Saying Goodbye to McAfee

Back in the day, I was die-hard Norton AnitVirus. If it was anything other than Norton, it was crap. My Dad was a die-hard McAfee user and swore by it. So, about 6 years ago, I switched to McAfee AntiVirus and have been a happy (and loyal) customer ever since. It didn't popup unimportant messages to me and I liked that. It just worked. A few times, I found it helpful when things would go wrong and I was able to track down certain activities of "suspicious" behavior over my network that made their way into my computer. I can't remember exact instances, but I do recall feeling fortunate to have the utilities that McAfee offered me when I got paranoid about other people hacking into my machine.

Recently, I've been spending most of my time OS X. There just aren't as many vulnerabilities that I can see with the Mac. Maybe I'm being naive in thinking this, but I feel more safe on my Mac. (?) Almost all of my daily use and personal computing has been done on my Mac in the last 2 years. I'm even trying to transform my dev skills to be more Unix-savvy so that I can (one day) rival my own Windows development skills. :) I live in OS X, and only use Microsoft Windows for work now. In order to use Windows, I have a separate partition setup and then I load the OS through BootCamp into my Parallels 6.0 application. It works great, and I'm even using a UI skin called "MacLook" to make my Windows dialogs look and feel like Mac dialogs. The problem with this configuration is that I have to allocate a certain amount of RAM to my VM. It can't just take all of my RAM and divy it up between my Mac OS. If it were up to me, I'd drop Windows and become a Mono head, but I can't; my job requires that I work with Microsoft .NET Framework. Therefore, I am forced to have Windows installed as a Virtual Machine. It pays the bills, and... well let's face it: Businesses run on Windows. In order for me to provide "business solutions" to "businesses", I need to develop applications on Windows. Period.

The other day, my Windows VM came to a screeching halt and I wasn't able to do anything on it without inferring a 15 second delay of every action. This went on for about 3 hours or more. Amazingly, my OS X environment was working great and was still very responsive. I was only running Visual Studio 2010, Total Commander, and FireFox (to debug my ASP.NET project). I had just installed a new tool to allow me to interface with Microsoft Office from inside my C# projects, and after doing that, my machine became incoherent. I checked and made sure that McAfee wasn't running a full virus scan, and it wasn't. I couldn't make sense of it!!

Eventually, Bob and I had to do a GoToMeeting and I had to give him control of my Visual Studio environment. How embarrassing!! My machine was behaving like a 1990's Tandy T1000, and he had to wait for simple operations like I had been doing for the last 3 hours. He and I decided to find the problem... Low and behold, it was McAfee's "Real Time Scan" feature. Since I'd downloaded all these new tools, Real Time Scan was going through and making sure there were no viruses on them. Not sure why it took so damn long and required so many resources, but it did. I decided to turn off the Real Time Scan feature, but as soon as I did, I began getting all kinds of red prompts stating that MY COMPUTER IS AT RISK! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!... Is that really necessary? C'mon! I've been putting up with all of the slowness from this thing, and now when I try to turn it off, it annoys me even more with false panic prompts.

Once I disabled the Real Time Scan, my VM started to respond better. After voicing my frustrations to Bob about this happening more and more lately, he pointed me to a free alternative called Microsoft Security Essentials. It's free and it doesn't hog up resources like McAfee does. Yesterday, I took the plunge. I uninstalled McAfee (only 1 month left on my subscription anyway), and installed Microsoft Security Essentials. So far, no big red prompts and I've not had the "bog down" problem yet.

We'll see...

2010 In Review

2010 has come and gone. What a great year it has been. So much has changed in just a years time. We got a new bathroom and roof here on the farm. We tried to sell our house in a very poor housing market while attempting to purchase our dream house. We traveled to Maine and back. I took off my shoes and learned how to run barefoot. I dropped 25 pounds in the process while I trained for (and completed) a 100k ultra marathon. We got a new van, sold our pop-up, spent a lot of time outdoors, and just enjoyed life to the max. A lot of great things happened this year.


The Log Home Dream
We did all we could to try and reach our dream of living in a log home. We fought and kicked and went through all the steps to try and sell our house and live the dream. We put multiple offers on the house that we thought was "the one". While we would have been able to do it, we struggled to sell our house. Everything was "contingent" on the sale of this home, and it just didn't happen. We feel that everything happens for a reason. If it was meant to be, it would have happened. No sweat, we're living large right here.

Hardbarger Dream Vacation
The biggest highlight of 2010 was by far, our family vacation up to Maine and back. Jennifer and I have wanted to go to Maine since the day we met. It has always been the place that has defined "rustic" for us. We planned for it and saved up our money for it. We took 2 full weeks in the middle of the summer to take our 3 girls on an epic camping trip through Woodstock, Cape Cod, and Maine. It was the most perfect journey up the Atlantic Coast with a popup camper and nothing else better to do. The girls still talk about it to this day, and it was by far the best spent 2 weeks of the entire year. We all made memories to last a lifetime, and I hope that our girls will remember all the fun times we had on this trip.

Personal Health and 62 Miles
This year was also kind of a rebirth for me as a runner. I totally changed my running style to be a minimalist runner. I gave all of my shoes away and resorted to a homemade pair of sandals, and a pair of VFF "toe shoes". I did all of my training with no shoes, and was able to complete my goal of finishing the Oil Creek 100K this past October. In the process of training for this race, I went in halves with a my best bud and we ordering the P90X fitness program. He tried it for a few weeks and then gave it to me to get my money's worth. I dedicated a lot of time to the program and was able to drop 25 lbs in 3 months. By watching what I ate every day and working out, I got stronger than I'd ever been in my life. This along with my barefoot running totally reshaped my legs and midsection in a good way. I can only hope that what I learned about myself this year will help me to achieve my fitness and running goals for 2011.

Unix and Basic Hacking
Another big goal of mine this year was to learn how to use my mac. I've always been baffled watching my good buddy, Ben work terminal app like a puppet. He's able to just "manage" his computer with a terminal screen. I've watched him query databases, install software, update his system, configure users, groups, and server permissions with nothing more than a blinking cursor on a terminal screen. "If I could only learn how to do that, I'd get so much work done...", well this was my year to learn Unix. I've gotten very familiar with "man" and "info" commands in terminal. I've got a huge stack of books that cover all aspects of Unix from Bash, to Vi, to Gnu/Linux, to you name it... I've been reading like crazy the last few months. As a windows developer, I've always relied on the graphical interfaces of my high-powered IDE's. While I started in Assembler Language on a Sun (i.e. Unix) machine, I quickly got away from it once I discovered Visual Basic and it was my time to get back to Unix as a complete noob.

