Month: December 2003

Another Loss

Nick MomrikLeave a comment

We had our 2nd game for Basketball league tonight. We lost 54-51. I think I had 15 or maybe 17 points. We were down by 10 with under 3 minutes and made a nice little come back. I hit 2 three pointers in the last minute to pull within one and then fouled (they made both free throws), but we didn’t get a good shot off at the end of the game. We only had 6 guys, so I sat out less than a minute for the entire 40 minute game. I’m whooped!!

One of the refs made the absolute worst call I’ve ever seen. We were on offense and Bob (one of our big guys) was down low with the ball and it got knocked loose. As he was going for the ball he got pushed and when he was falling out of bounds he threw the ball off the knees of a guy on their team. The ref that was under the hoop called a foul on them (which was the right call), but the other ref called a Technical Foul on Bob!! Everyone was like…”What the fuck?!?!” The ref says to us…”I saw how you threw it at him.” Now, am I missing something there? Refs can call fouls for the way a person tries to save the ball? What’s next? If a guy has an ugly shot, can he get a Technical? If my shoe isn’t tied, I get a T? I mean, come on. It doens’t even make any sense, does it?

Oh well, it’s just a game and it isn’t going to impact my life.

I had a nice enjoyable day of vacation today. Woke up around 11, screwed around with my computer and the website for awhile and started some laundry. I created a backup of the installation on my computer since I just reinstalled everything the other day. Now if something goes wrong it will be a whole lot faster to get back up and running. I finally made my way into the shower and then went Christmas shopping. I’m just about done with everything for the year, except for one or two more things. I hope everyone likes their gifts because I went all out this year. After shopping I watched the extended DVD of The Two Towers. The added scenes really added a lot to the movie, but holy shit is it a long movie now (roughtly 3 hours and 40 minutes). Worth watching though!

I’m going to the BasketBowl tomorrow at Ford Field. Michigan State and Kentucky are playing the largest basketball game (college, pro, etc.) in history (in terms of attendance). There are supposed to be over 75,000 people there. I’m taking my Dad and brother Isaac to the game as a Christmas gift and mom will be shopping while we are gone. I’ll have a lot of pictures to post when I get back.

Hamoudy's Weblog

Nick Momrik3 Comments

My friend Mohamad now has a weblog running at his site. You can access his weblog with the link in the weblog links section on the right side of this page.

I’ve been helping him get his site setup and getting some of the things running with his hosting company. It feels good to help someone out and see the fruits of my (and his) labor. I’m still new to using all the PHP stuff, but I consider myself pretty good at troubleshooting when something doesn’t work. I need to get a book or study PHP online somewhere. Recommend any resources? I’ll be a pro in no time, it’s finding the time that is a problem.

I took a vacation day for tomorrow, so it’s time to go have some fun!!

Let The Shopping Begin

Nick Momrik5 Comments

I finally started my Christmas shopping today. I’ve been dreading going to the stores, but it wasn’t all that bad today. After work I changed and then went to swipe the credit card a few times. I picked up gifts for my mom, sister, and friends. I never really waited in line anywhere and didn’t run into any crazy shoppers attempting to run me over.

This is the first year in history that I’m not all concerned about what I’m getting for Christmas. I guess getting older (24 on the 26th) is part of it, but I’m also paying more attention to the gifts I get for people. So you could say that the “giving” part is playing a bigger role for me. I also have not snooped this year and won’t get to since I won’t be back at my parents until the night of the 23rd of the day of the 24th. Heather (my sister) accused me of snooping through her room, but I swear on all my cool gadgets that I haven’t.

This is a little off topic, but….Today at work I wore black dress pants and realized that for some odd reason I feel a lot more “dressy” in black pants than when I wear khaki, brown, navy, etc. I could be wearing a nice button up shirt with another pair of pants and not feel nearly as dressy as today when I wore a red shirt with a black stripe across the chest. And this shirt is about as close to being a sweatshirt as you can get without being considered one. Mohamad even said, “look at this guy all dressed up,” so I must not be the only one with the feeling about black pants.

