To be continued...

Check out my blog’s final resting place: http://www.signaturesterling.com/blog/

There’s just no place like home…

Good Times with GridView's

Don't worry GridViewGuy...I feel your pain - http://www.forums.gridviewguy.com/ShowPost.aspx?postID=350

Bootcamp Character

Every once in a while I stumble onto a personality so bizarrely charismatic and fascinating, it’s difficult to avoid being captivated by their presence; much the same way one cannot look away from the gory road-remnants of what used to be a human being while driving by a horrific traffic accident. I encountered one such personality in an unlikely location: while attending a Microsoft Professional Developer Certification two week boot-camp course in Atlanta, Georgia earlier this year (a separate topic that deserves a blog thread all its own, but we’ll reserve that for another time).

The man they call ‘Chester Flake’ was not only my Microsoft boot-camp instructor, an accomplished developer, Database Administrator, and overall .NET expert-turned-trainer, but has also dabbled seriously in policitics, stand-up comedy, acting, real estate, owned a slew of businesses, and all with more than enough personality to fill up a large building.

Sure, we wasted some classroom time listening to his fantastic (and remarkably true) tales, but honestly I was grateful because without his daily bizarre antics, I stood little chance of remaining conscious during class since, true to its ‘Boot-camp’ title, the course came complete with severe sleep deprivation and hideous study schedules. In addition, the man they call Chester Flake was a fountain of .NET knowledge and there was little I could quiz him about that he hadn’t already encountered in his own development experiences and could answer to. As such, he was able to side-step many of the tedious, fundamental elements of the curriculum and present more advanced, highly tangible and applicable lessons for those of us who were already developers, making very efficient use of the classroom time we had and reserving the fundamentals for individual learning.

All-in-all, if you’re ever faced with the choice of a mundane hoo-hum instructor to lead a course you’re attending or a slightly insane, completely maniacal one; I suggest the nut for 2 reasons. First, you will find it much easier to stay awake during class and second, chances are he or she is very good at what they do since otherwise they would’ve been terminated long ago for offending the office staff with their off-color and eccentric sense of humor.

Things that make me go...wuh?!

Would someone pleeeeez explain to me what is up with police officers in this city?! I have been pulled over more times in my short 2 year residence here than the rest of my entire life while residing in Tucson, Arizona. But it’s not just the frequency with which I get pulled over, it’s each and every officers’ condescending, offensive, and just generally impolite demeanor virtually every time I interact with them.

Some of you may, at this point, mistakenly dismiss me as nothing more than one of those speed-demon, criminally negligent cop-haters, but nothing could be further from the truth (except maybe a bit of the speed-demon part). I’m one of those unusual people who happens to agree with the laws we have in place (or at least recognize their necessity to preserve my security) and, with the exception of the occasional speeding or parking violation, I refrain from ANY criminal activity of ANY kind. Furthermore, I have never had anything but the utmost respect, admiration, and reverence for individuals who put their lives on the line everyday to protect my way of life.

In addition, I never, in my 27 years of living in Tucson, felt disrespected by a single police officer I interacted with nor did I feel badgered or profiled. I have suffered each of these while interacting with San Diegan officers on multiple occasions since relocating here. It’s common knowledge that any career field is going to attract some bad apples, but the volume, frequency, and misery of my interactions with police officers in this city has led me to believe the majority of its officers have adopted this unpleasant demeanor and approach to interacting with their citizens.

I’m well aware of the disparity between populations and subsequent crime rates among the cities of Tucson and San Diego and can only assume that the latter’s harsh urban environment is what has shaped these good-intentioned officers of the law to become so jaded, bitter, and cynical towards the general population. I can only imagine the devious criminal scum and life threatening scenarios San Diego police officers must be faced with on a daily basis.

But, unfortunately, some of San Diegans’ ill-tempered attitudes towards police officers (like my own) are self-fulfilling prophecies in the form of a defensive reactions against the officers’ inappropriate aggression and mis-use of authority. Any socially-skilled individual will agree that it’s necessary to adjust one’s demeanor and aggression level depending on the details of the situation at hand. Why is, then, that I feel like a convicted felon nearly every time I interact for any reason with a San Diego police officer? Why should I, a strictly law-abiding and highly productive citizen be treated in such a manner? I am always nothing but absolutely respectful during all my encounters with police officers, in spite of my rapidly developing aversion to them; why should I not receive the same respect I’m providing?

It’s tragic that, with all the adversity already directed at a police officers courtesy of the plentiful number of legitimate criminals out there, officers must also endure offensive behavior from law-abiding, respectful citizens who are simply irritated by the authorities’ unnecessarily abrupt, condescending, and patronizing manner. Furthermore, such superfluous adversity is easily avoided by remembering that, in spite of the excess number of scandalous deviants, most of us are still morally-upright, virtuous, and honest citizens just going about our day who want nothing more than to be treated with the same respect we give. After all, those among us who agree with the laws and their enforcement (or at least their necessity for our secure way of life) are ultimately on the same team and serving the same purpose as those in law enforcement, so why treat each other as such?