Whats Next?
As a family, we've decided to just settle down and enjoy our farm for another year or two. We have no intentions on moving from our perfect little house after all that excitement. We've also decided to not plan any huge vacations this year and focus on a very simple series of small camping trips around the state. We've considered a small ski trip to Snow Trails or something. We're going to save up for an EPIC vacation in 2012. No hints just yet, but it'll be huge! As a runner, I am going to train for and attempt the Mohican 100 Mile trail race this June. I have a long way to go, but I'm up for the challenge. I've already warned Jennifer about my goal, and she's on board with my up coming training commitments. I'm going to keep my girls and this family my number 1 priority, but this 100 mile race comes in at a very close 2nd. As for my hacking goals, I do plan to do some cool stuff this year involving some new Linux skills and terminal wizardry. I've already got a Linux server setup and ready for me to "ssh" files to (thanks Ben). I do plan to make use of this server space very soon. I won't stray too far from Windows; after all, it's paying the bills. However, I do plan to broaden my options to non-Windows development quite a bit this year.

Happy New Year!
I'm sure that 2011 is going to be a great year!

You Might Be a 4 Year Old If...

.. you blow your nose with a tissue and pull it away from your face without capturing the contents, then wipe the mess of snot off of your face with your shirt sleeve.

Yeah, that just happened.

Our Bad Dogs Made Front Page News

Our dogs made the front page of our local newspaper, the Newark Advocate today (direct link). Needless-to-say, it's been quite the story. Each person we've explained it to has been pretty amused. It was quite the hit at the local Sheriff station. I guess our insurance company (Cincinnati Insurance Co.) has sent the story around internally to share it amongst their staff. Of course everybody we have to tell the story to can't believe it. My wife posted the pictures on Facebook and it's gotten shared by numerous people (including myself). :P Enough people thought it was worthy enough to make the local paper, so we called and they were right. It made the front page! :)

Once I stop and think about it... yeah, I guess it is pretty bizarre.

Here is my side of the story:

Dan and I were 2 hrs into our drive home from Pennsylvania and we're rocking out to some old school Motley Crue. I get a call from Jennifer and pick up the phone:

"Wassup girl?!..." I say loudly with the window down and my cool shades on.

"Babe...", she says. "I got some really bad news..."

"Oh my gosh, what happened!?"

"It's bad."

Immediately I start thinking one of our girls got hurt or something.

"Ok, tell me what happened please."

She says: "The dogs destroyed our new minivan...", and then she explained it all to me in detail. I couldn't believe it.

Apparently, the girls went out to play and came back in screaming that 'the dog's had scratched the car really bad, Mommy!'.

Jennifer just thought it was a regular scratch and went out to see what they were talking about. She saw plastic pieces in the driveway, but didn't think anything of it. That is until she got on the other side of the van and saw this:

She could only cover her mouth and cry. The van was 3 weeks old and was now un-drivable. The dog's "went to town" on it. Of course, the dogs were sunbathing at this time and thought nothing of it. Just another used up chew-toy. Right?

We had no idea why they would do this, but there was nothing I could do for her. She was extremely upset and the girls were all crying. I told her to just calm down and try to calm the girls down. I'd be home shortly.

As Dan and I drove down Toboso Rd. we saw the Sheriff in my driveway and everybody was outside gathered around the carnage. I couldn't believe what my eyes were seeing...

The front drivers' side has been fubar'd:

The front tire has been chewed through in multiple places and entire front end of the van is covered in claw marks.

"Why," you might be asking yourself "would two loving family-dogs do this to a beautiful 2006 Honda Odyssey?"

As it turns out, there was a pile of raccoon feces under the van where the dogs had trapped a raccoon. Rather than patiently waiting for it to come out from under the new van and play, they decided to completely destroy the minivan instead.

Here is a picture of our youngest dog (taken 4 months ago), Ivy:

Here is a picture of the older (wiser?) dog, Valley:

They have been tied to their doghouses for the last 5 days in "time out". People have been coming and going and can't believe that these nice friendly dogs did such a destructive thing. We just released them today and they have been running around releasing their energy. We think that they finally "get it": Don't use Mama's new minivan as a chew-toy.

They're already back to their normal selves tearing up our yard in their never-ending-hunt of the local mole.

Happy Birthday Daizi

Today our youngest baby, Daizianna, turns 4 years old.



She's growing too damn fast, and I just want to hit the pause button sometimes. We had a big "Beethoven Themed" birthday party here yesterday and she was the main focus. She got lots of Barbie's and dog-themed toys. It was so cute to see her so happy around her sisters and cousins.

Daizi - One day you might find Daddy's blog and I will want you to know that Mommy and Daddy love you very much! :)

Oh and Happy Birthday to you too, Mom. Thanks for... well, life. :P

P90X Phase 2 Begins

Ok, so I made it through Phase 1 of P90X and I have noticed a huge difference in my overall energy levels. My shorts are fitting looser, my shirts feel looser, but best of all, I feel lighter on my feet. This is the whole reason I started P90X in the first place; to run the Oil Creek 100k trail run. I started the program at 220 lbs on July 5th!! I KNOW, AND I RUN REGULARLY!!? I'm what us distance runners call a "Clydesdale". :) Anyway, I'm now down to 205 lbs, and my running has benefited so much from loosing just 15 lbs.

The first week of P90X was sheer pain. After about 3 days into it, I didn't want to move, let alone do another workout. I only lost about 1-2 lbs after the first week, but I built a lot of new muscles. Believe it or not, I've actually been keeping up with my running schedule pretty well even while doing the P90X program. I think doing my running has actually what has helped me loose more weight than the P90X program. My upper body strength is 100% due to the program, but the weight loss and smaller mid-section is mostly due to the running I've been doing.

Some days I do my runs first, but I find it better to do the strenuous workouts, and THEN relax on a nice trail run. Sounds crazy I'm sure, but it works for me. The 2nd and 3rd weeks were hard, but not as hard as the first week. After the second week I'd dropped 8lbs (total) and after the 3rd week I was down 12lbs total. This last weekend, I weighed myself and I was down 15lbs!!

I actually did the 3rd week twice. We were in the middle of getting our house ready to sell, so on Thrusday, rather than killing myself with guilt to get in a run, a workout, clean the house and yard, write code, and also sleep, I decided to just take the 1+ hr 'workout' out of the plan. It worked out great because I was able to pick right back up where I left off after we had our open house. That next Monday was back on track so I guess you can say I got in 3 extra workouts. :)

Yesterday was my first day in Phase 2 and it SUCKED! I was weak, I was sore, and I was sweating like a fool. Today my muscles are very sore, but I feel strong. I am anxious to get into the 2nd and 3rd weeks of this Phase 2, for I know I'll be ready to keep up with the program once I get past these sore creaky muscles from week 1.

