The Richard Benefit Poker Tournament

Congratulation to Jason Richard, family and friends for hosting a wonderful poker tournament at Bow Ties in Saint John on Sunday 9th Feb 2008

I had a terrific time and met some of the nicest people I have ever met.

Count me for more tournaments my friend

So I took a few pictures and though I should post them here.
Enjoy

I can remember in high school when teachers had us complete a series of tests to help us decide what career paths we should pursue.

Funny as this may seem; my scores in high school were the exact opposite of what they are now. I am quite impressed with how accurate these test have become.

My key point here is that these test tell us what we are better suited for with our current experience and aptitudes. They don't tell us what we will be good at later.

I hope that we age like fine wines. Developing our flavors and colors as we get older. The more exposure I have had to the business world the more rounded and capable I have become. Back in high school I was told I should be a teacher or a priest. Now being the programmer / Analyst that I am, I was impressed to see the results that you see in the image above.

I have a deep rooted love for working with people, leading, managing and technology. Seems to fit the profile I would say.

*** You're always better off knowing a little about yourself and a lot about who you WANT to be.
Set goals, dream big.Believe you will be and it will come true.

this is a test post using Google analytics in the background to establish some site tracking

Code comments and the lessons I am learning

As a programmer I am always expected to comment my codes. Obviously this makes my code easier to understand for others. Good comments are also to help me read my code in the future.

*** Now for todays lesson.

My best friend Stephen Nickerson was doing a code review for me and had this to share with me.
When you first start writing a new class it is a good practice to write a brief paragraph at the top of this class. Of course this is common sense. Normally I would eventually write a paragraph describing what the class does.

Now here is the gold nugget. He taught me that the very first thing you should write in this paragraph should be "What is my goal in writing this class."

If you get one thing from this, get this!

Start every Class with a small paragraph stating "My goal when writing this class is ..."

Sounds simple does it not? Well it is. The reality is that the goal that you have in mind for this class is way more important than the details about how you did it. It works like a mission statement for a business. I have found, now when I type the words . " My goal for this class is to ..." I establish my mission. That's right. Things become amazingly clearer.

It is like active negotiation with myself. Instead of getting caught up in the details I agree up front that this is my goal. Now everything must point toward that goal.

I have caught myself many times when power programming having to go back to methods I wrote, to comment them. While writing this short paragraph describing the goal of the method I formulated a better way to accomplish the goal.

Last but not least always add your name and the date to the end of your class opening comments.

A few thoughts here. Adding your name and the date does a couple of things. First it establishes hey I wrote this. This is my brain child. Next it allows people to know who to ask for advise in the future when working on similar tasks or modifying this code. It also allows you to go back and review your work years from now and to see where you were and how far you have come.

Last thought on this. Having your name in the code is like "Coca Cola" being printed on you soda can. That is right. You can build brand recognition. You never know who may someday be reading that code and saying man i wish we had that program Mr. XYZ here with us. He obviously figured this stuff out before. It could be worth our time to find him and offer him a contract to help us.

Just my thoughts. Be bold enough to carve a new trail. Be accountable to your actions and be willing to accept the pat on the back or the kick in the butt. Eventually you will learn how to get more pats on the back.

DIR-655 Router and Vonage no incoming calls.

Sharing the wealth of technical topics through blogging by David Sullivan.


DIR-655 Router and Vonage. Outgoing calls work fine but my incoming calls don't work.

If you have just reset or installed a DIR-655 and your vonage phone stops working I have your reason.

this router has a setting for enable "SIP" this needs to be disabled. look around and find the "SIP" and disable it.

Note. this is not a typo. It is "SIP". There is also an SPI this is not the one.

Disable "SIP" and all will start working.

Good Luck.

How to get rid of head lice. Remove Lice. Kill lice...

OK. This article needs to be written.
As a parent I have to say that I understand how frustrating head lice can be.

When you have school aged children, head lice are going to happen.

Now first things first. My wife and I have had good results using the over the counter Nix, and the other major brand lice shampoo treatment. However; these treatments are very expensive and completely depend on how well you follow the instructions.

The other thing to remember is that for some people they work and for some they don't.