Gaaaaiiit Uuuurr Paaaawwwpkorn!!!

I don't think I could ever be successful in a position requiring predominantly sales skills. I'm too much of a WYSIWYG [whiz-ee-wig; 'What You See Is What You Get']. That's not to say that my opinion of successful sales people is that they're a bunch of big superficial liars, but I do believe sales arena success requires a certain level of embellishment along with a high degree of (sometimes forced) enthusiasm. And I just don't got it.

That said, I have a tremendous amount of respect for those that have found success in a field requiring, not only superb communication skills, but also confidence, competence, ridiculous hours, and the 24/7 enthusiasm of a beauty pageant contestant; I get exhausted just watching them.

Well...I do DEE-CLAY-AIRE...

First, I must apologize to my frequent blog-reader [singular] for the recent lack of new postings. Unfortunately, my company's firewall recently added www.blogger.com to their 'restricted list' which means no more workplace postings. Nevertheless...I will not be silenced! "The Man's" futile attempts to squelch my free-speech frenzy shall not succeed; my voice will continue to echo across the mountaintops of Blog-land!

Anyhoot...onto the bloggin' topic: The savage .NET 2.0 battle rages between declarative server control initiation versus programmatic server control initiation and maintenance. Here is one such fellow blogger touting his preference for the pragmatic, programmatic methodology.

And here's my 2 cents: When first introduced to asp.NET 2.0, I, too, found the declarative server tags and DataSourceControl-populating wizards somewhat disconcerting, creepy, and a little too Dreamweaver for my taste. "I'm a real programmer", I kept thinking, "I've dredged my way through the ugliest, most-cryptic of programming coding (that's right, I've had to work with Prolog) and I certainly DON'T need any wizard to do my programming for me." I was suffering from what the professionals like to call 'Old-Skool-izm'.

Relatively soon, it became quite clear which side of the coin Microsoft's developers had contributed vastly superior resources towards planning, implementation and even documentation efforts; the declarative side. After MANY frustrating scenarios (and multiple blog postings) working with a variety of server controls in a stubborn, strictly programmatic manner, I found myself fixing many of the inexplicable, unintuitive server control symptoms and behaviors by simply switching to declarative mechanisms.

As time rolled on, and continued to plunge headfirst into the code-reducing, time-saving declarative devices, I found myself wondering why I had so fervently resisted them for so long. Certainly there are times when a programmatic method is necessary for a certain echelon of dynamic server control behavior, but when it's not; why write more code than I have to? And furthermore, why not allow Microsoft's framework to invisibly do the heavy lifting for me in terms of maintaining a control's state?

On that note, I recently discovered what I considered to be a somewhat obscure ViewState symptom of populating a server control programmatically rather than declaratively. If you rely on a server control's view state to retain its data across postbacks, so that you’re not required to continuously re-load the control every time the page refreshes, asp will store your entire data set for that control in view state (that’s about 136 lines x 1024 characters worth of view state for a single DropDownList control populated with approximately 5000 records). This is because all changes made to server controls via the code-behind file are lumped in with asp’s interpreted "user-initiated control changes" and so are preserved within view state rather than stored server-side.

Alternatively, declaratively binding a server control to a DataSource object, such as a SQLDataSource or an ObjectDataSource, will store the control’s associated dataset server-side eliminating the size-able view state that will travel to/from server and users' browsers for each page request.

Similarly, any property setting changes made to controls in a programmatic manner, such as the control's styles, maxLength, databindings, etc will ALSO be recorded and maintained within the page's view state. Is one's view state really a consideration when we're talking about view state hogging rich server controls such as the GridView? Probably not, but it's food for thought.

Hip-hip...Aaaaaarrrraaaaayyyyy!!

There is simply nothing more fulfilling and gratifying in the world of software development than solving a tough problem with an elegant, robust and scaleable solution.

Welllll...except for googling your problem, standing on the shoulders of other programming geniuses, and using their elegant, robust, and scaleable solutions to solve your own tough problem. Programmers are inherently lazy and I'm no exception. So when I stumbled onto this little URL gem describing an elegant, scaleable, robust and plug-n-play-like method to providing integer array parameters to a SQL stored procedure; I thought I'd share it with my fellow engineers.

TSQL Integer Arrays

I'd be interested to see the performance variance in high volume queries (like say oh, 40,000 records) between utilizing this method as compared with just providing a giant string delimited varchar parameter, concatenating, and executing it.

Psssshhaw...A man's world - hah!!

Sure, I took my share of Women's Studies classes at the University because, much like the sociology courses, they were some easy upper division credits. I even briefly considered minoring in the subject, but, while I found some of the topics to be quite fascinating and educational, I noticed a common theme, nay, a common atmosphere among them all:
Woe is me, a minority, living in this cruel WASP world! How will I ever survive? More importantly, how did I ever make it this far?!