So between my P90X and my 25+ miles a week for the last month, I'm kicking butt and I'm really not that scared of the 100k race. I'm anxious, but I'm not scared like I was in June. :) By the time it gets here (October 16th or 66 days from now) I am hoping to be down to 185 lbs or so. This will mean that I'll be floating through the trails in my VFF's with 35 less pounds. I will earn this buckle:

Hardbarger Farms Open House

Jennifer and I are looking to move. However, before we can move, we have to first sell our house. We actually put it on the market last week. The reason for my post is to tell you that we have an Open House: Sunday, July 25th from 2pm - 4pm

Realtor.com: 1087 Toboso Rd., Newark, Ohio 43055

While I think that the pictures and write up from our HER Realtor is great, this doesn't give any of the goodness of what we're really selling. Here are the schematics, strait from the chickens ass (?):

Our House

We bought our house in June 2003 and we've done a lot of stuff to it. The first thing we did was waterproof it. We were in the house for about 7-8 months and we had the great 50 year flood. Jennifer went downstairs one night to throw in the laundry and she stepped in about 6 inches of water. Needless to say my office was down there, my drums were down there, all of our books, etc... We got it waterproofed that next weekend and haven't had ANY problems since. I dry as a whistle (if that's even a saying?).

That next summer we went on vacation and came home to a demolished pole barn. We tore it down and had a brand Pole Barn from 64 Metals installed. We used this barn to house all of our farm animals for years. We even had horses in here for a few months. The barn is a huge selling point to the house in my opinion because it completes the requirements for a "mini farm". It's a solid barn and houses all of our farm equipment.

After we got big into the "goat bidness", we decided it was time to build a fence. We fenced in a huge 2 acre lot for all of our goats. This fence was built by us and our friends and family. It's built real solid as well. We've kept horses, goats, and even cows in here over the years. Inside the pasture there are two small lean tos to keep the animals safe in bad weather. The one is in pretty bad shape right now, but could easily be patched up and working like new. The fence also helps sell this place as a mini farm. Anybody with any type of livestock or farm animals would benefit from this: llama's, goats, hogs, horses, cows, peacocks, mother-in-laws, etc... (just kidding Janet). :)

2+ acres of fenced pasture

It was around this time that we were expecting our 3rd child and we quickly realized that our living space was getting pretty crowded. One of my old buddy's (Corey) helped me build a little addition onto the front of our house. That project added an extra 180+ square feet of open floor plan. It really changed the feel of this house and we benefit from it everyday as we have nice meals in the dining room while we watch iCarly. The old Kitchen / Dining area was very crowded and very dated. Extending the dining room onto the front porch made a huge difference and I'm sure it will be a huge selling point when someone walks in the back door.

Last year for Jennifer's birthday, my buddy (Tyler) and I ripped up our nasty carpet in the living room and exposed some beautiful hardwood floors. Jennifer went out with one of her friends for her birthday and Tyler snuck over here and we cranked it out in about 3 hours while the girls kept themselves entertained. Needlesstosay, Jennifer came home and cried and laughed and cried and laughed. It was a great "Luc and Jen" moment. :) Not only that, but it looks really sharp in here now.

The Old

Just this past spring we had quite a bit done around here as well. We got our old 1950's bathroom updated to the 21st century. The way it was laid out before was a bit too crowded for us. The sink was too small, but the counter top that it was on was too big. We had these huge cabinets that were only being half used, and the entire bathroom was in pink / white / black tile. We got rid of the cabinets, put in a double bowl sink with a huge vanity. We flipped the toilet around to the other side of the room and slid the shower down to allow for maximum capacity in there. It opened up our our bathroom immensely and now the girls don't fight over who gets to use the sink anymore. We just love it!

The New

If you have animals, we just got invisible fence installed around our property too. We fenced in a 2 acre chunk in the front of our property. The layout gives the dogs pretty much full access to the entire living area of the property. They can protect the barn, the garage and our house. They even have a little chunk in our woods that they like to go to and dig for moles and other critters. They just love it and it's a great peace of mind for us knowing that they're not going to be wandering all over the country side, like our old dog Diesel loved to do (RIP bud). :)

This tree is gone now. :(

To top it all off, we just had a brand new roof put on top of this thing. Last month my Dad and I tore down a huge tree between the garage and the house that was getting a little too big for it's own britches. Once it was down and no longer a threat to the house, we put a brand new roof on the entire house to give it that nice "new shingle" glow. It's complete with all new gutters and warranty's.

Keep in mind that these are just the "improvements" we've made. I didn't even get into the "already kick ass" features of the property. The house off the road on a peaceful and safe chunk of land in Toboso. We are the only house for about a mile on this side of the road. I have a nice workshop style garage, complete with all kinds of "handy man" goodies. I'm a computer geek, so I only use it when I feel adventurous or Jennifer is getting on me to fix something. We live 1 mile from a state nature preserve (which I literally visit +5 times a week). We're 45 minutes from Columbus, 15 minutes from Zanesville, 15 minutes from Newark.

Oh yeah, I have to mention that we also have a killer area in the back of our property where we host our annual bonfire party. People park in the pasture and walk through the pine woods to the other side of our property to enjoy the sites and seclusion of east Newark. This is what sold the property for me 7 years ago. I still love to go up there and just get away from everything once in a while. It's relaxing to mow up there because there are no signs of life for as far as I can see...

This house / property has all the privacy and country feel that we could ever dream of. Little by little, we've turned this place into our own little log cabin. We can only hope that someone will come inside and fall in love with it the way that we did. The only reason that we're moving is because we have our eyes on the next big thing...

P90X Noob

I was so excited to start P90X this week. I ate right all weekend and got all the supplies I needed to get started first thing in the morning on Monday.

The night before I was to get started, I read the instructions and realized that I still had a bit of work to do in order to start the program. I still needed to take the fit test, and record all of my "before data" (weight, measurements, resting HR, etc..). It was also recommended that I do the fit test a few days before starting the actual program (assuming I pass).

I took the test and passed everything with flying colors... except the pull-up requirement. The program suggests that I should be able to do 3 wide grip pull ups. I couldn't do ONE! :'( I can do about 2 normal pull ups (shoulder width with underhand grip), but the wide angle pull ups are too much for my big 'ol butt.

