9:00AM, I was still in pain almost the same and I decided to check my pulse and such. My pulse was normal, but it was very strong. When I got out of bed and stood up, I nearly passed out.

I went about my day as normal, only I decided to take a break from caffeine for the day. All day, though, my chest hurt and I didn't feel "right". The guys at work even noticed I wasn't acting myself.

This kind of thing has happened before, and I traced it back to my consuption of the nasty chemical, caffeine. I don't know if I'm having panic attacks from it, or if I'm having more serious issues. Given the fact that healthcare isn't exactly cheap and that I've never even heard of "health insurance", visiting a doctor isn't really an option. My only choice right now is to cut the caffeine, be a grouch, and hope that the condition gets better. If it doesn't, or if it gets worse, I'm going to a doctor.

Right now, I'm going to bed. Goodnight.

Greetings from my Dell Inspiron B130! :)

I started rewriting the WebLube client tonight after I got home from work. That was around 7:00PM - It is now 11:37PM.

The biggest hassle with this project is the fact that I have to code in VB.net for an hour, then jump over and code the PHP side of it for a few minutes, then spend another hour debugging and fine-tuning it. It's probably good for keeping my skills sharp and whatnot, but I have one of the BIGGEST stress-induced headaches ever.

The bugs that I addressed in the comments of the previous post have been resolved. Apparently .net has no means of URL-encoding data, so I had to whip this up:

    Function URLEncode(ByVal strInput As String) As String         Dim i As Integer         Dim strOutput As String

        Return strOutput     End Function

Ugly, yeah... It does the joerb though.

Also, I am now handling EVERY bit of communication with the server by means of XML. Even the errors are being returned as XML.

My laptop is supposed to arrive tomorrow. The UPS tracking page says it's "In Transit". Hopefully it makes it to Lafayette before the trucks roll out in the morning. I have tomorrow off and it would be PERFECT for my new toy to arrive.

And now, this worn out dude is going to pass out. The next entry on this blog shall not be made until I get my laptop. That will be the very first thing it does, too.

Part of the latest project I've been working on is a customer management system. The customer information (first name, last name, address, phone, notes) is stored in a table of a MySQL database. Up until now, the information could only be accessed through the CMS that I've been working on.

I was talking to the customer (Boss Dude, ironically enough) about it, and he seemed to be a bit concerned about web access, primarily because of all the mouse clicking and such. Because defining shortcut keys in W3C valid XHTML isn't exactly easy, and I didn't want to even consider working with JavaScript, I decided to get a head start on the interface part of the project. I think I mentioned it before...

So, with no further delay, I present you with screenshots:

The main customer entry form The form with some test data The form after submitting the sample data

The customer search form Available search filters Searching with no filters Filtering by first name Filtering by last name

All of the above screenshots are of an incomplete product. I have a lot planned for this project still. The search results will be formatted all nice and pretty before it's all said and done.

A few nifty details about it:

• The data transfer is done via authenticated POST data/XML
• The server side of the equation is all handled with PHP/MySQL
• The client can be configured to connect to any server with any authentication info

I know I had sworn off .Net before, but meh. There was no easier way to do this.

Update 10:58PM : I've added 2 new screenshots Customer Editing Search Customers (Improved interface)

Double clicking on a search result will load the customer from the database to the editing form. From there, the customer can be modified then saved.

I spent a little bit of money on some games today:

• GTA:San Andreas
• Guild Wars

I've played SA before, so I know what to expect. I have it for my Playstation 2, but I just can't get the hang of the controls. I'm a mouse+keyboard guy anyhow.

Guild Wars, though, was a complete waste of money. The game sucks beyond belief. Installing it, I had no clue what was going on. I got my account created, logged in, and the blur that is applied to everything gave me a headache. Then, the controls were all nasty and unmanagable, and I had no f'ing clue what to do.

Someone I know has been wanting the game, so I may just give them my account and ask for 75% of what I paid for it, and get it out of my hair. Maybe I'll spend some money on EverQuest 2 if I every want to.

For anyone who has Guild Wars, I'm sorry. Also, I apologize for not keeping the game. I'll stick with my reoccuring fee with World of Warcraft.