The Rhetoric   The thoughts, philosophies and adventures of Brent J. Danley

Skye Danler

I’ve wanted to work as a programmer since long before I earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Wichita State University. When I was in the Air Force I developed an application in Visual Basic to track the status of the unit’s refueling drogues, for which I was primarily responsible. At Bombardier Learjet I developed an Access database to track overdue receivables, for which I was also responsible, and Excel VBA macros to prettify data regurgitated from SAP. Programming is what I enjoyed, so I made opportunities (i.e. excuses) to do it.

After moving to Maine in 2007 I answered a job listing for a traveling photographer. I thought it would be fun to see New England and pursue another passion of mine, photography. It was a good and bad decision. I’ve enjoyed meeting many new people and traveling in beautiful scenic country. I’ve very much disliked being away from Kirsten and the girls so many nights and Saturdays. My schedules have been light and too few; I’ve never been able to count on a paycheck or have a budget. I’ve been looking for other work off and on for quite a while. Recently I’ve begun aggressively planning and researching starting a freelance web design/development business. Every morning for the past week I’ve woken early, showered, and headed to Starbucks to study and plan. It’s been exhilarating.

Yesterday morning, while at Starbucks with Skye, I got a voicemail from an employment recruiter. It was for a three to six month contract position at Tri-County Mental Health Services in Lewiston, Maine developing Excel Dashboard Reports from disparate data sources. An interview was set for 14:30 in Lewiston.

I was thirty minutes early for the meeting, so I sat in my car and read a web development magazine. I met with Tim and Jason, who asked me about my background. The fact that I’m a pilot came up, as it often does. I talked to them about my experience developing in Access and Excel at Bombardier. After twenty minutes we shook hands and I began the hour-long drive back to Saco.

After less than thirty minutes of driving my phone rang. It was the recruiter telling me they wanted me to start Monday. I’m thrilled! I’ll be given a mini-project that is supposed to take three days to complete. If I don’t have it done in that time they will cancel the project. It’s a bit stressful, but I know I’ll be able to do accomplish the task. I’m going to spend a significant amount of time this weekend honing my VBA skills and reading everything I can about Excel Dashboards.

A new, better, chapter is beginning for me. I plan to do a lot of the planning/startup work for my freelance business while I’m employed at Tri-County Mental Health Services. The experience should also help me to secure future contract work. Right now I’m just thrilled to know we’ll be able to comfortably pay our monthly bills. That’s a HUGE stress relief!

It was announced today at Monument Square in Portland that the Maine Red Claws NBA Development League basketball team will be affiliated with the mighty Boston Celtics! Woo hoo!

I’m excited to attend the games and cheer on the Red Claws.

What is that guy doing with those pliars?

Tomas Munita for The New York Times

Keeping New of Kidnapping Off Wikipedia
Richard Pérez-Peña, NY Times, June 28, 2009

Tweeting is nice because it’s terse; I can update my tweeps about what I’m doing, resources I’ve discovered and articles I’ve read between more lengthy and media-rich blog posts (and to publicize those posts).

The Twitter Tools plugin is a great way to integrate tweets into a WordPress blog. The most obvious benefit of this is that it keeps the content on the blog page fresh and allows bloggers to communicate bitlets of information that do not require their own post.

In addition to other worthwhile features, Twitter Tools allows a blog admin to display recent tweets in a sidebar widget, and to automatically publish tweets in a daily or weekly digest format. Twitter Tools caches tweets in a table of the WordPress database to reduce the number of calls to Twitter.

There were a few things about the plugin I didn’t particularly like out of the box. First, there was a link below the last tweet in the sidebar widget to take a visitor to my Twitter page. I prefer to have the widget title be that link. Second, the digest post title date format was ugly: “2009-06-29″ instead of “June 29, 2009″. Third, the link at the end of each tweet in the digest post had a simple ‘#’ instead of the date and time of the tweet, which also serves as a link to the original tweet.

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• Awesome! RT @smashingmag: 10 Free Icon Sets for Blog Theme Design – http://tr.im/pUNg #free #icons 27 Jun 2009 @ 22:46
• Listening to Michael Jackson's 25th Anniversary Thriller album in iTunes. Great memories! 27 Jun 2009 @ 20:55
• http://ping.fm/p/caiXW – Me. Work. Looking forward to the weekend. 27 Jun 2009 @ 12:04
• Venti Starbucks coffee and Red Bull. I hope these Catholics are as happy as am I. :) 27 Jun 2009 @ 11:47
• Excellent ideas to get creative juices flowing! RT @problogger: 100 Creative Twitter Backgrounds Featuring Illustration – http://is.gd/1fZCW 27 Jun 2009 @ 08:27

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Today, at age 50, Michael Jackson suffered a fatal heart attack. It’s surprising and a bit sad. I was hoping he’d have a successful comeback.