Instead, I decided to just use this week to eat right, and do a few of the exercises anyway to get a feel for them. I'm glad I did, as I now realize that I can do the program anyway and use assistance on my pullups the first few weeks. I just need to use the chair technique for the more difficult pull-ups. After about 2-3 weeks, I should be able to do (at least) 1 wide angle pull up and then I'll be able to keep up for the next 10-11 weeks...

On Wednesday I did the "Chest and Back" program and it hurt bad... I'm still feeling it actually. Yesterday I took a rest day; did some situps, and ran 3 miles, but let the upper body rest. This morning I did "Legs and Back" program and... ouch. It hurt. :) Tomorrow I think I'm going to do Kempo X (it's like kick boxing), and then I'll do the Stretch X program on Sunday. Assuming I can still move. Of course, I'm still running everyday and keeping up with my training schedule.

This is the first time that I've ever really kept track of my food intake, and I am discovering that it's amazing how much CRAP we (as Americans) eat when we don't pay attention. I've been a food Nazi and eating small portions of (rather) healthy food every 2-3 hours. Even when doing this, it's putting me over the 2,000 calorie limit almost everyday. The protein bars may have something to do with it, but Sodium, Potasium, Fat, and Calories add up very quickly when you're not paying attention; even from raw fruits and vegetables (I couldn't believe it).

I start the full program @ 6am on Monday. BRING IT!

I Broke My Tailbone

On Tuesday, I went in for my very first Chiropractor visit ever. Actually, my Mom says I went when I was a kid, but I don't remember it. I do know that it has been at least 20 years since I've stepped foot in a chiropractic office though.

While I was getting adjusted, the doctor took my neck and cracked it about 5 pops in each direction. She knew I was a runner and she says that we're usually pretty fun to work with (ie. we = runners) and know our bodies pretty well. I don't know if she was buttering me up and filling me full of pride, or if she really meant it. I'll assume the latter...

She then did a lot of things with my legs to see how my leg muscles felt. She concluded that my right leg is weaker than my left leg. She even showed me by having me bend my leg inward (ie. hacky sack style) while she tried to straiten it out. My left leg was rock solid, but my right leg had some strain to it and she was able to move it with a bit of pressure. I would have NEVER guessed that there was any difference in either of my legs, but sure enough, there it was. She got some medieval looking tool and applied it to the right side of my belly button (!? I know, right !?), then put another medieval looking tool to my right hip for some time to "stimulate the nerves", and sure enough it was fixed! :)

The most interesting part of my visit was that she told me I had a broken tail bone. I was floored! I had no idea! When could this have happened!? She told me that it had healed, but it healed wrong. After she told me about it, I got to thinking, and I realized that it probably happened when I was at the Ice Castle in Novosibirsk, Russia two years ago.

...I actually busted my butt today. As we were making our way up the steps to this this slide, there was a very slick area and I went running up to it and slid and really dinged up my butt. So much so that the back of my hamstring hurts too. I think I bruised the muscle all the way down my leg. Between my feet, my left knee, and now my right butt cheek, I'm ready to go home. :) I thought about changing my blog title to "Luc's Online Pity Party"... Anyway, it's now my newest pain and it hurts worse than my knee right now (which still hurts).

That's really the only time I can think that I broke it. Best of all, it was documented for the world to see. :)

Oh and my doctor also gave me nice kudos for my new minimalist life style. While some people think I'm crazy or just plain weird, she actually commended me on it... And she's a back doctor!

The Meaning of Kay

Jennifer and I were putting our girls to bed tonight and the house always get goofy around this time of night. It's always fun to just let the girls say and do crazy things before going to sleep. I've had Lizzie jump on my back while I was kissing Jazzy goodnight before, and they always seem to try and trick us by making us guess what side of the bed their head is on. Of course, they think it's hilarious when we try to kiss their feet.

Anyway, tonight as we were having a goofy conversation with Jazzy, and we were telling her how we came up with her full name. At one point, Jennifer said: "Do you know how you got your middle name?"

Jazzy just laughed and said: "Because, every kiss begins with Kay!" :)

Maybe our kids watch too much TV?

Coffee Fail

Jen and I use those big jugs of water for our drinking water, because our well water is... how you say?... not so good.

This morning we had just enough for one more pot of coffee (maybe two). I was so excited to have fresh coffee this morning that I cleaned out the coffee pot, filled it with the last bit of water and poured into the trusty Bunn. I closed the lid and waited patiently for 3 full minutes as my masterpiece was filling in the glass pot... Oddly, it looked like lightweight tea and had very little aroma to it.

I forgot the key ingredient: The Coffee.

Luckily I had enough water for one more pot. It's brewing now...

Good Bye Radio Shack

Update: Friday - November 6, 2009
My blog was read by someone and it got back to the employees working that day. This is good. I honestly looked for a place to provide feedback on their site, but couldn't find the location. The power of blogging came through in this case, and I'm grateful.

Around 4:30 pm today, I received a call today from the Manager of the store who was working that day. She deeply apologized for the service I received, and was extremely sincere. It was a great welcome to such a bad experience. She admitted that she put her trust in the Assistant Manager to be polite and treat the customer (c'est moi) with due respect. She was busy at the time and didn't notice how I was being treated. I don't fault her. Thank you for the call!

The Rant:
Some days I just want to scream and let the world know that it's heading down the wrong path. Why is society so rude anymore. I don't know if it's because I live out in the sticks now and don't deal with people as much, or if the world is really getting ruder each day. I'm leaning more towards the latter...

I took my little girl, Daizi, with me to town this evening and needed to visited our local Radio Shack inside the Indian Mound Mall in Heath, Ohio. An Assistant Manager really fired me up, and I've may never step foot back in this particular store again. I'm still very upset about the whole ordeal, and instead of letting it fester inside of me all night, I decided it was best to just vent my frustrations here on my blog. If you're in the mood for a good rant, keep reading. If you're not, then look away and wait for my next post. I'm sure it will be a happier post and have a meaningless subject (like most of my other posts).

Ok, so let me first start by saying that Diazi saved the day and let me keep my dignity in this unbelievable situation. Let us pause for a moment of country girl cuteness. :)

Thanks for your help today, Daizi!

Now onto my rant... Before heading to Radio Shack, I looked online for the number and I'd read that it was a rude location, but I decided to try it with an open mind. Once I'm done with this entry, I may write my own review in hopes that somebody else reads it and avoids public ridicule and rude service like I received today. I was extremely insulted, but left with a fake smile and very red face. If Daizi wasn't there to keep me cooled down, I really think I would have yelled at the guy and stormed out of there. I say this because at one point, I truly considered snatching my equipment from the guys hands, telling him off, and walking out with my opinion being well known. However, I decided to cool down and just focus on how cute and well behaved Daizi (my 3 year old) was being the whole time.

