Colorado Melons

Today Jack, David and I worked a car wash at Farmer’s State Bank for the High Plains Little League. Yes, it was 33F, snowing, and raining but we were there with about 20 other families and a continuous line of cars just waiting to be attacked by all those cold, wet Little Leaguers with sponges.

During one break in the line, I took my car through to help keep everyone active and moving in the cold. The pictures are from my cell phone.

The reason for the madness? Proceeds from this event are going to Garrett Ross, an 8 year old boy on Jack’s LL Rangers team who received his first heart transplant at 7 months, and his second in 2008. He’s been fighting with some complications and the whole community is pulling for him. His family’s story is here.

Cowboy Up for Garrett!

With the 19mph winds turning today’s soggy 37F into a bone-chilling 27, the weather here would’ve been more conducive to Football than Baseball, but the High Plains Little League Minor Rangers & Twins toughed it out in Falcon for their first game of the season.

Slugging their way through what could have arguably been called the “All Time Best Game in Little League History”,  the Rangers’ catch of the Twins’ last inning pop-fly would ensure this one went into the books as a tie.

These are some tough little dudes for sure, but we’ve also got to appreciate the coaches, ump, scorekeeper and a myriad of other volunteers who could’ve been warm and comfy at home on a day like today, but chose otherwise and decided to give their valuable time to making sure these kids have an opportunity to:
“Play Ball!”

Click to Play Video

While organizing some files, I came across a directory of the “Insider” newsletters that I published for a couple of years in real paper & sent out to about 3,500 people every 45 days. Those files revived many good memories of our initial transition to Colorado, a transition that many of you helped make a very pleasurable experience.

Having been able to try something new that I’d had no experience with whatsoever in an area where I had no contacts was a daunting experience at first; but the realization that one could do quite well simply by doing the right thing and treating people decorously was another real-time reinforcement of a closely held belief system.

The company in which I had developed many good relationships here has since changed hands and no longer exists, but fortunately some of those relationships continue to grow.

The actual layout may or may not be a bit off depending on your program and/or version, but here’s a sample of a couple of those newsletters:

Volume 03 Issue 01

Volume 03 Issue 03

‘ picked David up from a sleep-over this morning, took the family to breakfast and then went to sign the boys up for High Plains Little League since their Basketball season has just come to an end. We were politely greeted by the person behind the first table as we entered the registration area and were directed to progress from table to table where the boys would get fitted for shirts at one stop, meet some vendors at another, and eventually finalize registration and pay at the end. Simple enough, so Mom and I began to make the round with our two eager-to-play boys.

We no sooner get to the second table where a man walks up and asks us what we’ll be volunteering for. I open-mindedly and ready to pitch-in ask him, “Whaddaya Got?” and he starts listing them, “Coach, Asst Coach, Team Mom, etc” and in the course of the conversation informs us that “I’m not asking you to volunteer. I’m telling you. There’s none of that asking stuff.”  Continue Reading »

From the simple, self-taught beginnings of a using the outputs from a PC to drive stepper motors and receive positional feedback through the LPT (what a printer does in 2 dimensions) even an early-90’s hack was able to control three gear-motor drivers to within .001″ by translating an image into G code and then doing little more but sitting back.

We all know that .001 inch isn’t “all that” in the machine industry. The three motors were intended for a gantry table for cutting and welding, but unfortunately, the machine side of that project was never completed due to our unplanned transition to Colorado life almost 8 years ago; but it’s no accident that we’re in the perfect environment to employ that same capacity in our current vocation on a much larger scale.

It’s easily conceivable that certain triggers can be placed into a digital process for specific equipment, taking multiple – seemingly simultaneous – corrective actions quicker than any human individual could process & then physically react. It has become a common practice, whether in aerospace, aviation, your automobile, or processing plants.

I was talking with someone the other day and a statement was made to the effect of,

Whatever the process, computers don’t care what they’re controlling.

That couldn’t be more true. Sending little packets of one’s and zero’s from this server for your computer’s browser to interpret into ciphers and images is the same to a computer as sending them to a valve controller or conveyor belt servo-motor. The end result is different, but the process isn’t.

All that being said, I still enjoy hammering out the code necessary to do these pages. If you don’t already know, this entire site is a database backed – not static html. Your browser interprets what it retrieves and you get the html markup, but it’s all retrieved on my end from a series of databases.

On my end for example, the beginning of this page looks like:

<?php get_header(); ?>

<div id=”content_box”>

<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/l_sidebar.php’); ?>

<div id=”content”>

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

and so on. I don’t see the actual layout unless I want to. Even without knowing PHP, you can pretty-much interpret it by reading through it. It’s easier than French, “Laissez le bon temps rouler!”

<?php get_header(); ?>
Get the Page Header

<div id=”content_box”>
Everything in the following division of the page should use the criteria listed under the “content box” I.D. section of my separate (and unseen by you) style sheet.

<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/l_sidebar.php’); ?>
Then include the left sidebar using the selected template (or “theme”).

<div id=”content”>
Now use the “Content” section of the style sheet for anything from font size and color, to image alignment, etc.

<?php if (have_posts()) : ?>
“IF” there’s a post, do the following – later on there’s an “Else” in case “If” criteria is not met. Since we obviously “have posts”, we continue through in this loop with:

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
While we have posts: Post them!

and so on down the page to the “get footer” php statement. All in milliseconds from me to wherever you are… and the server doesn’t know or care what we do with it and whether someone else sees the back end or not, its there. It’s the foundation and like anything else, should be done to the best of ones ability whether anyone is looking or not. Poorly written code wastes resources in the same way as does you’re inefficient hot-water heater or poorly tuned automobile.

For the human mind is seldom at stay: If you do not grow better, you will most undoubtedly grow worse.
~Samuel Richardson

Regarding the Template/Theme:

The “header” will come from whatever “template” is being used and can be changed accordingly, but the “content” will remain the same throughout. I had taken the Theme Switcher out for a while because it was causing some issues with other aspects I’d been working on.

If the layout I’ve been using in the interim has been acting funky with your particular browser or you just like one of the previous ones better, you’ll find that you can again choose one that might suit you better in the sidebar.

Thanks for visiting.