This is totally random, and my point is probably far less than profound, but yesterday I went to the 7/11 near my house and was practically jumping up and down when I saw Vanilla Moon Pies. I'm a huge fan of anything vanilla, and you just don't see vanilla Moon Pies that often. Chocolate, sure. Maybe even banana. But for some reason vanilla is hard to come by.

"This is awesome!" I thought to myself as I pondered buying the whole box. Just to, uh, have some around the house for a while. Yeah, that's it. I found the inner strength to only buy two, and I grinned all the way home about my great find, because again, these are pretty darn rare in my experience. Even as I was enjoying the first of my two rare vanilla Moon Pies yesterday, I was thinking, "I better save the other one for a special occasion, or go back and buy more, because I never know when I'll find them again!"

Then this morning for some reason it hit me. There's this little thing called the Internet, and you can actually buy stuff on the Internet. But surely the Internet doesn't sell vanilla Moon Pies, right?

Well of course the Internet sells Moon Pies. And not just vanilla either. They have flavors I didn't even know existed, like strawberry and orange. You can even get mini Moon Pies if you're so inclined.

So how does this all relate to the title of this post?

Well, I got to thinking about why it didn't dawn on me to go to Amazon.com right away if I wanted a vanilla Moon Pie, or anything else for that matter, and I think it's because I grew up when there was no Internet. (I know, I'm old.) I guess in my brain you still only buy tech stuff, books, DVDs, and things of that nature on the Internet, but buying food on the Internet--other than holiday baskets at Christmas--just didn't enter into my head.

Back when I was a kid (see, I am old) if your local store didn't have something, you didn't get it. There was no instant access to infinite choices, and you couldn't have exactly what you wanted at a moment's notice.

I still have fond memories of my Dad hunting around for a very specific kind of Heinz dill pickles because the local grocery store stopped carrying the ones he liked. He talked to the manager and tried to explain the situation, and I think the manager even said he'd check with the distributor, but I think he'd get maybe a jar here or there and that was the best the store could do for the most part.

Then for Father's Day or my Dad's birthday one year, I remember either my Mom or my sister (another sign of getting old--the memory starts to go) got my Dad a whole case of these hard-to-find pickles. He was thrilled. He kept a jar in the fridge and put the surplus in the basement, and he'd have his favorite pickles for quite some time to come.

I guess my point is that back before it was so easy to get everything, and when there's more or less no such thing as scarcity anymore (at least not in the land of plenty), there was excitement in all of this. It was fun to see something you don't see often in the store, and it took some detective work and actual leg (OK, car) work to hunt down that exact item you wanted. And I bet it tasted all that much sweeter (or sourer in the case of pickles) when you finally found your Holy Grail.

So as I was enjoying my vanilla Moon Pie yesterday, I guess I was reliving all of this. And now that I know I can get vanilla Moon Pies whenever I want, somehow it's just not as exciting. (They still taste pretty damn good though.)

At least the ones I got at the 7/11 were double-decker vanilla Moon Pies. Those aren't available on Amazon.com yet.

As most of you already know I just completed a move from the Washington, DC area to the Seattle, WA area, which involved what turned out to be a 2850 mile westward trek across this great nation of ours. It was a quick drive (4 1/2 days) so I didn't have a lot of time to stop and see the sights, but I did learn a few things on the journey.

• 2850 miles is a long-ass drive no matter how you look at it.


• The Prius is a damn comfortable car, and even loaded down going 80 mph it gets about 45 mpg.


• Minnesota has serious work to do on their stretch of I-90. Guh-DUNK guh-DUNK guh-DUNK for hundreds of miles can drive even the most sane person a bit batty.


• Quality Inn tends to take pets, and tend to be of fairly good, um, quality.


• You do not want to be in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in late October when the wind's blowing 60 miles per hour. I haven't been that cold in a very long time.


• Most of what you will see driving through South Dakota is signs for Wall Drug, even when it's about 6 hours away.


• Driving through the barren part of South Dakota and then coming to the crest of a large hill to be greeted by the Missouri River on the other side was truly a sight to behold.


• The South Dakota badlands are very cool, and I now understand why bikers make a trek to Sturgis every year.


• Gas was only $2.29 in Wyoming


• There's a "Crazy Woman Creek" in Wyoming, and a "Crazy Woman Liquor Store" to go with it. I like to think the creek was named after the liquor store, and I'd like to meet the crazy woman behind the name. Unfortunately the sandwich shop I stopped at for lunch had a much more mundane name. (I mean isn't "Crazy Woman Sandwiches" marketing gold?)


• There was a sign for "Toe Service" at a gas station in Wyoming. I think I know what they meant ...


• Montana is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. Think of the most idyllic mountain stream scene you can, and it's in Montana in mass quantities.


• If you stop at a Quality Inn in Billings, Montana, you might just be lucky enough to have Pantera staying there the same night you are. (No, I did not seek them out and attempt to party with them.)


• Cell phone service is really amazingly good even in the middle of nowhere. There were very few points at which I had no cell signal, and usually it was when I was in the mountains.