I’ve been a fan of Michael Jackson since I was nine and lived in Palmer, Alaska. I memorized the lyrics to all the songs on the Thriller album (including Vincent Price’s spoken portion at the end of Thriller) and practiced the moonwalk in my bedroom. Michael Jackson was unlike any other entertainer. When he danced on stage he was mesmerizing; I couldn’t take my eyes off him. We all anxiously awaited the release of every music video he created, because they set the bar for the medium.

Michael is the King of Pop.

More videos here.

Best…dancer…ever!

I just read this in Harper’s Magazine. Interesting.

Harper's Magazine, June 2009

I love words. I do. I use the dictionary many times each day to verify definitions, check spellings and discover new words. Before switching to Answers.com I used Dictionary.com. I may have found something still better: Wordnik.com.

I discovered Wordnik at TedTalks a few weeks ago. Lexicographer and Wordnik founder, Erin McKean, gave a fascinating talk.

Wordnik is much more than an online dictionary: it’s a wiki, aggregator, and word search engine all in one. You can see related words, read examples of the word used in context, listen to pronunciations, discover new words serendipitously, peruse Flickr photos related to the word, study the etymology, look at usage statistics, and see current tweets that use the word. You can also get dictionary definitions, as expected.

Wordnik is in early beta development. There is a lot of potential for it to be a powerful lexicographic tool! I still revert to Answers.com when I can’t find what I’m looking for at Wordnik, but I’m sure those occurrences will become less frequent as Wordnik improves.

Wordnik tweets, too. :) (@wordnik)

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I received the first ever “double-issue” of Playboy Magazine today. This means–presumably–that instead of receiving twelve issues this year I’ll only receive eleven. They apparently tried to make this detail more palatable by including a 14-page pictorial of twins. Get it? Nothing in the magazine explains the reason they combined two issues into one. Hugh Hefner didn’t reply to a tweet in which I asked him about the double issue.

@HughHefner Is @Playboy going to become a bimonthly publication? #Playboy
3:36 PM Jun 14th from web in reply to HughHefner

I found an article online that posits and explanation. No wonder they’re not forthright about the frequency change in the magazine.

Playboy Plans ‘Radical Changes’ to Print Model
Jason Fell, Folio, May 11, 2009

The publisher reported a $13.7 million net loss during the first quarter of 2009, compared to a $4.2 million loss during the same period in 2008.

Last October, Playboy eliminated 80 jobs and closed the company’s DVD business.

I’m thrilled they axed their DVD business! I wish they’d nix the Cyber Club and give all print subscribers access to an online edition with full access to the archives. The Cyber Club is little more than endless pictures and videos of beautiful naked women. No thanks. I really do read Playboy for the articles.

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Ever talked on the phone with someone who was trying to phonetically convey to you a confirmation code or a name and they were having trouble coming up with words to correspond with each letter? “Um…d, as in ‘dog’…um…b, as in ‘boy’…um…n, as in ‘nancy’…” It’s quite frustrating–at both ends–and entirely unnecessary. There is a much more elegant and standard solution, the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet.

Every child should learn this simple alphabet in elementary school. It would take any person of average intelligence an hour to memorize and would make those times when we must verbally spell words much less troublesome. I memorized this code long before I joined the US Air Force. Every young airman is required to learn this code. I am also a private pilot and am required to know and use the code when talking on the radio during flight.

Today at my appointment with the optometrist I read the eye chart using the phonetic alphabet. They asked, “Were you in the military?” and said, “It seems like we’re in World War II.” It’s unfortunate that they are not used to hearing patients use this simple code. It is far superior to the muddled alternative.

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• I have over 200 followers now. Most only want reciprocation, no doubt. To the rest of you, thank you. I hope to be interesting for you. #
• @VCwroblewski The quote delineates our tendency to resist change, except when confronted with imminent peril. Seen the movie? in reply to VCwroblewski #
• It's only on the brink that people find the will to change; only at the precipice do we evolve. ~Professor Barnhardt http://bit.ly/meLRB #
• Hayley let me take a few pictures of her today. I wish I could be so excited by a single clover. http://bit.ly/LaVuh #
• Didn't get my replacement work laptop today. Apparently "Next Day" was checked on the #FedEx label instead of "Next Day Saturday". :( #

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