Here's a quick overview of what happened (mostly for me): I walked in to the store with a mission to ship my laptop back to the manufacturer for repair. As I walked in, 3 employees were standing around laughing about something. Nobody else was in the store, and I had clearly broken up their fun time. The moment I walked in the store with my laptop and my little cow girl, the faces all turned somber and serious. The one girl said "Hello, how can I help you?" and I greeted her back and began to tell her what I was there for...

Immediately the Assistant Manager took over my request because he's trained in this sort of thing (or something). However, he did so in a manner that proved to me that I was being a nuisance and wasting his time. As soon as I explained my case, he said "Well, I'm going to need your tracking number...", and I said "Absolutely." as I began to open up my planner to read it to him. He was surprised that I had it with me because he sighed and began punching keys on his computer while he literally ignored me for the next 2 minutes. Everything I said from this point on seemed like a rant to this guy. He treated me like I was being an unreasonable customer. I wasn't!

The thing that burns me the most is that I was actually in a very good mood up to this point and was cooperating with everything he was asking me to do as politely as possible. After standing there for almost 3 full minutes, he interrupted his extended silence stating that he couldn't send my power supply back to the manufacturer. I very politely corrected him saying "Actually, the support tech said that I would need to send everything back in order for it to be serviced...". The guy LITERALLY lifted his eye brows and said "Okaaaaay" as he turned around to get something. I almost spoke up and yelled at him and his boss. Amazingly, his boss, (ie. the manager of the store), did nothing! She just kept on about her business and ignored the fact that this guy was treating me like crap. I almost asked for my power strip back and bid them both a good day. However, I just stood there in shock and let him ignore me for the next 5 minutes while he navigated his computer system some more.

The entire time I was there, I never got a smile, a thank you, or anything else. I left there feeling like I had just done something wrong. From Radio Shack, I took Daizi down to the bathroom and on our way back I looked in the store. The 3 employees were all standing around smiling again... with no customers... again. I'm sure they were talking about something funny. (?) They will soon be out of a job at this rate. I know that not all employees of Radio Shack are this way, but this guy ruined it for me today.

Thank you for letting me rant. I do feel better now. See - :)

Bucharest, Romania - Day 9

Yesterday was great... It's now 10:15 in the morning on Saturday and I feel like a freight train has hit me. Here is what happened during my first full day in Bucharest with my foreign brothers...

I woke up at 9am to Volli and Henry greeting me. I had never met Henry before, but I've seen pictures of him on Volli's Facebook page. He is 10x cuter in person than in the pictures I've seen. Volli says that he likes me and Yiorgo because he's been really good since we've been around. I think it's because we make crazy faces at him and make him feel like "one of the guys". He is a very quiet and happy baby, and he smiles so much.

Once the nanny got here to take care of Henry, Volli and I took a nice little 4 mile run around a local park. It was a beautiful park named Herastrau and there was a nicely paved bike path that circled a huge lake. There were a few people out on the path and Volli actually wore his old NHS football pants. :) We ran all around the lake and just talked the whole time. It was so great to catch up with him mono-e-mono and there were a lot of very cool areas to this park. The picture on the left was taken around mile 3 while we were running through a garden area. You can see the lake on the left and I'm standing on a bride taking the picture. You can see Volli (in his cool pants) running through the park. Here is the route that we did:


The area that Volli lives in is mixed with a lot of old and new, as well as a lot of rich and poor. For example, while walking toward the park through one of the streets, we saw a pretty plush Rolls Royce car. It was amazing to see so much variety on the streets. We also saw a few Porches and Mercedes Benz cars. Mixed in with all these plush cars were clunker cars too. You might see 4 really nice cars and then 3 broken down cars on the same street. As diverse as it is, it really is a beautiful city. There appears to be graffiti every where, but it doesn't really take away from the beauty of this place. You just have to look past it or else just accept it and consider it part of the scenery. When we got to the park, we picked up the pace and started our run. On our run, we talked about lots of stuff and it was fun to just catch up with one another, mono e mono.

We got back from the run around 10:30 or so and I took a quick shower and by this time Yiorgo was waking up. While we were out, Gena (the nanny) actually cooked an authentic Romanian dish for us guys to all enjoy at the table. The house smelled amazing and I couldn't wait to dig in. There were lots of veggies and a killer corn & egg dish that we had a fun time destroying. :) After dinner, Volli drove us around town to show us some places and get some coffee at a local cafe. The cafe was a newer establishment and the coffee was very good and the owner & waitress were both very friendly. We sat outside on the street and watched the cars zoom around us. It was cool to be sitting around with Volli and Yiorgo again listening to them bicker back and forth. I didn't realize how much I missed that. :) They're like an old married couple that just argue about everything; solid proof that they are great friends.

While we were out we stopped at a local meat market and ordered 1 kg of ham. We at a full 1/2 kg bag of ham last night in record time without even blinking. We're all 3 pretty big dudes and it was nothing for us to go through it while sitting around talking. It was amazing to watch the butcher pile up the ham and keep piling it up and up. Volli told her about how we went through 1/2 kg of ham the night before in about 10 minutes. She laughed at us and watching her try to wrap it up for us was pretty funny to say the least.

From the meat market, we came back here and hung out with Henry for a while waiting around before we had to go pick up Volli's wife, Stefani. Once we picked her up, Volli took us to his office and showed us around. His office was located in a pretty cool area. It was like a quiet little back street and it felt like an old European village. Again, this is such a cool place, and every corner looks different from the last corner. There is a mixture of old Bucharest mixed with a lot of newer Bucharest; very different from everywhere in the United States.

After we visited Volli's office, we headed into the city center and walked around. There was a festival going on so it was pretty crowded. Everywhere in Bucharest is crowded with cars, so the whole time we were navigating through the narrow streets, we were dodging chaos. Cars would drive really fast up to the stop lights and then just stop right in front of you at the last minute it seemed. Even though there are lines on the road, drivers don't pay much attention to them and just the whole street however they can. Again, this is so different from what I'm used to.