• When I crossed the Continental Divide at 6300 feet elevation, I realized I didn't know what the Continental Divide was and felt really stupid.


• Northern North Dakota is almost as pretty as Montana.


• I really need to go hang out in the Columbia Basin in central Washington at some point--another amazingly beautiful spot.


• I now see signs for cities in Canada on the highway, and I get one channel of the Canadian Broadcasting Company on cable. It's funny to hear the Canadians refer to America as "south of the border." Don't they know that's Mexico?

So I'm now happily in Seattle and will have to get to know the CFers in the area!

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This has been in the planning stages for a while, but in October I'll be moving from one Washington (DC) to the other (Washington state), specifically to Seattle or thereabouts. Through the magic of telecommuting I'll be keeping my same job with the Senate, which is fantastic because there are always lots of cool projects going on and the freedom to play with the latest technologies and gadgets.

I have a blog post in the works called "Lightweight Cross-Country Moves" because in an effort to minimize the amount of stuff I lug (or have moved) 2800 miles, as well as just to lighten the load in my life, I've gotten serious about eliminating physical possessions wherever possible. I'll post that once I have it in better shape than random thoughts and bullet points.

And no, this move has nothing to do with my love for Microsoft as some people suggested on twitter. I still hate them as much as ever. :-)

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I feel very fortunate that I got to go on a tour of the U.S. Capitol Dome this week. It was a climb of 353 steps to get to the top but it was well worth it! The weather was fantastic and I took about 120 pictures, which you can view here.

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I've been reading and hearing a lot about Windows Vista lately, and I think I'm about at the tipping point. Between the performance pig that it is, and the fact that it's getting more and more intrusive and paranoid (I'll spare you the details ... check out slashdot or any number of tech podcasts for more scary info), I just don't know if I can stick with Windows anymore, so XP may be the last version I'll run as my full-time OS on my home machine. (Yes, there's the Mac option; I use one at work now but I really love my ThinkPad.)

As I mentioned before I was pretty floored by Ubuntu when I stuck a live CD in my ThinkPad and it detected literally everything including my wireless, ran my LCD at full resolution, etc., so thanks again to Dave Shuck for coming to the CFUG meeting with the live CD and forcing me to try it. I've also used Fedora on and off as a desktop OS in the past, but Ubuntu has a polish that Fedora still can't match in my opinion.

So when I thought more about switching, I started thinking about all the software I use on Windows. After a semi-thorough assessment in my head, I think the only thing I'd miss is Adobe Audition, which I use to edit and mix ColdFusion Weekly. After listening to a lot of podcasts about Audition I was really looking forward to upgrading to Audition 2.0. That being said, I only use about 1/1000th of what's in Audition, so Audactiy will actually probably be adequate, and it's what Peter uses when he edits the podcast so a) it works, and b) I'm sure I can hit him up for help. Or of course I can run Windows in a VM on Ubuntu, or dual boot which would probably be better for audio editing.

There's the omni-present SQL Server issue as well, but I'm not sure I need SQL Server on this machine anyway, and again, there's always VM. Napster just popped into my head as well, but again, VM will handle that or I can ditch Napster. Some other stuff like TiVo Desktop and miscellaneous other applications I just don't think I'd miss.

In terms of what I actually use 99% of the time, Firefox and Eclipse are both available, and I'm MORE than happy to quit using Outlook and go back to Thunderbird for email. Between the native availabilty of software I like and already use, the VM and dual-boot options, and CrossOver Linux, I'm starting to be convinced that the host OS matters less and less.

I was just saying the other day that I still didn't think Linux made a good desktop OS. But when it comes down to it, I'm a developer, and I'm a bit of a Unix server junkie anyway (not expert, but not dangerous!), so I don't need the hand-holding that average Joe computer users do. I also think Linux has gotten dramatically better on the desktop, even within the last year. Between these factors and the fact that I think the direction MS is taking with Vista is pretty morally reprehensible, it may be time for Ubuntu. I don't want MS controlling what I can and can't do with my computer.

So ... this weekend may be the weekend to do it. I need to do some testing of a couple of things (want to make sure my docking station works and drives my monitors correctly, for example), but if all goes well I may finally make the move. I'll either have a great success story or a whole lot of cursing in a future blog post. ;-)

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I'm extremely pleased to announce that I've accepted a position as Principal Information Technology Specialist with the Office of the Sergeant at Arms at the United States Senate. I'll be moving out to Washington, DC later this month. It's a bit hard to leave Dallas after being here for 14 years, but this is a fantastic opportunity with a great bunch of people, and I absolutely love the DC area, so I'm very excited about the road ahead!

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Somehow a Darth Vader quote seemed appropriate at this juncture. Another one that came to mind was one we used to say in the music biz: "It's all over but the hangover."

I just turned in my last assignments for the final class in my Master of Science in Computer Information Systems (MSCIS) degree through the University of Phoenix. It was a lot of work on and off over the last three years getting it done so it's a real sense of relief to have it done.

