Will at Home: August 2008

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Wedding Day Post 3

After the wedding, Mrs. At Home and I had a good laugh about not being introduced as a married couple, then were shuffled quickly back in for pictures. Pictures with the bride's family, pictures with the groom's family. Pictures with the bridesmaids. Pictures with the groomsmen. Pictures with the bridesmaids and groomsmen. Pictures with the groomsmen with the bride's family. Pictures with the bridesmaids and the grooms family. The picture I still keep around from all of that is the one with her hand and mine with the rings on an open Bible. At the moment, it wasn't open to anything specific, but some friends of ours claim Ecclesiastes 4:12 as their marriage verse. I like to think of that picture as somehow representative of the same.
After all the pictures, we went to the reception where we boogied down. Actually, this was a Baptist church, so dancing was strictly prohibited. But we had cake, nuts, mints, and punch. I was mean and shoved cake into Mrs. At Home's mouth and it made it into her nose instead. So she tortured me beyond belief. The groom's cake had fresh, chocolate-covered strawberries, and she made me eat one. I like strawberry jam, strawberry preserves, strawberry shortcake, and this morning had some amazing strawberry bars. But I don't like fresh, whole strawberries. After that moment, Mrs. At Home never did anything mean to me. She's just like that.
During the reception, one of the odd traditions I wasn't familiar with was when the groom takes the garter off the bride's leg. I also wasn't aware that she had to sit on my best man's lap to do this. So all this is going on, photographer taking pictures, and I have no clue what to do. So I bend down to take the garter off, and there's just this enormous mound of doily over her feet. Of course, we're in a place where dancing is prohibited, and my groomsmen have already embarrassed me in front of the pastor, and I'm not aware that in this place, it's not okay to dance, but it is okay to expose your bride's leg up to the knee. So I was ridiculed for that for awhile. (I got over it - I can see her legs up to the knees in the privacy of my own home now).
After the discomfort of undressing my bride in public, I had to turn my back to all the unmarried guys (all my friends at that point were unmarried), and snap the garter over my shoulder. I didn't see what was going on, but the pictures show that the garter went straight to Mrs. At Home's kid brother (who was 11 at the time), and my pal A was diving over brother A to rescue the garter from hitting the ground. Right after he rescued it, he immediately handed it to brother A. Friend A was not the first of the men married after that point, but I got to be a groomsmen at his first wedding (grumblegrumblegrumble).
After snacking, pressing palms, and so forth, it was off to a quick change operation to prepare for the exit.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Wedding Day Post 2

Link

After the reception, we got all dressed up and made our way through the parade of onlookers with birdseed. My oldest brother whom I trusted had taken very good care of my keys - I suppose he promptly passed them on to the guys I hung out with in college. And for any ladies who read this, these are not the types of guys you take home to dinner. Guys, these are not the kind of guys you want your daughters marrying.

Anyhow, my brother, whom I trusted (silly me) passed the keys on, so my college buddies did their best. This is a PG blog, so we'll just leave it at that. Confident that my new father-in-law was going to revoke his approval of his daughter's hand, I raced my new bride to the car, and we sped away. I honestly don't know any other details of the parking lot - just that we needed to get to a car wash - and quickly.

So our first stop on our honeymoon was to the spray-n-wash in Forney, TX. I suppose I had enough cash to make change for quarters, because we got most of the shoe polish off. The stuff on the headlights remained there until we sold the car before a trip to San Antonio a couple of years later.

As we started down the highway, Mrs. At Home reminded me that she had eaten nothing that day, and nor had I. I had begun feeling ill that morning, and never really bothered to eat until the reception, and even then, it was just a strawberry after all. So our first dinner together as a newlywed couple was at Jack 'n' the Box.

Somehow, she's forgiven me. I've not acquired any grace yet for special occasions, but I think that's one of the reasons she likes me - I'm her "work in progress".

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Wedding Day Post 1

Since Mrs. At Home gets to post our adoption story, I thought I'd post about our wedding day. But I thought I'd do it in reverse order.

