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.