Also at work today I was giving another free t-shirt by someone at SVSU. The Dean for the College of Business and Management gave me the first t-shirt from a batch they just had made for all of their faculty and staff. It feels good when people appreciate the work you do for them. My “free t-shirt count” now stands at 3 (not including the ones that Gateway gives us periodically)!

Good As New

Nick MomrikLeave a comment

I just finished rebuilding my computer, which in simple terms means that I cleaned off the hard drive, reinstalled Windows XP and all of my programs. I had been way overdue. Usually I try to rebuild it about every 6 months, but this time it had been over a year!! With the number of different/new programs I try on a daily basis, problems were starting to appear everywhere and I just couldn’t stand it anymore! Now my system is running like a well-oiled machine and I can get back to cranking out new features for mtdewvirus.com.

Make sure to stop by the weblog and photolog and leave some comments!!

Backup

Nick Momrik1 Comment

I just read a very interesting article by Vince Barnes of HTML Goodies.

Three Golden Rules

Intriguing title, don’t you think? We’ll get to them in just a second. First, let’s take a quick look at the “coming to life” of your website.

Imagine if you will, all the thought that goes into a website; then the work involved in it’s actual creation; the care with which its various elements are interconnected; and the pride with which it is placed onto a web server and published for the world to see.

Next, a little time goes by and the site evolves with a tweak here, add a page there, put a database link in this, and so on. Pretty soon the site has grown a lot and represents its developer’s blood, sweat and tears. Then the server crashes and the call comes in from hosting company to say “sorry, you’ll have to upload your pages again.” Pages? PAGES? WHAT PAGES? The horror dawns on you that your only copy is that original set that you first created. All that extra work was done after that upload and was added piece by piece to the live site. Only the live site had it all. And that database of contact information you’ve been collecting — it was up there too!

Now to those golden rules. They apply to everything to do with computers, but we’re especially interested in how they apply to website creation and maintenance. I’m sure you’ve guessed the first part by now. That’s right — Backup!

Rule number one is backup your stuff! When you make a copy, however, things can go wrong with the copy process. It’s a good idea to make a copy of your existing backup before you start to copy over it — just in case! Now you have a one generation old copy and a current copy.

Then there’s Murphy’s Law. “If it can go wrong it will. If it can’t go wrong, it’ll go wrong quicker.” (If that’s not actually Murphy’s Law, I’m sure he’d be pretty proud of it anyway!) Here’s the scene (it’s based on the last one): as your hanging up the phone after the call from the hosting company a knowing smile stretches itself across your face; “I have those two copies in the other room – let me get one and send it up,” you think to yourself. As you do, and as if in direct response to your smirk, a bolt of lightning comes out of the blue, smashes its way through your roof, through the back room, through your computer and melts your CDs and floppies as it goes.

Oops! (Thank goodness it missed the cat – this is, after all, a family style newsletter!)

Yes, that’s right — you should have made another copy and kept it at work or in your safe deposit box. An off-site copy is another very reasonable backup. Of course, its possible that the call comes from the hosting company, a bolt takes out your PC and a flash flood washes away the bank. If this happens to you, you might want to examine your life a little – the universe seems to be exceptionally mad at you.

So, more correctly stated, rule one would be “backup your backups.” That would leave rule two as “backup your stuff” and rule three as “backup your stuff again and keep the backup off-site.” The short form of the three golden rules is:

Backup backup; backup; and backup again.

Say that to yourself a few times. Now ask yourself “did I just say that, or have I actually done it?”

-Vince Barnes

Working for a Support Center, I see people losing data/files all the time because they didn’t have a backup copy. I have no sympathy for these people. I know that when I have something important, I always keep several copies of it. I’ll keep a copy at home, at work, on a CD, in my email…anywhere I can think of. Maybe someday people will learn their lesson.

My New Digital Camera

Nick MomrikLeave a comment

I finally have the new digital camera in my hands. I picked it up from the leasing office when I came home for lunch. It’s a pretty sweet little camera.

