HE IS HERE

Goals, week ending 3/5/2006

1. Read John 15-Acts 6


2. Get KeyNote and the mystery file sent over to my computer at work so I can work on the novel in my free time... and more importantly, STAY OFF THE WEB


3. Get the bookshelf in the bedroom packed up.


4. Again, do the bookmark thing at work. It's just an HTML file, how hard can it be to edit?


5. Call an apartment finder service to see if they can find us a house for rent in the ward, if Sister Curtis doesn't have anything... turns out our month-to-month rent is going to be a bit higher than planned, and we would much rather be out of this place than have to worry about coughing up $700 a month plus assemble a deposit and higher monthly rent for a house.

That's it for this week, nothing too ambitious since we are still going to be pretty busy... the 28th is the Young Ambassadors at UA Centennial Hall, and Saturday afternoon we have an eye appointment... the good thing is that I think Wednesday night is going to be completely free, as well as Thursday and Friday, so this will be a nice change of pace from ultra-busy last week.

Week In Review, 2/25/2006

1. I did indeed read the Bible again. Looking back on it, that's probably the most successful of my goals.


2. I've called the help desk at work and still do not have access to the mailboxes I need to post the computer desk. Working on it, though.


3. I did a little work on the character relationship pages, nothing major though. I am probably going to set myself up with KeyNote at work, and then work on it a bit there, since that is where I have more "free time."


4. Didn't stay away from them at all. :-( See "boredom and how I can fix it".


5. Didn't do the bookmark thing, either.


6. I did practice both of the piano songs, though, and they came out really, really nicely! We only wound up playing "Mad World", though, not that I'm complaining! I did add a piano part to "Forever" as well.


7. The "Musician's Friend" bag went over very, very well. Kept me organized for the show and made setting up and tearing down a breeze. We have a few more shows coming up in the next few weeks, too, and having that around will be a HUGE help.


8. Still working on the weeding out of the sick and the poor. I have brought home a whole slew of boxes from work and the practice space to help with the packing. Our move situation has become critical (target date is exactly four weeks), and the more we can get packed earlier, the better.


9. Didn't get that done. I am going to say that it is no longer a priority until after the move.


10. Home teaching is going to happen today. Didn't have the time last week because I forgot about Elden's birthday party.

Wow, we had a bunch of things going on this week! Still managed to get some stuff done, although not as much as I would have liked to. It's OK, just need to reevaluate my priorities and focus more on my goals.

Board generator algorithm/pseudocode

[This post is subject to editing until the algorithm is perfect. -M]

Problem: 16 6-sided dice with random letters on them. Assign these letters to a 4x4 grid, with only one letter from each die in play.

Solution:

1. Assign each die to a one-dimensional array


2. Assign the board to a two-dimensional, 4x4 array of letters


3. Order the dice in a linked list.


4. Generate a random number from 1-[# of dice in array]. Remove that die from the field.


5. With the selected die, generate a random number from 1-6 to determine the letter on that die. Place that letter in the next available grid location.


6. Return to step 4 until the supply of dice is exhausted.

EDIT 2/27/2006:
That's what I planned, but this is what I did:
I didn't want to mess around with linked lists, because, well, my memory's not too strong on that, so I fudged it a bit, but I fudged it effectively. Basically, instead of a linked list, I made a seed string 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP', then did a loop counting down to 1 from 16, and chose a random number between 1 and whatever the loop value was. I then took that letter number from the seed string, added it to another string, and deleted the letter from the seed string.
This resulted in the letters being scrambled. I then used that string, selected a die from the array, selected a random letter from that die, and put that into the array. I got some nice random grids, and so far, everything is working well.

Sure, I'm busy, but...

Is it worth the $24.95 to get Boggle for my computer with the graphics and definitions, or can I just write a simple version in Turbo Pascal for myself? I already have the board coded, I just need to

a) generate a board (fairly easy)
b) generate a board-solving algorithm

Nice options would be: save the board, high scores, etc. I figure I can still play on paper and keep a manual timer, since I've never been good at coding that stuff anyway. But a board generator and solver should be pretty easy (especially since I already have the word-finder in place, and the MAMMOTH WORD LIST OF AWESOMENESS).