From there, we went to a very fancy restaurant and met up with a lot of different foreigners from all over the world. Volli knew that we were coming, and he had some other friends that had company coming in from out of town, so they had scheduled a big multi-cultural dinner outside and there were about 12-13 of us just sitting around drinking and eating. We had so much fun! We sat at this restaurant until 1am drinking and having a great time. I got pretty drunk. :)

When we got back here to Volli's house, we broke out the 1 kg pile of ham and ate it all in record time again. :) We got a kick out of it and decided that tomorrow night we would get 1.5 kg pile of ham to see how much damage we could do to it. :) Yiorgo, Volli, and I all finished the night by drinking some Romanian whiskey and smoking some cuban cigars that I purchased at Charles De Gaulle airport in France before heading over here. We vowed that we will do this again when we meet up again in the future.


What a great time we had today! I love Bucharest.

Paris, France - Day 5

Today was a complete work day. I woke up at 9am and touched base with Bob before he left for the day. The fact is that he was leaving today and wasn't coming back to the apartment until Wednesday, and I was leaving tomorrow and won't be back to the apartment until next Monday.

Once we got everything organized and worked out, he took off and I immediately got ready to head into the village of Val D'Europe so that I could get some groceries and do a few errands. My ultimate goal was to get groceries and come back here to work all day. I had a HUGE project that needed my complete (undivided) attention all day. Therefore, it was very important to have enough food and water so that I didn't have to leave the apartment for anything.

I headed to the village around 10:30 - 11 am and was able to get all the things I needed. It was a total "batchelor" grocery list too. I got:

• A box of mini Pain au Chocolat's
• A box of Apple Juice
• Two 1 litre's of Evian
• Two prepackaged deli sandwiches
• Two apples
• Three bananas
• Coffee grounds
• A wheel of cheese wedges

The supermaket was quite an experience. I did fine until it was time to check out. It was pretty busy so I waited in line for almost 20 minutes. When it was my turn, the lady held up my fruit and rattled off some intense French words.

I gave her the "HUH?" look and said "Désolé mademoiselle, je suis American."

She smiled and indicated that her english was very bad. So instead of giving it a lot of effort she simply picked up my fruit and said "weight?".

I said "Je ne c'est pas" and shrugged my shoulders.

She then pointed across the supermarket and rattled off some more French. That led me to believe that there must have been some scales over there, and I needed to weigh them before I could check out.

So I grabbed the fruit and took off running towards the direction she was pointing. When I got there, there was a touch screen computer with scales attached to them. Granted, all of the prompts were (of course) in French, so I had to take my time and figure out each step.

Eventually, I was able to work my way through it and the banana's and apples each got their own printed sticker with the weight on it which told the lady how much they cost. I then sprinted back to the checkout line where there was a line of customers waiting for me and watched me fumble all the way back up to the cashier who (the whole time) had a very pretty smile on her face. I looked at all the customers as I scooted by and said "Désolé, désolé, désolé" and gave her the bags so that I could get the heck out of here and let the supermarket get back to it's cycle.

I totally felt like that commercial where the whole place bogs down when someone pulls out their cash. :) Only, the theme music was a french accordion and I was the dude with the cash...

Anyway, the walk back to my apartment was pretty intense. My grocery bag was super heavy and I had to walk (just about) 2 miles with it. I would go about 100 yards and then have to switch hands. In hind sight, maybe I should have just taken the bus for 1.5 euros (~$2). Oh well, it was an experience to say the least and it allowed me to suck in some fresh French air.


View Larger Map

When I got back (around 1:30 pm), my day started and I was officially in geek mode. Actually here it is 2:30 am and I am still grinding on the tail end of it. I'm not saying this to complain or make you (Mom & Dad) think I'm being worked to death. :) The truth is that starting tomorrow, I won't be able to work on this project again until next Monday. Therefore, it is essential that I put 120% of my focus on this before my fun-time starts (at 12 noon tomorrow). If my part isn't done before then, the people around me cannot be productive while I'm out. Therefore, I'm going to work on it for a few more hours before getting some sleep...

Ok, enough about work... I was able to talk to Jennifer and the girls on Skype for a while and that really brightened up my day. Even though it too was a short talk, it got me out of a code-funk and back to reality. Jennifer told me about what Kanye West did to Taylor Swift at the VMA's last night... What a dork!! She also told me that Patrick Swayze died today. :(

Well, I'm gonna sign off... Sorry there are no pictures today. Again, I've been couped up doing computer work all day, so there really isn't much to show in the way of pictures. Here's a picture of where the supermarket was from the front gate of my community:

Looking at it from this picture makes me realize that I had to be crazy to think this was a good idea. :)

Paris, France - Day 4

Today was a great day, mais pas très français. It started off by me getting to sleep-in a little bit. I went to bed around 2:30am this morning, and then after some tossing and turning I probably didn't "fall asleep" til around 3:30 or 4am. I wanted to wake up around 7am, but actually rolled out of bed around 9am instead. C'est la vie...

I wanted to get in a nice relaxing run before starting the day, but that didn't happen. Sundays are typically my "long run" days and I try to run anywhere from 10 miles or more at a very slow & relaxing pace. Now granted, I didn't want to run 10 miles this morning, but I would have been very happy with a 4 miler or a 5 miler. Since I woke up so late, I was forced to do a very quick 1 mile run. Oh well... The good news is that on my sprint, I was able to find a nice little gravel trail off the road that tucked into some woods. I ran through this little wooded area for about 1/4 mile then had to turn around and head back to the apartment and get showered since Patrick was on his way to meet up with us. Oh well, I worked up a good sweat since I was trucking kinda fast.


After my run, I took a quick shower and then it was off to the Montevrain train station where we needed to pick up Patrick. He was coming in from Paris and then we were driving back out to Fontenay-Trésigny, where the office is located. While at the train station, we purchased some cold cut sandwiches, yogurt, water, and some chocolates to keep us nourished throughout the day. The goal was to have enough food and water so that we didn't have to leave the office for anything and therefore just focus on work. We did just that... We spent the full day working side by side on this epic project; which is really the whole reason that I'm over here in the first place. It worked out great that we were together today because we really got a lot accomplished in a short amount of time.

Fast forward 6 hours while we work. Nothing really worth blogging about, unless you enjoy dba / programmer / system architecture talk. :) I'll assume you don't so let's move on...

We left the office around 6:30 - 7pm and headed back to Montevrain, where we ate at a nice little Italian pizza place. Of course (to me) it was French-Italian, but the theme was supposed to be Italian. It's hard to pull off an Italian theme in France for an American customer. Especially when serving French wine and French bread from a French menu. :) En fait, c'est TRES BIEN!!