In this article I will explain why that is. And how to always have it work.

I have read and tried many funny lice remedies. We have tried the mayonnaise and the Vaseline. We have tried the tea tree oil shampoo and conditioner and the nix, etc ....

I personally have read hundreds of articles, papers and blogs about this subject. Then one day the wisdom of ages came to me from a young hair dresser in training. The day before, her and her friend had taken a course about head lice. What she taught me in those 2 minutes explained everything. Here is the reality. Are you ready. Pay attention. After this you will never have a problem removing head lice again.

Nits(eggs), hatch in about a week.
After hatching the nymphs (baby lice) take about a week to mature.(begin laying eggs)

Now for the magic.
If you kill all the lice today. Any eggs left will hatch within a week.
and by day 6 you will have no more eggs just adults ready to lay eggs in a day.

So the easy thing to do would be to kill them all every 3 days.
Do this 5 times and you guarantee that you have killed all the lice and you have killed all the newborns before maturity.

I recommend 5 times.

Now. how do I kill them you ask?
What if I told you that lice can only hold their breath for approximately half an hour.
Here is the best part. Go to your local dollar store or cheapy McCheapoo store and get the thickest cheapest hair conditioner you can purchase in bulk and a bunch of shower caps.

Shampoo, rinse and then soak the hair with copious amounts of conditioner. Wrap the hair up in the shower cap and go watch a movie or read a book for an hour or more.

You have just killed all the hatched lice.

*** You don't need special treatments to kill them.
*** get yourself a good metal nit pick comb.
*** comb the hair while watching a movie.
*** do this every night.

Most important thing to remember is to mark your calender and make sure you retreat, super condition for an hour, every 3 or 4 days. do this for at least 5 treatments and your lice will be gone.

Also remember to treat linens, pillow cases, stuffed toys and any hats that your children might use daily. Wash them and then dry them for at least an hour in the hot air dryer.

Put all stuffed toys, hats and other items that come in contact with the children's heads in garbage bags. Put them away for a few days. Lice can not live away from the host food supply for very long.

Baby lice or nymphs are about the size of a pinhead when they hatch, and quickly mature into adult lice in about a week. Adult lice can then live for about 30 days, with females laying up to 8 nits a day, repeating the cycle. --- Quote from another lice article.

At this point the only thing that counts is how thorough you are at treating your children.
If you follow this guide step by step, you will be lice free.

The next thing to do is to make the children where the hair up. Super condition soak for an hour every day or two and be diligent in checking their heads.

I really hope this article help all the frustrated parents out there.

Remember the cheapest, thickest hair conditioner and some shower caps are all you need to destroy the lice attack.

Funny words of wisdom from the most steadfast source. AKA My wonderful wife.

Today my wife and I were enjoying a wonderful lunch at a local cafe called "Sessions Cafe".
We had eaten there once before and the food is delightful. Our first visit we ordered small personal plates of the house nachos and the Soup de Jour. Let me inject here that the elegant oven baked nachos were and continue to be the tastiest crispy nachos I have ever had the pleasure of enjoying. Today indulged ourselves with a large plate of nachos for an appetizer and two orders of the special, real ham on swiss with sauteed red peppers on focaccia bread. Now imagine, a small well lit cafe atmosphere, with classic upbeat folk music floating in the background. Sounds like an enjoyable lunch, does it not? Jackie, my wife and I thought so.

infamous quote -- Groin grabbingly delicious. -- Homer Simpson as the food critic.

I tell you all that so that I may tell you this. With a mouth full of food and a mug full of Cafe Mocha, I was totally unprepared. Jackie leans over toward me and says "Hey, what did the medicine man tell his wife to get her to stop bugging him?" At this point I did what every good husband should do. I shrugged and gave the ever curious whimsical look. "Don't squeeze the shaman!" she replies with a giggle. I instantly got the reference to the old Squeeze the Charman toilet paper ads and chuckled. Thus causing me to mildly choke on my nachos.

This lady will never stop surprising me. Ten years of marriage and two children later she is still the jewel of my eye. She also reminded me of another classic quip that goes -

Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool, then to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

To my wonderful wife today, thank you for the life, the love and all the humor. Your loving husband Dave.