I believe there is a time and place for empathetic sympathy, but not when it comes to one's minoric [copyright, patent pending] gender. In my opinion, adversity just makes one stronger, smarter, faster, and more driven than everyone around them who got there without facing their own comparable adversity.

Would I choose adversity if given the option? Honestly, I don't know. Does that make me crazy? Maybe, but I have to consider the fact that others doubting my ability or criticizing my efforts generally just makes me try that much harder and want it that much more. So, would I have achieved as much without some adversity? Honestly, I don't know.

Male-centric arenas I have already invaded and subsequently conquered:

• Software Engineering - Roughly a 1:20 ratio in computer sciences' course enrollment.
• Motorheadism - I can personally attest to the lack of female presence within this realm. In the 3 times I visited the drag strip with my car, I only witnessed one other female racer among countless males. The racetrack course I attended also contained 1 additional female other than myself among approximately 50 males.
  
• Definite and perpetual financial independence - "All the honeys who make ur money...throw your hands up at me!".
  
• An emphasis on one's career/educational development and accomplishments for personal fulfillment and gratification rather than only one's personal life/experiences - Ladies, let's be honest. Despite what your college transcript indicates, how many girls out there were/are really pursuing their 'MRS.' degrees?
  
• The Weight Room Squat Rack - I've never seen another girl doing free-squats at my gym and, judging by the expression(s) on my fellow lifters' faces, neither have they. Sure, it took some strategizing to figure out how to 'manhandle' the 45lb Olympic bar above my shoulders, but now I'm a regular pro.

Future male-centric arenas I plan to invade and conquer:

• The motorcyle portion of Motorheadism.
  
• Software Architecture - I don't know a single female software architect - all the more reason to subdue and conquer.
• Stand-up urination [kidding...I can already do this; just not very accurately].
  

The purpose of this bloggish narrative is not to tout my own ferocious drive or my personal accomplishments, but rather to inspire other to create their own. I've pursued and conquered these arenas for no other reason than they piqued my interest and I was fortunate enough to have a father who never treated me like a daughter, but instead like a child, and a mother who worked hard to keep from squelching my fierce independence (and occasional stubbornness). Everyone should be as lucky as me. But if you're not, who cares?!

Never, ever, ever, ever, ever limit yourself according to someone else's standards or limitations. If you have an interest or a curiosity, as non-status-quo as it may seem, pursue it. If you don't understand it or are intimidated by it, start asking questions or find some education. Bottom line is, your only limitations are the ones you impose upon yourself.

Offensive Omnipotent Oo-glers

We've all seen them before (or more appropriately been seen by them); those guys who so blatantly and fervently oo-gle that a simple 2 minute conversation is disconcerting. I'm not talking about the testosterone-driven, 20 something's who gawk at the chick in the bar wearing the barely there skirt and halter top; she's aspiring for such attention.

The dudes I'm talking about have wandering eyes while I'm talking to them, wearing a turtleneck and wool pants. I don't understand it, these individuals come from all walks of life and some are quite attractive and popular with a very active, opposite-sex, social calendar; so what is it? Were these creatures absent from life's sociology course the day the instructor taught that women are no longer simple physical objects and that women have been actively contributing to society well beyond a sexual capacity for virtually a century now?

In spite of these obvious elements, such men seem biologically driven to focus in on a woman's physique, even in the midst of a totally inappropriate and unrelated atmosphere. They behave as though they've just been released from a 15 year, abstinence-enforced prison sentence...everyday! I don't get it, and as a professional female; I find it highly annoying.

There are times when, dressed for a girls-night-out occasion; it's apparent I'm receptive to such attention, but Monday-Friday; when I'm at work or the gym or walking my dog - it's NOT okay to oo-gle. It's distracting, offensive, and vulgar.

There are thousands of other men around me who seem to have intuitively figured out when oo-gling is okay and when it's not (or they just fake it well) - what's with these stragglers?

The GridView's GREAT From Up Here

I recently found myself frolicking in the land of .NET 2.0 SqlDataSources and editable GridViews. After reading numerous excerpts touting the flexibility and ease with which web developers can now achieve virtually Excel-like interfaces between users and their data, I was stoked to try it all out.

In retrospect, I will certainly award snaps to those MS peepz for their notable effort towards predicting and facilitating the common-place task of giving web application users discriminating access to database stored information. I can only imagine the daunting task of attempting to allow for all derivations of developers' preferences (Lord knows we're opinionated if nothing else) while at the same time maintaining a minimal level of Integrated Development Environment complexity in order to achieve some element of intuition.

That said, I had a bit of trouble getting my (basic) editable GridView to work utilizing VS's all-encompassing, plug 'n play, SqlDataSource functionality. The predominant factor in my troubles were the subtle differences with which VS handles defining one's SqlDataSource select/update functions via referencing stored procedures versus defining them with embedding SQL statements directly within Visual Studio's SqlDataSource configuration wizard.