We of course started off with some wine, and bread. I ordered a Pizza all to myself for the entree and wound up eating the whole thing in record time. C'est delicious! After the pizza, we ordered some coffee and then a nice little French apple dessert. The apple dessert was sooo good!! Even on a full tummy, I had no problems eating it. :)



After we left the restaurant, we came back here to the apartment and I called my girls on Skype. We had a great time and just caught up for about 20-30 minutes with a streaming video feed the whole time. Jennifer remodeled the house a little bit and the girls were playing outside with the puppy. I gave them all a video tour of my apartment and showed them how the toilets flush, as well as took them out on the balcony, and through the french doors leading to the patio. They all really enjoyed it and I felt like a tour guide for a while. Jennifer and I had a moment of silence together and was able to mourn over the Buckeyes losing to the USC Trojans last night. :'( She said it was a great game, but we just lost it on the last drive... Oh well, if you're gonna lose, let it be to one of the best teams I guess.

After talking with the girls, I came back downstairs here and I'm currently downloading Visual Studio 2008 SP1 over a wifi connection. Not only that, but the file I'm downloading is probably sitting on a server in Redmond, Washington, and of course I'm in the middle of rural France. The download is 831+ MB, but I really need it in order to be productive tomorrow. Therefore, I'm just letting it download at it's own pace while I update my blog and check emails. :P

I did receive some great news today from my sister in law, Amie. Apparently my niece, Kayla was able to cut 10 minutes off a 2 mile race in cross country the other day. Amie told me over Facebook because she knew I would want to hear it... She was absolutely right!! I can only imagine how good that made Kayla feel too. It's not easy to take off 5 minutes in a mile, let alone 5 minutes off of two consecutive miles. Way to go kiddo!! I'm anxious to go to one of her track meets when I get back to the states. I can really tell that she's trying hard at this sport and I'm super proud of her!

Tomorrow should be a fun day. I'm on my own for the most part, as Bob has to attend some meetings all day. I'll be here at the apartment by myself working a big change that we implemented today at the office. Tomorrow is really my last "work" day until next Monday. I'm considering sleeping in a bit, and then working here on the couch with lots of coffee and my iPod. When I get hungry I'll just walk down to the train station for some "guy food" (ie. quick and easy stuff). :)

Finally, for my own personal joys, here is a picture of my beautiful wife that I secretly snapped tonight while she was smiling and telling me a story. :)


I miss her.

For now, I'm gonna keep waiting on my download (almost done) and will be sure to write up my adventures tomorrow... I have some REALLY cool plans starting Tuesday, but won't share them on my blog just yet... It's gonna be cool though, so please be sure to check back in and see what I'm talking about. ;)

Chubb Insurance Lawyer

Why are lawyers so mean to the opposing party? They hear one side of the story, and don't even try to understand the other side. Is it money? What ever happened to Morals? Values? Ethics? Manners? It's amazing how (a very little bit of) money can make a person so cruel. Why can't things be settled in a civil manner anymore? At least WAIT until things need to be escalated before turning into a complete @$$#*!!. I'm not a fan of law because in all of my experiences it's been nothing but crap in my life. Sorry if anybody is offended by this, honestly. However, it's proven itself over and over for me and I'm sick of it.

If you are in the law system, just be nice and try to see both sides before attacking! Just because your client is paying you a lot of money to represent them doesn't mean you have to lose respect for the other party and insult them for no reason. You couldn't pay me enough money to be as rude as this guy was.

My wife hurt her foot a few months ago (very badly) in a shopping store. The insurance company has put her case on hold for way too long, so she called to finally get it resolved. The lawyer called her back and insulted her to no extent, thinking she is out to get rich off of this. She's not! She just wants to resolve it and move on with her life. The guy offered her an INSULTING amount of money to get it resolved, and did so in a very rude manner. Not only that, but he insulted the way that she lives her life as a stay at home Mom. He treated her with zero respect and doesn't know a damn thing about her or who she is. Mind you, she's the victim in this case, and should be treated as such. Instead, he treated her like the villain and it's made me even more upset with our law system than ever before.

If I had the guys name, I'd consider posting it and put some choice words along side it, but I don't and I won't. Maybe I'm just better than him, I don't know... Just don't insult good people, and namely my wife! Next time, try talking to me and we'll do just that... talk. Not scream. Not insult. Not be-little or accuse. Just talk. Get a life Chubb Insurance Lawyer dude. You ruined my day, and made my wife cry. I hope you're getting paid a lot of money to be an asshole, because to me it sounds like you live a very sad life... It's good manners to be nice to people you've never met. From now on, you are my #1 example for everything that's wrong with our law system and insurance...

Jennifer's House Fettish

I love my wife. I do. I love her so much that it only makes sense that I recognize her problem with real estate. :) She has been looking for "the perfect house" since we met 13 years ago. I give her all the credit on every house we have ever lived in. She has hand picked the houses that we've lived in over the years. From the renovated garage in the back of an alley, to the german cottage style house by a trailer park. From our dead-end dream home in town, to our country home out here in the sticks. All of the credit goes to her, and she knows that I know that because I tell her all the time. I don't know where I'd be living without her knack for quality living.

So I guess the real question is: What makes a perfect house?

This answer would be different for almost everybody that you ask. Some might say "open floor plan", while others might say "nice view" or "central air" or "downtown". To me however, it has nothing to do with the location, structure, or subtle amenities inside. The perfect house is the one I'm in right now, at any point in time. As they say: "Home is where the heart is". I understand that now that I'm older and have children. I believe that I would be just as happy in a 1 room hut down by the river with a dirt floor and no mortgage; as long as I had my Jennifer and our girls along with their simple child-like innocence to keep us company all day.

So again: What makes a perfect house? You do. The only reason I know this is because I grew up in the perfect house. My parents are strong-willed and family-valued people. There were times when my parents had to choose to downsize and move my sister out of our current school district and away from our friends, or stay and fight to keep what was theirs. In hind-sight the actual house had nothing to do our happiness. Sure it helped, but the happiness was derived from the fact that we were all together.

While I feel like we are raising our family in the perfect house, my wife is convinced that there is another place out there that is screaming our name. If she feels this way, then by golly I'm gonna follow her because she is my home. A new house with different surroundings won't change that. Her latest find is about 5 miles up the road and is about 50% more expensive than this place. I love my wife. I do. :)

Grass

Spring has sprung and the yard has been in shambles. Our yard seriously looked like a jungle until this past weekend. I got home from a week of traveling to an Amazon Rain Forest around my house. We had limbs hanging down to the ground. We had snakes in our grass, and our pets were covered in ticks. It's sad to admit it actually, but it was all true. It was too a point that the only mower that could make a dent in our yard was the bush hog. I hooked it up and went to town. It even bogged down a couple of times. :( I mowed as much as I could on Saturday and then saved the rest for the finish mower. It was so bad that we could have (honestly) bailed up our yard into square bails.

