Author: johncongdon

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Uncategorized

I Was Raised a Typical Boy

I had a typically boy upbringing, not saying it was right, but I was told big boys don’t cry.  To this day, it takes a lot for me to show emotion (to my wife’s dismay).  This is a preamble to what happened at the end of my vacation.

My parents divorced when I was seven or eight and my mother felt the need to move us to Florida.  I understand that it was because she had family in Florida that could help her and us three kids.  It wouldn’t be until many many many years later that I realized that my father had no idea that was coming.  He never mentioned it when we would visit and he never spoke ill of my mother.  Quite the contrary on the other hand.

During my trip to see him in August 2009, we were sitting in his living room when he said I have something I want to give you and if I don’t do it now I will forget.  I had no clue what it could be.  He stood up and started rummaging through a little cabinet and pulled out a very old photo album.  He scanned through it and found an old photo from a photo booth of him and my mom.  I am pretty sure my mom destroyed any pictures she may have had of him, so this was very precious to me and a very welcomed surprise.  We then looked through some of the other photos of him at a very tough time.  He was in Vietnam and of course looked much different than he does today.

On the day I got home from vacation, I called to let him know I arrived safely and to thank him again for the picture.  We had a great talk and at the end he told me he was proud of me.  I think that may be the first time I have heard that from him.  We hung up moments later and I sat on the couch very happy with tears in my eyes.  I sat with it for a couple of minutes and then got up to do some chores in the kitchen.

I continued to think about it and had more tears come to me.  At that time my wife had come out of the bedroom, and I just couldn’t hold them back.  I was full out crying, she was terrified that something horrible had happened, and I was trying to tell her everything was ok, but I just couldn’t get the words out.  She hugged me for a minute or so until I could mutter the words, “He told me he was proud of me…”

Thank you dad! 

Categories
Programmer's Mindset

Mysql Master / Slave Thoughts

I have been thinking about a way to have isolated machines that I can almost take on and off line very easily.  Here are my thoughts and would love feedback on my “solution”.

I am almost thinking about “spinning” the traditional model.  I will have my Administrative DB(ADB) in a central place.  ADB will be where I pull all reporting, master updates of product and pricing, all orders, etc….

On each individual web server I will have a slave DB (SDB) that will replicate all data from ADB.  The individual web servers will pull information from SDB for pricing, dynamic web pages, etc…  It will also have its own database (ODB) for writes (order information mainly, maybe other statistics as well).  When an order is placed (instead of trying to reach ADB) it will put the information into ODB.

Now I can have a cron job that will pull the data off each ODB to update ADB for reporting purposes.

Why?

  1. Each web server should be able to run without relying on any other machine.
  2. Once the web server’s SDB is up to date, there should be very little delays in price/product changes.
  3. Scalability, simply launch a new server to be up and running.

Does this make sense?
Web servers write to ODB
Administrative server reads from ODB to update itself which replicates to all the SDB (Every slave/web server becomes a realtime backup of ADB)

Here is a diagram of my thoughts.

DB Proof of Concept
DB Proof of Concept
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Categories
Science

I missed my bilingual window

I often wish that I would have continued to learn other languages.  I had a friend in high school that seemed to be able to absorb languages, and in fact she went to school for just that (last I heard anyway). 

I just read a very interesting article on kids and how they learn.  It was very interesting to read about how they were able to tell when babies could understand.

Read the rest about Unraveling how children become bilingual so easily.

Categories
Science

Would you ever put your hand in liquid Nitrogren?

This is a very interesting demonstration. I love the way he shows a demonstration and a very thorough explanation of why it works.

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Bowling

Bowling Balls Cheap

Bowling Balls Cheap

It always amazes me that some prop shop operators still try to tell customers that have bought a bowling ball on the Internet, that they received a second or a blemished bowling ball. They try to scare customer by telling them that the Internet sells Bowling Balls Cheap and therefore they are no good.

The truth is, bowlingball.com purchases bowling balls from the same distributors that the pro shops buy from. Anytime we do buy seconds and blems, we make it known to our customers before the purchase is complete.

On very rare occasions, a second may get past a manufacturer’s inspection. This happens in pro shops as well. In that case, we of course make the situation correct and replace the bowling ball.

Yes, bowlingball.com sells bowling balls cheap, but we do not try to pass off seconds and blems as first quality product.

Categories
Video

Bowling Ball Reaction Video Editing

I am currently in the process of editing some videos and thought I would take a second to post some of the others that I have done. 

If there are any suggestions that you may have, please let me know.  I am always looking for advice to make things better.

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Business

Big Business Needs To Realize The Power Shift

Life isn’t so easy for big business anymore.  If you complained back in the day, a corporate giant could just brush you off.  Nowadays, with the speed of information, this just can’t happen.  We have seen this a few times recently, with the most recent being United Air.  Watch this video that was created to tell a story of a broken guitar by Sons of Maxwell.  In the end, they got United’s attention, and United Airlines made a public apology via twitter.

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Bowling

Want the Ultimate Bowling Experience on the WII?

I just stumbled across a neat little gadget that turns your WIImote into a bowling ball.

Simply open the ball and insert your WIImote.  Close it up and use it like a real bowling ball, just don’t let go.  Bad things happen when Wii accessories fly across the room towards expensive television sets.  I wonder how realistic this attachment is.


Categories
Bowling

Brunswick Viz-A-Ball

The very popular viz-a-ball product is a bowling ball that has very detailed graphics on the outside of the bowling ball.  The Viz-A-Ball was created by the Brunswick Bowling Company and is sometimes referred to as the Brunswick Viz-A-Ball.

bowlingball.com has created many unique, exclusive viz-a-balls including the following:

[bowlingball value=”4000,i150l”/] [bowlingball value=”5587,i150l”/]

[bowlingball value=”3069,i150l”/] [bowlingball value=”4961,i150l”/]

[bowlingball value=”5865,i150l”/] [bowlingball value=”5970,i150l”/]

Categories
Golf

Golf, Room For Improvement

Golfing is a wonderful sport.  There always seems to be room for improvement.  I just wish it would happen faster.  However, like most average golfers, I do not have the discipline to get better.  I do not take time to go to the driving range, or time for lessons.  I do my practice on the course, which is a very bad idea if you want to improve.

However, I am open to suggestions from people that I shoot a round with.  My latest suggestion came from Tony Mendiola, unfortunately it wasn’t until the 16th hole.  I was not hitting my irons very well, so he took the opportunity to tell me that I was collapsing my elbows during the backswing.  Now, as a golfer I know this swing characteristic is bad and wasn’t aware that I was doing it.  As soon as I got to my next iron shot, I made it a priority to widen my swing, and hit he ball flush and long.  What a great feeling it was. 

Thank you Mr M.