I'm happy to report that after a good night's sleep and some professional help, however, I worked my way through the cryptic behavior and resolved all the issues. Here are the 'GOTCHAS' I encountered, in the hopes of alleviating [some of] a fellow developer's trauma while exploring the wide world of editable GridView's.

Behavior #1: No errors being generated and no exceptions being thrown, but the GridView's update function just doesn't do anything. I encountered this problem when the condition within my Update stored procedure was not being met [WHERE MAIN_ID = @MAIN_ID]. Unfortunately the reason(s) the condition was failing weren't obvious.

• Reason #1: As stupid as I feel admitting this, I'm going to do it for the sake of others who could be making a similar error. I wasn't including the MAIN_ID field within my GridView's select query. VS did not generate any type of error in spite of the fact that I was declaring a parameter named @MAIN_ID within my Update function that was not included as part of my GridView's select query, but maybe that's so they can allow for extraneous GridView column additions. At any rate, my 'where' condition failed in this case (obviously!) since it likely had a value of 'NULL' for the @MAIN_ID input parameter value.
• Reason #2: If you're referencing a stored procedure for your GridView's select query, you're likely missing the necessary DataKeyNames attribute value within your GridView element. At a minimum, this attribute needs to hold the name of the field(s) you're using within the where clause of your update statement (in my case, I need DataKeyNames="MAIN_ID"). From what I can tell, VS will auto-populate this attribute if you're embedding the SQL directly within its SqlDataSource wizard with the names of any primary key columns it encounters, but no such auto-population will occur, nor will any errors/exceptions be generated when you're referencing your own stored procedure.

Behavior #2: A 'Procedure or function [your procedure's name here] has too many arguments specified.' exception gets thrown when you attempt to update a record within the Gridview.

• Another dissimilar behavior characteristic between using embedding SQL versus a referenced stored procedure is VS's ability to automatically determine the fields that should be included as parameters within the GridView's update statement. When using embedded SQL, the update parameters will be automatically limited to those elements included within your SqlDataSource's element regardless of the number of BoundFields you have listed within your GridView. However, when referencing a stored procedure every BoundField that does not contain a ReadOnly attribute value of 'True' (and BTW it's default value is 'False') will be included as a parameter and sent to your stored procedure REGARDLESS of what you have listed as . This seems highly un-intuitive to me, too, but it's an easy fix once you know that's what's going on. You can either change each of the BoundFields that you don't want included as update parameters to have a ReadOnly attribute value of 'true' or you can go ahead an include their column names as input parameters within your stored procedure (@CURRENT_STATUS_DESCRIPTION) and just do nothing with them.

As a sidenote, here are a couple of incorrect/outdated solutions I encountered on other forums and wasted time pursuing:

• Solution #1: The = comparison issue. One forum claimed that if you were including nullable columns within your GridView and attempted to update a column with a current value of NULL, the GridView's update procedure would attempt a = comparison, which would return false and halt the execution. I found no such behavior in my .NET 2.0 Framework and SQL Server 2000 configuration.
• Solution #2: Anything to do with the value contained within SqlDataSource's ConflictDetection attribute. After wasting time on this one, I wound up using the default value (easily achievable by just omitting the attribute altogether) and everything's working just fine.
• Solution #3: Anything to do with the value contained within SqlDataSource's OldValuesParameterFormatString attribute. [See solution #2].

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln...how was the play?

Sleep Tight

The ASC Stinger; Fast, strong, gorgeous, and built on the 2005 GTO chasse...I think I'm in love.

The ASC Stinger car has inspired me to make my car into even more of a sleeper than it already is. It used to bother me; the lack of reverence and awareness paid to my car in spite of its impressive, corvette-engine performance specs. Unlike its much sexier, inferior performing, counterparts, only the occasional, true motor-heads stop to take another look at my vehicle, or listen for the throaty growl of 400 horses when I roll by. So I've come to a conclusion; why fight it?

As such, my automobile will be undergoing a few subtle, yet effective exterior modifications to further conceal its origins and remarkable performance capabilities - making it an even more severe sleeper:

A JHP lip spoiler replacement
18" wheels (something with a thick 5 spoke chrome look)
A Skip Shift Disabler
All-Around Badge Removal
A Gauge Pod


Christmas Wish List:
Short Shifter (Not sure what they were thinking when they gave the GTO a shift throw that's a mile long. This little device would probably shave half a second off my quarter mile time. ^_^)

Managing the Management

I had a brief stint as a retail manager. By brief, I mean about a year and a half. It was, without a doubt, the most anxiety-filled overwhelming task I've ever participated in, but I learned more about myself and others in that short time than probably any other period in my life. I learned things that can't be taught in a book; things like good confrontation skills, and the delicate balance between being fair and just without getting walked all over. At the peak of my store's season, I was wholly responsible for 28 employees, not to mention the merchandising and sales of 2 high volume departments. To complicate matters, I was all of 19 years old at the time (one of the youngest area sales managers in the company) and all but 2 of my associates were senior to me.