I think we have a project on our hands, here. Check back for updates.

Goals, week ending 2/25/2006

1. Read John 6-14


2. And starting with goals I did not complete last week... get the computer desk posted at work. Probably have to call the help desk for that one.


3. Finish the character relationships, and use that to update the character profile pages. I've worked on that a bit today, however, I think I'm going to have to change the outcome of the book, since something isn't exactly clicking.


4. As a corollary to that, I am going to do something: STAY OFF OF THE WRESTLING WEBSITES FOR A WEEK. It really doesn't matter to me, or affect my life at all, what happens, and I don't watch it at all, but that seems to be where I spend most of my time when I am bored. Cut those out and see what happens.


5. Do the bookmark thing.


6. Get better at the piano songs for the show on Saturday!


7. Assemble a "musician survival kit" like I used to have when I was gigging more frequently -- I dug out my old gym bag for the camping trip, so I can either use that, or use the smaller green gym bag that I was taking to the gym with me. I need: spare strings, some picks, keep my effects pedals in there, another amp cord, some 9V batteries, and I think that's it, actually. Oh, a plug strip, too.


8. Continue to weed out stuff I don't need or want to bring with me to the next residence.


9. I mentioned last post that camping has got me very interested in survival stuff (again) -- what I would like to do is work out a time with Sister Mortensen where she can show me, or at least describe, what she does to keep her storage system current, and how she makes the most of it.


10. Need to get at least two families home taught this week.

That's not too much, right? Most of this only should take a few minutes, it's just finding (and using) the time to get it done.

Goal review, week ending 2/18/05

1. Read the Bible again. I really enjoy that, because it helps me get in the mood for church, and it does make my week go a lot better.


2. Yes, I survived the campout. Took us a while to get to the site (near Green Valley), but we got set up, cooked burgers over a campfire, and just had a good time. I purchased a sleeping bag and pillow on sale from the local sporting goods store, and was able to load up my old missionary grocery backpack with some good stuff. I walked to the church from the apartment (just under a mile), met everybody, and we were off. I woke up at 4:45 (my usual time, argh) and got up and walked around outside for a bit... it was so clear and bright out, it was really peaceful and amazing. This morning, before setting off, the boys played paintball, and then we had a gun safety class (it was a Boy Scouts campout, after all) -- I got to shoot four different kinds of guns, and it was not as bad as I thought it would. I still have respect for guns, that's for sure, and have seen what they can do (well, to cans... and to one person), but I'm not as opposed to them as I used to be. I am definitely interested in the whole "survival" aspect of camping, and not just using it as a recreational experience. Got me a nice sunburn, too -- in the middle of February! That's worse than the one I got in November. At least I had my winter hat pulled down over my ears, so it's just my lower face and neck that got mildly burned, but still... in February!


3. The Cannery was also a good experience, although it is a shame, because some of our youth don't really seem to have respect for their leaders. Oh well... that will come and I can only hope and pray to do my best.


4. For some reason, I can't post to the classifieds at work. I need to fix that. I do have the ad all ready to go, just need to put it on there!


5. Did absolutely no writing this week -- I've been sick and not really with it. I would like to make more productive use of my "down time" during the day when it's just me, and Elizabeth is asleep, instead of just aimlessly surfing the Net.


6. No progress on the bookmarks since I spent most of the time this week working from home, due to being sick.


7. Somewhat learned the songs on the piano, but I need to listen to the songs. I have a CD of them -- somewhere.

Project results - 10 letter words

That took entirely not long at all.

Out of 20,000+ ten letter words in the word list that I was using, there are 1,104 words which are made up of ten unique letters. My co-worker will be surprised, I think.

Ongoing project update

I saw a list of Rolling Stone's 500 Top 500 Albums Ever, and decided to start work on that, one or two albums at a time, and see what I can do. I'm using the public library as a resource for this project. I went through and marked all of the albums that I currently own (I'm keeping the list on my wiki), and it's kind of depressing, that I own next to nothing of them. What do you mean, Rush isn't on there at all? Very depressing.