I'm sure my "free time" will now be filled with lots of other stuff, but at least this is checked off the list!

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As I was considering writing up my personal thoughts about Episode III a friend of mine sent me a link to this commentary and I have to say it sums up my feelings about things almost perfectly.

Now before I get branded a Star Wars hater, let's get some history on my experience with Star Wars. When Episode IV first came out in 1977 I was 7 years old, and you couldn't find a bigger Star Wars fan on the planet. My neighbors down the street owned the movie theater where it was playing, so I literally saw Episode IV multiple times a day all summer. I had Star Wars clothes, pajamas, bed sheets, wallpaper, more toys than would fit in my room, all the action figures, all the trading cards, posters, blueprints, movie stills, glossy movie conceptual art done by the art director ... you name it, I had it.

1980 rolls around and Empire comes out. Same excitement, same pumping of ungodly amounts of my parents money into the franchise, same friends down the street who owned the theater.

By 1983 I'm 13 and even at that age when I saw the Ewoks in Jedi I was thinking, "this is decidedly lame." But hey, it was cool, saw it a bunch of times, but I wasn't *that* into it and the toy and miscellaneous Star Wars junk collection started to dwindle. I didn't even really care if I got all the trading cards at that point, but I went through the motions anyway.

Fast forward to 1999. I'm now 29 years old and I love good movies. You know, the kind with real acting and real story lines that don't rely on explosions, screaming, effects, and mayhem as the entire substance of the film. When I saw Phantom Menace I, as many former fans were, was pretty disappointed. I left the theater not sure whether I changed or the movies did (kind of irrelevant I suppose), but this feeling only got worse with Attack of the Clones.

Now we reach 2005 and Sith. All the cool back story that was left off-screen in the original three movies comes to life, and I have to say that the versions of the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan's showdown with Anakin, and the creation of Darth Vader that existed in my imagination from when I was 7 years old kid are (in my memory at any rate) far better than the reality put forth on the screen in Episode III.

Maybe I'm just too old to appreciate Star Wars nowadays, but to me, Star Wars has become no better than movies like "Independence Day," "The Rock," or any number of other Jerry Bruckheimer-esque flicks that are big on action and effects but have zero substance.

Two days after I saw Sith (in a half-empty theater at the 7 pm showing on the Friday of opening week, oddly enough), I saw the new film "Crash." What a difference a story, script, and good acting make.

So to Star Wars, I say this: thanks for the memories. I had a blast with this stuff as a kid, but I'm an adult now so I'll leave any future Star Wars TV shows or whatever else they have in the works to kids who might be able to continue to enjoy it.

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If you're reading this, you're hitting my new dedicated server. The migration wasn't too bad, although I did change the blog database from SQL Server 2000 to MySQL 4.1.7 which was semi-challenging.

ere's the steps I took to migrate from SQL Server to MySQL:

1. Ran the MySQL script that comes with Ray Camden's blog software to create the database


2. Downloaded and installed MySQL ODBC driver for Windows on my Windows laptop that I have SQL Server Enterprise Manager installed on


3. Created a user in MySQL to use for the migration


4. Created ODBC datasource to the MySQL database


5. Got an error about the authentication method when I tried to connect via the ODBC driver; this is related to the new password hashing mechanism in MySQL 4.1.


6. Went to the MySQL command line and reset the user's password to the old hash method:

   SET PASSWORD FOR 'some_user'@'some_host' = OLD_PASSWORD('newpwd');

   You have to do this if you want to connect via ODBC!



7. Created the ODBC connection again--worked this time


8. Ran the Export DTS in SQL Server EM and pointed to the MySQL database as the destination

Would have been great if it worked, but there was a minor problem of some sort with the tblBlogComments and tblBlogEntries tables. SQL Server EM was throwing an error about not being able to do a BLOB insert ... not sure what that was all about. I thought maybe it had to do with the ntext datatype in SQL Server, but I experimented with changing that to just text (and nvarchar to just varchar) and it didn't help.

I then went through several iterations of exporting the data from SQL Server to a text file and trying to import that directly into MySQL. I didn't ever quite get the right combination of delimiters, text enclosures, etc. to get it to work right. (I tried 4-5 combinations of things and decided to move on--I'm sure this method is possible however.)

So finally I decided to give MS Access a shot as a migration tool. I'm pretty well-known for cursing Access's very existence, but it appears I have found a use for it after all. ;-) I exported the tblBlogComments and tblBlogEntries tables from SQL Server to Access, then used Access to create new tables and export the data to MySQL through the ODBC connection.

The data got there fine, and I just had to do some minor tweaking of datatypes, nullables, add an index, etc. to get the new tables to match the tables created by Ray's script that ships with the blog software. Then I dropped the old tables, renamed the new tables to the correct name, and bingo--everything worked.

As an aside, I like MS SQL Server, but now that I'm on a dedicated server and it's my money going for the software, I opted for MySQL. I'm a big fan and use MySQL a lot anyway, so this was a natural move for me on my personal site. I'm going to be very anxious to try out the new SQL Server Express 2005 once it's available though.