Looking back now, I'm not entirely sure how I survived. I remember many an afternoon/evening/morning sitting, crying at my tiny desk in the corner of my tiny stockroom after shrieked at, cussed out, and insulted by an irate customer (or even an associate). But much like vacations in Rocky Point, you have to experience hell to really appreciate heaven.

In spite of the routine compliments paid me by my district and store manager about my managing ability, I had little faith in myself at the time. It wasn't until later in life; after being managed by a series of less-than-adequate managers in various positions myself, that I realized how good my associates really had it. They were the real reason I stayed in that hell-job as long as I did. I loved my associates, well most of them. But the ones you love, those are the ones you get up in the morning for (or in my case just never go home and spend the night). Nothing in that godforsaken store came anywhere near watching someone actually enjoy their underpaid, overworked position just because you were able to create a pleasant working environment for them doing things they loved.

I had a wonderful mentor (ironically, in the one career I haven't pursued). Her name was Astrid Tuholski. She is German and was my first manager when I began my short career as a department store clothing salesperson. She was brilliant, everything I knew to do as a manger was just from watching her interact with her associates. She always knew exactly what to do to make her good associates love their job and make her bad ones hate it, all the while appearing completely professional and appropriate.

Here's some of what I learned from her:

• Make your associate(s) your number one priority; before merchandise, deadlines, goals, even bosses; if they're happy everything else will fall into place.
• Be a buffer for your associate(s), it's your job to get yelled at by irate customers, co-worker's or annoying bosses; not theirs.
  
• Be an example for your associate(s) to follow.
• Never expect an associate to do something you're not willing to do yourself.
• Never expect as much out of your associate(s) as you do yourself, that's why you get paid more than them (hopefully).
• Be very selective and hesitant when fraternizing with associates (better yet, just avoid it altogether).
• Confrontation is part of the job so get over your fear of it (or learn how to fake it well) because you WILL NOT make a very good manager.
  

I Smell Ice Cream

It seems that virtually every week I discover a new, ecclectic, character-filled, cheap, yummy place to eat in this culinary mecca of a city. I've been a resident now for a little over a year and here are my personal picks in order of preference for cheapest, yummiest, funnest places to grab a bite;

1. Sushi Deli II [Downtown] - This place has, by far, the best and most inexpensive sushi rolls I've ever tasted. And their atmosphere filled with loud 80's pop music and $5.50 large Sapporo/Sake special makes for a good time had by all.
2. The Turf Club [Golden Hill] - This cook-your-own steak dive bar comes complete with $6 sirloins and $6 16oz (potent) drinks.
3. Cass Street Bar and Grill [Pacific Beach] - Who knew a bar could have such delicious, fresh food (even their breakfasts!) and the informality of it all means more than reasonable prices.
4. Hash House a-go-go [Hillcrest] - Every inch of the walls in this place are covered with awards and notariety for their food and presentation, and they've earned every bit of it.
5. Luigi's Pizza [Golden Hill] - Amaaaaazing Chicago-style pizza and an impressive selection of bottled beers. (Though I suggest purchasing a pie at a time @ a reasonable $20.00 each rather than by-the-slice since their individual slices are occasionally fly-friendly.)
6. Ichiban Sushi [Pacific Beach] - Sushi Deli II's rolls are far superior, but for reasonable, yummy, sashimi, I head here. It's a tiny place, but well worth the wait.
7. Hodad's Burgers [Ocean Beach] - A health nut's nemesis; GIANT burgers, HUGE fry wedges, and lots of beer.
8. Rusty's [Crown Point] - A close second behind Hodad's; good burgers, good beer, good times.
9. Filippi's Pizza Grotto [Pacific Beach] - Deep dish, cheap, yumminess.
10. Café Zucchero [Little Italy] - Amazing, authentic Italian food.
11. Celadon [Hillcrest] - Not the cheapest place, but if you're into Thai food; it's the best I've had in the city and the atmosphere is quite pleasant.
12. Extraordinary Desserts - One word: wow.
    

What did I miss?

Wanted: Career Mentor; Apply Within.

I've never had a mentor, well, I guess that's not entirely true. I've never had a career mentor. When I made the decision to be a veterinary scientist (maaaany years ago) it was 'cuz I was the girl who rushed the dove with the broken back who had flown into a nearby window and the baby quail who was the runt of the flock and had been left behind wandering back and forth along a tall city curb to the nearest wildlife facility.

I had always felt a strong sense of empathy and a deep connection with animals (well, mammels and birds at least), so a life of healing and helping animals just seemed a natural course. But as you likely know, life often has other plans in store for us.