At least my favorite rap group of all time, Public Enemy, has three albums on there. I feel good about that, and don't really need the excuse to listen to PE.

Currently I have checked out Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" and Sinatra's "In the Wee Small Hours." I've never really listened to much Sinatra, despite my heritage, and WOW, this is really good. Of course, many would say it's his all-time best album, and I don't blame them. I'm about halfway through it, and it's a keeper.

--

Another project is, someone at work has asked me to think of words which are 10 letters long but do not have any repeat letters, i.e. 10 unique letters. This is as good a time as any to whip up the old Boggle project program, and this isn't going to take any four hours to get done. I'll have the results of that one up shortly, I expect.

Goals, week ending 2/18/2006

1. First goal this week is to read Luke 20-John 5.


2. Second goal, and most important to me, is to survive the campout with the Young Men on Friday and Saturday. This is my first time camping, and it promises to be fun - plus, all the other Young Men leaders are having a good time at my expense, since I am the rookie. I need to bring some sort of chips for sustenance.


3. Also, the Priests Quorum is working at the cannery on Wednesday night. This is good, because it's closer to the band practice space, which I think is also on Wednesday night, even though Daniel will be in Minnesota.


4. Goal is to post the computer desk on the classifieds at work. We'll start at $100 for an asking price and see what happens from there.


5. Finish my character interactions for the mystery. Part of this will be defining a stronger character for the detective, as I am not including him in the character interactions, since he is not a "regular" part of the community.


6. Since I will be working from home as well as from Intuit, take some time and fix all of the bookmarks between the two places, then get them standardized so everything is the same between both places, and I don't lose links or passwords, or anything like that. I really enjoy the idea of having my most frequently used links in bookmarks, anyway, since I really don't like the idea of having to hunt through my address bar history to see where I've been. Perhaps once I get the .html page ready for bookmarks, I can load it to the wiki -- I will need one for FF and one for IE, since there are places I can go in IE that I can't go in FF, namely, CRIS. Wow, this is a long entry, but it's more my motivations behind the goal than the actual goal itself.


7. Radioburn has a concert on the 25th! There are two songs that I need to learn that have piano in them. Let's have the piano part at least somewhat worked out by Wednesday.

And that's it!

The week in review, week ending 2/11/2006

How can I post a review of goals that I didn't even make?

Here's what I accomplished this week:

• Read Luke 9-19.


• Cleaned off and got a nice photo of the computer desk to post on the classifieds at work tomorrow


• Picked up a new video card for my monitor; now when I work from home, I actually will have the real estate on my screen to have more than one window visible at one time.


• Got a whole bunch of software installed on the other computer, and got Windows activated. The drum machine still doesn't work to my satisfaction, but then again, I'm not entirely convinced that it's not something with my MIDI configuration.


• Began defining relationships between the characters in my murder mystery. It's interesting, because I'm starting to see the people really come to life, which is a good thing. This was probably the best first step for me to do, before outlining the story, because each character's interaction will help move the story along (of course).


• Discovered and implemented a list server at Ta-da Lists to help me keep track of things that I need to do, especially with the move coming up. I really enjoy keeping all of this data on the Internet, it makes it about 1,000 times easier to share it between the two computers. More on this in next week's goals.


• Made some posts on NADB. Feels good, although I'd like it to be a bit more highbrow. Hey, writing is writing, right?

Weekly goals in review, 2/5/06

Review of goals accomplished this week...

1. Yep, read the Bible. Yep, on Sunday.


2. I don't know exactly how much I got done as far as outlining goes, but I did get some character sketches done. Also, getting those character sketches done has given me an idea as to what characters I need, and how they will relate to each other.


3. No gym this week.


4. First hard drive crashed, so no Battery. Unfortunately. But I was able to reinstall Windows and get everything set up, and I've also experimented with some really interesting VST plugins. So, long story short, the bedroom studio is set up again.


5. Completely spaced on the bookshelves and computer desk.