Dan Mayer's Blog

Well I guess it is that time... time for a Xmas list of things that I might be interested in this year to guide family towards things I am interested in. These are just thoughts ideas and suggestions feel free to ignore them.

1) Money for me to put towards a certain investment many of you are aware of... I know money is lame and my family doesn't normally do that, but in all honesty it is what I probably need most, but if you want to be more fun have no fear look below.

2) A shirt to match these pants, my brother got me this cool outfit shoes, pants, and such, but no shirt to go with it... I have no shopping skills so I can't find anything to match it and every time I wear the outfit someone tells me the shirt I tried with it doesn't quite match. I tend to wear small or medium shirts depending on the store.

Me confused trying to look cool... I know to normally wear brown socks with these pants, but it was a quick photo shoot so just let it slide.

A close up so you can see the color and pinstripes better. (click to enlarge)

3) A pair of Gap jeans in this style or damn near close, my favorite pair of jeans (pretty much the only ones I will wear) are falling apart and I need a replacement. So if you find something that would be similar to these jeans go for it. The jeans I love that fit so well are size 30 x 30. Here is everything I know about the jeans... Gap Low Rise Boot Fit they are 100% cotton, they are amazing and I love them.

My favorite jeans and I spending a moment together... ah how relaxing and comfortable...

A close up of some of the holes starting to appear. (click to enlarge)

4) A suit travel bag. I guess it is time I have a good bag to travel with my suit, other hanging clothes items, room for a basic bathroom kit and other over night items. Something I can use while doing short trips that require me to dress up like interviews and such. Something so I can show up with out all my clothes being a wrinkled mess.

5) Plane tickets, what can I say I like to travel, but I can't visit and travel everywhere because I can't keep blowing all my money on plane tickets... Do they sell vouchers or something like that? I don't know but it is just an idea.

6) In car navigation system. Something I can move car to car preferably. Those that know me also know that I could get lost in a large circular room. I generally can't drive anywhere unless I have driven that route a few times before while following careful directions, at which point I can only get to that spot following one route that I memorize. If a road is close, I am screwed because I generally have no idea where I am at any given point. I don't know where I am or how I got here right now.

7) Decent fall/spring gloves. I have really nice ski gloves, but now that Erin and I have to walk a dog in the freezing cold it would be have nice to have something to warm my hands... It would also be nice while walking to work I guess.

8) Anything that is a selfish waste of money, but things that are great to do... Gift card to a really nice restaurant I wouldn't normally spend money at. A nice bottle of wine, vodka, or tequila. Some really good cooking ingredients that are expensive sesame oil, olive oil, spices...

9) A duplicate of Erin so I have have two of her. Then when she is busy or at work I can still hang out with her, not to mention how often we could travel if we added on a 3rd income. Then when Erin is gone in Honduras I would still have another Erin to spend time with. Your all smart get working on a duplicator, Calvin and Hobbes made one why can't you.

10) A time machine... to many reasons to even begin mentioning here.

I found this and interesting read on alternative gifts for kids...

Gifts for kids... that pay off in the future.

Not something I have to worry about but since Erin and I were working on our xmas lists yesterday I thought it was worth posting...

I know I owe a real post sometime soon I have over a month of unshared thoughts boiling up in me, but for now another shout from an article will have to be cool enough...

Myspace Offensive

A quick thank you Shout to Dom and Nicole for coming over and getting some pictures for me to send out... Hopefully I will get to use them sometime soon.

In the mean time my project is supposed to go live the 13th and I have been putting in over 12 hours ever day this week, I worked last Sunday, and I expecting to have to work this weekend, so hopefully all the hard work pays off.

until next time my friends...

peace, love, and happiness,
Dan "I am sorry I probably haven't called you back" Man

Well I am glad that I stopped donating to MADD, they are not working towards better transportation and education and safer roads. They are just pretty much against anything with alcohol. Anyways it turns out 81% of the money you donate to it just goes towards running and administration... I bet some MADD CEO is getting paid a million dollars for his non profit charity, bit me MADD no more money for you.

MADD uses only 19 cents of each dollar donated for charitable work.

have you donated to anything this year? It is time for me to make my yearly xmas donations... Got any new charities in mind I should look at?

apparently I am mad at various associations today...

The RIAA is shameless, while trying to fight for copyright to go from 50 years to almost a hundred in the UK they have apparently dead artist fake signatures saying they support it being extended...

Riaa is shameless

I will always miss you.

I wasn't close to many of my grandparents which is unfortunate. I didn't get to know many of them very well. I did get to know my last living grandparent who past away recently. I felt like I was extra close to him because we were both engineers and had similar interests. I guess the things he did and studied will not ever hit my ear for another 50 years (classified)... I loved him, respected him, and after learning he read my blog and my internet life was a little afraid of what he would read! I miss and love my grandfather but I guess now one of the only people I was afraid of not respecting me has past... and he did love and respect me. I have a new future... I am sorry for all those I offend, but I am who I am, and I love honesty and just putting thoughts out there...

Grandfather... I miss you with so many... thoughts and conversations I never will know how to express it...

I guess this is what I needed to say... awhile ago... I am late, but here I am finally saying I loved you and I feel like I will make you proud.

I can't say much for obvious reasons, but it has begun... I am on a one way ticket to somewhere...

BooYaaa

I had an issue with java and hibernate returning a null date.

java hibernate java.sql.SQLException: Value '0000-00-00' can not be represented as java.sql.Date

This just took a little longer to find the fix on a google search than I thought it should have so I post what I ended up doing to resolve the situation here:

?zeroDateTimeBehavior=convertToNull

you add this to your jdbc connection url and it will convert the 0000-00-00 to the proper type for java to work with.

More info here:

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/cj-upgrading.html#cj-upgrading-3-0-to-3-1

thanks to this thread, which had many other suggestions, but most of them were not helpful, but the one above saved my day.

http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=649520&messageID=3824019

you can add this on the end of your hibernate connection file, like so...
jdbc:mysql://{DB_IPADDRESS}:{DB_PORT}/{DB_NAME}?zeroDateTimeBehavior=convertToNull&profileSql=true

No one is here in my office everyone went home because of the snow.

It is freezing outside.

I hate moving.

I hate that I might have to move again soon.

I am sick of traveling around.

I am tired.

I haven't started Xmas shopping yet.

We did have a great welcome to Colorado party for Ben.... but moving and dealing with all the things I need to do. I have been to stressed out lately and I need some just chill out and hang out time... Ahhhh

So there is a quick little post, I don't know how or when I will get things done by January 10th.

Much thanks goes out to Dom's dad for the cool van I borrowed.

peace

Merry Xmas I hope that your surrounded by the ones you love.

An interesting year is coming to an end with far more major life changes than I would have guessed. This time last year it seemed I was uncertain of much, but looking forward with excitement to what I could do... It seems this next year I will begin to see what really happens with my life and how many of these changes will play out... It should be interesting.

To my family and friends, I love you all... happy holidays.