Two months into my college career (and a case of mono later), I was no longer a college student and spent the next 3 years of my life as a full-time retail associate and manager. That brief exposure was plenty to make me realize a college education was well worth my time, money, and effort for the monetary and occupational rewards. Once again, lacking direction from a career mentor I developed a simple formula for determining which bachelor's degree to pursue upon my return to college:

< Industry Demand + < Monetary Potential + > Education Time = Computer Science

Note the lack of '< Career Enjoyment/Fulfillment' and ' > Education Difficulty' within my formula. I'm grateful for my lack of consideration regarding the latter since I've realized that in spite of being a prisoner of the computer lab for nearly 4 years of my life, it's a worthwhile pursuit for obtaining a strong foothold within such a lucrative industry.

With regard to the first missing formula component, I often wonder if my anti high-school career counselor approach to vocational searching will eventually and ultimately lead to my burnout, but again, without a mentor to weigh my decisions against, I went the "I'll enjoy anything that challenges me" route rather than the, "I must pursue a career I'm already naturally interested and gifted in" route.

So here I sit; at another junction in my career where I could really use a little influence from someone who's had to make a similar decision, has pursued a similar career path, and has been exposed to the industry long enough to have insights and premonitions that I cannot.

No, wait...I think I just found the perfect mentor: Google.

Spiritual Quest - Part I

After spending some quality time with my beloved God-fearing family this past weekend, I feel it's time to tackle the intimidating and frightening topic of...[foreboding music] - religion. The 6 hour drive each way between San Diego and Tucson afforded me ample time to consider the role spirituality plays in my own life, how I feel about my personal purpose, and my belief or disbelief in a God and [his] constituents.

But before I launch into that mountainous molehill, some background info. I wasn't really exposed to religious/spiritual elements until about age 6, when my stepmother came into my life; at which point I was intensely exposed to Charismatic Christianity1. At approximately age 14, I was baptized in the Holy Spirit2, and voluntarily attended church regularly until approximately age 18, shortly before moving out of my parents' house. Christianity played a predominant role through most of my teen years and virtually all of my social activities centered around our church and the friends I made there.

Fast forward 10 years; I'm making the monotonous commute, alone between San Diego and Tucson, conflicted about the disparity between my chosen spiritual path (or lack thereof) and that of my family's. Suffice it to say, my current social situation presents little to no opportunity for discussions on the topics of religion or spirituality, but I guess that's what I get for hanging out with a bunch of young, Computer Scientists; not that I'm all too excited to broach those topics myself.

My current approach to religion and the spiritual hows and whys of life is much the same as my approach to all conundrums; logical reasoning. Let's start with the basics; how did I get here? As a scientist, I find the perfect symmetry present in all aspects of the natural world to be far too large a coincidence for a divine-less explanation. I do believe in the element of a single, divine Creator that authored us and the world we know.

Having established that belief, now the difficult part and the question that has likely claimed more lives throughout history than any other; which one? If I were THE God, how would I go about establishing my presence to humans? Humans are inherently skeptical so I'd probably perform feats before their eyes that they knew as impossible. Miracles such as raising people from the dead, walking on water, instantly multiplying finite materials, etc. And who is historically and repeatedly recorded as performing these feats? None other than Jesus Christ.

In spite of the loose translations and and cultural influences prevalent within most historical writings, the similarity and quantity of recorded miraculous events performed by Jesus Christ leads me to intuitively believe there is some truth to the recounts. And since I believe Jesus Christ did, in fact, perform those acts that I know to be impossible, then I believe Him when He says He's the Son of God. Because again, I'm a student of reason and if someone else were to appear today and do the things that Jesus Christ is recorded as doing right before my eyes, I wouldn't hesitate to jump on their bandwagon, too.

Alright, so at this point, I would consider myself a Christian insofar as I believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God and died for our sins on the cross. However, there are elements of popular Christianity that I do not believe were originally intended by Jesus and that I do not readily agree with. For example, the widely accepted Christian belief that the entire Holy Bible (and all its translations) are the black and white moral law to be obeyed and followed in its entirety, word-for-word. Rather, I approach the Holy Bible as exactly what it is; a historical document recounting the life, teachings, and death of Jesus Christ, written by authors with varying degrees of cultural influence and suffering countless loose translations.

The Bible is a remarkable document and highly useful for gaining insight into the life, purpose, and beliefs of Jesus Christ. But it's also chock full of the authors' personal opinions and culturally accepted norms. It is inherently counterintuitive to believe that a document comprised of human selected authors with human written, edited, and translated words could reach us today in a purely divine form.

That is not to say the Bible is not a worthwhile reading because I believe it's absolutely a worthwhile undertaking for anyone, whether it's to better understand Jesus Christ as one's Lord or for evaluative purposes in one's own search for their personal beliefs. That said, I also believe the literature should be consumed in a proactive format, weighing its content against cultural, gender, and individual preferences of the time. The Bible, in my opinion, is not a step-by-step instructional guide for life, but rather an overall, big-picture concept of what it means to live the life Jesus prefers, but ultimately the best source for those instructions is Jesus Christ Himself.