I’m not real big on taking pictures, so getting a small camera was my number one priority in deciding on one. I wanted a camera that was digital for obvious reasons (insert geek comment). A few of the other things I were looking for were: ability to take movies, image quality, ease of use, and dependability.

After doing some research I dediced to get a Canon PowerShot S400 Digital Elph. The consensus from many places was that Canon makes the best cameras and has the best lens. I just took out a credit card and I’m not lying when I say that the camera is about as close as you can get to the same size. It can easily fit into the pocket of your pants or shirt, which is what I was looking for. I didn’t want to be lugging a dorky camera bag over my shoulder (or around my neck) and have to continuously worry about my investment. I can keep this one hidden safely in a pocket. They do make a nice little case for putting on your belt that I will end up buying soon.

Some of the specifications are:

  • 4.0 MegaPixels
  • 3.0 Optical Zoom
  • 3.6 Digital Zoom
  • Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery and charger
  • 32 MB Compact Flash Card
  • Size: 3.43 x 2.24 x 1.09 in.
  • Weight: Approx. 6.52 oz

I think what really sold me on this camera though was the review and user comments I read at CNET.

The plans are to create a photoblog and periodically post some pictures (with comments).

Find Your True Calling

Nick Momrik3 Comments

I believe that everyone has a common goal in life. We all want to find our true calling and end up doing that for a career. Every human being has that one thing that puts us in “the zone.” The hard part is finding out what that is.

Athletes thrive on competition, doctors live for saving people’s lives, and teachers love seeing a student’s face when they learn a new concept. Everyone has their own thing and some people even have a few things. It is important to find this calling, because then work seems like play. Going to work never really seems so bad compared to if you’ve ever had a job that you didn’t like.

A few years ago when I was taking classes for my CS degree, I found my calling. I absolutely love computer programming. I never had problems getting assignments completed on time for my CS classes, because I enjoyed doing them. It never really seemed like homework to me. For some reason, I always did my best work late at night when no one is around. I guess that is partly due to the fact that interruptions can really impede your thought processes when working on a computer program. Everything flows in a series of logical steps (for programming) and if that thought process is broken, you usually have to start over.

I’m a very good logical thinker, which helps me tremendously in programming. Another reason that I like it so much is because I get to manipulate the code to get the computer to do what I want it to do. Although it can be extremely frustrating at times, it’s a great feeling when you finally figure out where the problem/glitch was.

I hope to move along in my career path soon and make work fun again.

I’m curious as to what others think of having a true calling. Have you found your calling? What gets you going? What makes you tick?

Free Web Hosting

Nick MomrikLeave a comment

I don’t know how they are doing it, but a company called 1&1 is offereing a special promotion giving out 3 years of web hosting for free to those who sign up. I have signed up and moved my momrik.com domain over to their site. Everything is all setup and I’m able to access my site already. Some of you may not be able to access it for another day or two until the DNS entries are updated across the Internet.

My advice is to sign up for this promotion and get the free hosting. I know about 5 people who have signed up already. Happy surfing.

I planned to get some pictures up on my site this weekend, but that isn’t going to happen. I ordered a new digital camera and it was delivered today, but our leasing office closed early today (for their x-mas party) and I didn’t get there in time to pick it up. What are the chances!

Opportunity

Nick MomrikLeave a comment

Just a couple of quotes that fit the day I had…

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

-Thomas Edison

“Doors of opportunity don’t open, they unlock; it is up to you to turn the knob.”

-Lily Taylor

“Too often, the opportunity knocks, but by the time you push back the chain, push back the bolt, unhook the two locks and shut off the burglar alarm, it’s too late.”

-Rita Coolidge Singer

Duke Smoked Michigan State

Nick Momrik2 Comments

The Blue Devils really put it to the Spartans tonight! What a great game to watch for a Duke fan (me). Jeff came over, we got some pizza, had a few beers, and watched the game on the big screen.

Only another week and a half and I’ll be at Ford Field for the biggest basketball game in history (over 75,000 tickets sold) when MSU and Kentucky play. I hope Kentucky puts it to them like Duke did tonight.