Anyway, I just got my finish mower back from "the shop" and it's as good as new again. I'm anxious to get back out there and work on the yard like a real yuppy American. It is so bad around here that when I went looking for my weed eater, I found it face down in a bucket of old car oil. :( Jennifer and I realized that we were made for each other. We are both so care free about everything until something needs done, then we stress out trying to figure out "why us".

To bring it all into perspective, we have a Ford Ranger with busted tie rods and a flat tire. We have a trailer with expired tags. We have a Honda Odyssey with no back windshield wiper and a busted door. I have a Honda Accord with a dinged up hood and all my "check engine" lights are on. I could go on, but I think I've made my point. Life here at the Hardbarger house is simply one crisis to the next. Whatever, I love it! Now it's time to go downstairs and get to work. Tomorrow is a new day and I'm gonna get that finish mower moving over the property.

If you've noticed that I haven't blogged in a while, it's because I've been busy. I haven't blogged or twittered in a while actually. Don't ask me about my training either; it's on the upswing this week too...

Perfect Saturday / 50K Sunday

Beautiful Saturday
I had a blast today. Jennifer took Lizzie with her along with her Mom & Morgan to a horse auction in Columbus. I got to keep Daizi and Jazzy at home with me and we all worked in the garage all day. Daizi swang on the swing most of the day and pal'ed around with Jazzy around the farm. It is so cute when they play nice with each other. They did all day today and acted like good friends, instead of siblings. We're lucky to have such good kids.

When I started on the garage at 1pm, it looked like an endless job; it was a complete mess with boxes and crap everywhere. Now it's nice and open with all the crap put where it needed to be. Mom and Dad came over for a bit and I drank a beer with "Pop". I'm anxious to get back to the garage soon and finish it up and start tinkering again. Warm weather does this to me. It's so nice to just crank up the IPod and stay busy while my girls run all around riding their bikes. So long winter!!

Mohican Forget the PR 50K
Tomorrow is my big race day. It's my first ultra of the year and I think I'm well trained for it. I'm not at all nervous about the distance this time. Last year I was so nervous before each of my big races. Mainly because I didn't know how the mileage would act on me, and I had set little goals for each one. I have no goals for this race, other than to have a great time and finish! I feel like I'm well trained and I know what I'm getting my self into. My biggest fear is that I haven't ran since Sunday and my knee has been acting up a bit the last two weeks; even going upstairs and on some days. Believe it or not, I'm almost anxious to just start running though and just ignore it. I know if it get's too bad, I'll just run until its numb. :) It worked on my first marathon (actually, I think it's the same knee??). :O Whatever, it'll be a total stress relief once I get moving tomorrow. I've had a bit of stress this week with a big project I've been working on. I plan to just zone out and put one foot in front of the other until I cross the finish line.


Well, the girls are all fed with nice yummy soup in their tummies, and I'm almost done charging the Garmin, I guess it's time to start thinking about sleep. If only I were tired... I'll probably just go in and lay down in bed with the girls and watch funny videos. I told them that they can sleep in our bed tonight since Jennifer isn't home yet. We're all gonna watch AFV until we fall esleep. They're pretty excited about that. :) The race starts at 7am, and I have a 1.5 hour drive to make tomorrow. This means, that I'll have to wake up early enough to eat a nice relaxing breakfast and drink some coffee before heading out the door. I'll probably set the alarm for 4:00 so that I can make sure I have everything packed and ready to go.

Next post will be my race report. :)

Coolest Code I’ve Written in a While

I’ve been working double time trying to finish an implementation for my job. Today I was able to bring together all of my hard work into an easy to use API and I’ve now realized what the hell I have been building.

As with most code and projects that I start, they begin as just an idea and then they slowing mature into “the big picture”. My project has finally reached “the big picture” status. I didn’t really realize it until late yesterday and mostly today (as I’ve been using my API). When I realized it, I literally threw myself back in my chair and threw my hands up and said “WHOA!?”. For example, look at the following method:

/// <summary>
/// Converts all cell references and spans to pixels.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="pixelsPerCell">A CellSpan that determines how many pixels will up the new cell.</param>
/// <returns>A CellContext transformed to pixels.</returns>
public CellContext ConvertToPixels(CellSpan pixelsPerCell)
{
    return ((CellRange) this)*pixelsPerCell;
}

To the naked eye, it may seem simple. However, for me, I know what it took to get here; that single return statement executes about 30 lines of code underneath using operator overloading and implicit casting calls on multiple classes.

To understand what the method above does, here is a quick example. Assume that you have a table of 2 rows and 2 columns. Therefore:

0,0	0,1
1, 0	1,1

Now we want to create a table layout with a single cell spanning the left side. So:

var left = new CellContext(0, 0, 2, 1);

var topRight = new CellContext(0, 1);

var bottomRight = new CellContext(1, 1);

var table = new Table(left, topRight, bottomRight);

Will create a layout like this:

Here are the facts about the left cell:

• cell start @ cell [0, 0]
• cell spans 2 rows & 1 column
• cell ends @ cell [1, 0]

Now let’s convert this layout a 20 by 20 table. There are many reasons we might need to do this. The best reason (and the reason that I wrote these classes) was to be able to convert a series of cell indexes and row/column spans to actual screen coordinates.

var pixelOffset = new CellSpan(20, 20);

table.ConvertToPixels(pixelOffset)

Here are the new facts about each cell now:

Cell [0, 0]

• cell starts @ cell [0, 0]
• cell spans 40 rows & 20 columns
• cell ends @ cell [39, 19]

Cell [0, 1]

• cell starts @ [0, 20]
• cell spans 20 rows & 20 columns
• cell ends at cell [19, 39]

Cell [1, 1]

• cell starts @ cell [20, 20]
• cell spans 20 rows & 20 columns
• cell ends at cell [39, 39]

Now, keep in mind that I’ve only dealt with 4 cells and a have only shared a very brainless example. However, I’ve been building this to deal with large amounts of cells and complex configurations. The beauty is that no matter how much math I throw at it, it continues to work. :) For example, consider the following:

var context = new CellContext(37, 19, 14, 13);

var pixelOffset = new CellSpan(23, 17);

var pixels = context.ConvertToPixels(pixelOffset);

It goes without saying that I also created a method to convert back to relative indexes from pixels using division rather than multiplication. My unit tests are all passing for it as well. :)

Perhaps I’m just a geek and this excites way too much??