There are many who will label me as a 'lukewarm' Christian or any other of a number of catch-phrases distributed amongst the congregation(s) because of my opinions, and so be it. There are 2 primary criticisms I have of Christianity as a whole; its adoption of a number of beliefs and traditions that have no basis for origination with Jesus Christ Himself and an immediate and harsh judgment of all those not participating within the Christians' vein of spirituality.

I believe Jesus is and was a remarkable human being who behaved very differently than many of those who claim to fashion themselves after His likeness. I believe He was inherently empathetic and quite logical and that He inspired people by His example, not His criticism. Much of His original intention has, in my opinion, has been lost in the Christian masses and Christians of all kinds should step back and evaluate everything they believe to be Christ in origin.

1 Charismatic Christianity is often characterized by highly unorthodox activities such as church services containing loud, highly boisterous musical praise performances complete with church members dancing in the aisles and speaking in tongues. These activities are done at the influence of the Holy Spirit2.

2 The Holy Spirit, one third of the Holy Trinity (God and Jesus being the other 2), is said to be the spiritual incarnate of God, while Jesus is God's physical incarnate. God cannot, himself, directly interact with humans due to his benevolence since his mere presence would likely kill us, so he uses the forms of Jesus and the Holy Spirit to have direct contact with humankind.

Riddle-Liffic

The man who invented it doesn't want it. The man who bought it doesn't need it. The man who needs it doesn't know it. What is it? [No cheating].

B-E-A-uuutiful!!

It's days like today that remind why I pay exorbitant rent to live here. I recently acquired the task of performing audits on a handful of secret systems we have located on the Campus I work at; what relevance does this fact have to today's blog? None, except that this task requires me to travel from my building to another building located about a couple hundred yards away. Just the simple act of walking outside is enough to put one in a good mood. The weather's a perfect 78 degrees right now with a gentle breeze, there are vibrant colored flourishing plants everywhere you look, and the sky is a brilliant blue without a single trace cloud as far as the eye can see.

Living here makes me want to be a construction worker just so I can linger outdoors as often and as long as possible. If I could get a LAN connection from outside my building, you'd probably find me camped out on a patch of lush grass in the sunshine coding away. It's not too painful walking back into the confines of my ultraviolet illuminated, windowless office; knowing that today is Friday which means tomorrow I'll spend a good part of the day drinking, socializing and sunning myself on the beautiful sands of Pacific Beach followed on Sunday by a nice walk with my dog down to the local Starbucks where I'll sit outside; my top half in the shade, and bottom half in the sunshine, sip my ice-coffee, read, study, and watch the foot traffic go by.

God, I love this place.

No Vacancy

I have learned something about myself since relocating to beautiful San Diego, CA (in addition to my latest preference for tiny, hyper-fuel efficient cars); I do not like house guests. In concept, the idea is great. Most people would probably say I'm a pleaser; I like to entertain, I like to go out, and I like to eat out. But I guess I'm not a true pleaser because my generosity knows limits and when a person (or people) crosses my line of graciousness and I feel taken advantage of; I do not react well.

But then again, is there really a good way to react? Try telling the house guests you've had for the last 4 days that you're a little tired of them camping out in your living room, monopolizing your couch, forcing you to spend your free time and money on them, and that, while you've enjoyed their company up until this point, you'd like them to vacate immediately if not sooner; and then lemmee know how that goes over.

No, instead I take the much more subtle route. I become bitter, crabby, irritable and just generally unpleasant to be around until the house guests leave, I commit to never hosting another house guest again (that isn't related to me), and then I return to normal. It's not that I don't love seeing my friends and I truly do appreciate them traveling all this way to enjoy the fine weather and to visit me, but it's such a personal-life upset to have people camped out in my tiny living room for 4 nights and 5 days.

Not only do I wind up spending significantly more money than usual since I'm eating out for every meal and constantly 'doing stuff' to keep them and me entertained, but it's impossible for me to get a single quiet moment or just to camp out on my own couch and chill for an evening. I get nothing productive done; my laundry piles up, my condo gets trashed, and my dog gets neglected.

And to make matters worse, the caliber of friends who hit me up for a free hotel stay are not exactly swimming in funds which means we're either splitting everything right down the middle or I'm compensating a little extra due to my perceived improved financial situation (including, but not limited to hitching a ride to work so they can drive my $36,000.00 car around town in leui of renting a car of their own).

It's easy for me to simply dismiss them as inconsiderate and overbearing house guests, but the truth is; I've been that house guest a time or two before myself. Because, in reality, it's difficult as a house guest to know when you're crossing the line and, as a hostess, it's difficult to gauge when one's initial generosity is overwhelming one's long-term good nature.

So, in conclusion and in light of my recent life lesson (further aggravated by the tiny size of our condo and the fact that Zac works from home now); I will no longer be accepting house guests that are not related to me. In spite of the financial savings generated for my friends in avoiding a hotel room expense, a rental car expense, and the convenience of built-in tour guides; my friendships have a much better chance of surviving a visit to San Diego if they don't shack up at my place.

Rhetorical Question #1

Am I selfish for wanting both a fulfilling and lucrative career while not sacrificing my opportunity to have a family? Who really suffers in such a predicament; it's not me, and it's not my significant other; it's the child. There's little question in my mind that a child benefits from having a parent (or other family/family-like member) home with them full-time at least for the first 5 years of their life. Am I saying any child who doesn't have such a luxury is eminently prison-bound? Of course not, but I do believe that, when possible, a deliberate attempt to ensure the best environment for the child should be made.

And thanks to the wonderful advances in conception preventative technologies we have available to us today, we have the opportunity to deliberate and situate what we perceive to be an ideal environment before even conceiving. So again I pose the question; am I selfish for wanting to have a child, but not being willing to sacrifice my career and the fulfillment it brings me? I do understand that biology plays a large factor in the entire childbearing experience and there are many women who find themselves no longer concerned with their careers once their 'maternal hormones' (to use the parlance of our times) have kicked in. But I also know a handful of mothers who understand the necessity of their presence in the home, but at the same time miss their careers. And I don't want to be one of them.

I don't want to feel the tiniest bit of resentment while driving my minivan to soccer practice, followed by ballet, and then to the 'Toddler Tumbling' class; all the while wishing I could be solving some complex algorithm or architecting a new software application. Now don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying I wouldn't find motherhood challenging or that the outcome wouldn't be as impactful as excelling in my career. On the contrary, what career could possibly be as noble and influential as shaping a human being?

I guess the difference lies, not in the challenge of career versus motherhood itself, but the knowledge of the outcome. I'm certain I would be a good mother, I'm certain myself and my significant other would raise an effective, character-filled, beautiful human being. But how many of my own expectations can I exceed in the realm of my career and how financially successful can I become? Survey saaaaaaaaaaaaaaays?! I don't know. And more importantly when I get to that answer, will I be willing to give it all up for the family I gave up? And as if this life-changing, do-or-die, all-important question weren't enough; it's a timed exam. Tick-tock goes the biological clock...

Run, RUn, RUN for you lives - ....it's DYNAMIC SERVER CONTROLS!!!!!

That's it, I give up! That's right, I'm finally admitting defeat to dynamic server controls in that they are simply not worth the trouble. And believe me when I tell you, it's not for a lack of trying; anyone who knows me very well is fully aware of my die-hard perseverance when it comes to tackling challenges, especially programming ones.

What, you may ask, brought on this sudden and extreme conclusion? Well, after posting yet another question to the asp.net forums regarding some inexplicable and bizarre behavior amongst my dynamic server controls, I received a very helpful and eloquent reply from a fellow developer. Contained within this reply was a link to an article written by the developer titled Dynamically Created Controls in ASP.NET. I highly recommend visiting the link. In it you will find a series of scenarios involving dynamic server controls, revelations about said controls, followed by more questions. In my own quest for decrypting dynamic server controls, I had made it about 3/4 of the way through scenario 2 when I discovered this article. I relived each agonizing, recursive cycle of question, discovery, revelation, followed by additional confusion while reading this narrative.

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks: I have neither the desire nor the free-time to invest in a topic so complex and unpredictable that I cannot even effectively use it until I've spent countless hours and days delving into the idiosynchracies of ControlState, ViewState, Page events, control properties, etc. And more importantly, I'm not alone in this struggle. I give you exhibit A; an extensive and in-depth article detailing the struggles of understanding dynamic server controls written by a developer who is clearly far more fluent in asp.net-ese than myself, with an inconclusive ending suggesting a semi-foolproof, hackish sequence of steps to follow when implementing dynamic server controls.

The irony here is that the entire precedence and purpose of web/server controls is to reduce developers' coding time substantially while reducing redundancy and simplifying the old-school, do-it-yourself controls comprised of your own custom HTML and JavaScript. While I have found Microsoft's non-dynamic web and server controls to serve those functions marvelously, their dynamic server controls have incorporated far too many subjective elements as to the behavior of the controls and nothing remains intuitive. Furthermore, they have done an inferior job of providing documentation citing exactly how and why dynamic server controls' unpreditable and seemingly erratic behavior is determined which leaves developers no options other than inefficient, tedious trial-and-error methodology. which has taken me far more time and energy then it would have to build my own old-school custom HTML and JavaScript controls.

[Descend from Soap-box].

No, wait...this is MY blog, my own little television station where it's all Tracy, all the time.

[Re-ascend to Soap-box].