About 9pm, we pulled into San Antonio in our Ford Escort, got checked into the La Quinta (I was a college student, after all), and headed out to the Riverwalk. The hotel was alright, but it was a Saturday night on Memorial Day weekend, so it was hard to get a place. The following night, we would check into the Emily Morgan.

After getting checked in, we made the dangerous walk past Denny's, down toward the Alamo, then hopped onto the Riverwalk. San Antonio is one of our favorite places to vacation, and the Riverwalk is such a great place to walk (hence the name, I guess), relax and unwind. We walked the Riverwalk for quite awhile, stopped of to get something to drink, and I had started my first vacation married to the most amazing woman you'll ever meet.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

LT

It was the NFC championship game. The 49ers are down by a touchdown with seconds to go against the New York Football Giants. Joe Montana was 18 for 20 on the day, throwing two touchdown passes, but the 49ers still found themselves behind. With under a minute left in the game, Montana had constructed a masterful march down the field, but were still only on the Giants 40-yard line.

With seconds left in the game, the 49ers were out of time outs, and had failed to move the ball on first down and had to spike the ball on second down to stop the clock. It was third down (because fourth down with only seconds remaining would just be too dramatic).

Out of the huddle, Montana had control of the entire stadium. He got under center, barked out the count, the ball was snapped, and Jerry Rice juked left, then right to shake his defender. Montana threw a perfect spiral right over Rice's left shoulder, and Rice watched the ball straight into his hands - hitting him in his dead sprint. The ball was perfectly tucked away, then....

BAM!!!

From out of nowhere, Lawrence Taylor blindsided Rice, forcing him out of bounds, dashing the 49ers hopes of reaching the Superbowl for the year.

Actually, my best friend and I were playing football in the back yard. We were pretending to be the players in question. And LT was replaced by a very mature oak tree in Clint's back yard. My face was scarred for weeks. It was a beautiful pass, and a great catch, though.

Monday, August 18, 2008

CHESS: 2008-08-18

White pieces handled by: K-athome
Black pieces handled by: willathome

h4 e6
Nc3 Bd6
d3 Nf6
Bg5 Bb4
Rh3 c5
Re3 h6
Bf4 Na6
a3 Bxc3
bxc3 Qa5
Re4 Qxc3+
Qd2 Qxa1
Qd2 Qxa3
Rc4 b6
g4 Nxg4
Rxg4 e5
Rxg7 d6
Bg7 Nd4
Bxc8 Bh3
Nxh3 Qd4
Be3 Qxh4
Qa1 Qxh3
Qxa7 Qh1+
Kd2 Qb7
Qxb7 h5
Qb8+ Ke7
Qxb6 Kf6
Bg5+ Kxg7
Qxc5 Kxa8
Qxb4 Ra2
Qxd6 Ra1
Qxe5+ Kf8
Qxa1 Ke8
Qb2 Kf8
Bg5 Ke8
Qb8#

White wins! First time K has actually beaten me. (She's stalemated before, but never checkmate).

Sunday, August 17, 2008

CHESS: 2008-08-17

It took me several tries to record this right, so I apologize if there are some mistakes in here. I've replayed this version, and it finally seems to be right.

White pieces handled by: Willathome
Black pieces handled by: K

d3 a5
Nf3 c5
Nc3 Ra6
a4 Nc6
Be3 b6
Ne4 Nf6
Ra3 Nxe4
dxe4 Nb4
c3 Bb7
cxb4 axb4
Rb3 c4
Rxb4 Bxe4
Rxc4 Bd5
Qxd5 Ra5
Qe4 f6
Bxb6 Qxb6
Rb4 Qd8
Qf4 Ra8
b3 g6
e3 Rg8
Bd3 Bh6
Qxh6 e5
Qhx7 Rf8
Qxg6+ Rf7
Bc4 Qe7
Qg8+ Rf8
Bf7+ Qxf7
Qf4 Rc8
0-0 Rh8
a5 d5
Qxc8+ Ke7
Rb6 Qg7
Rd1 Rh6
Rc1 Qh7
Rc7#

The New Work Situation

I get asked a lot "where do you work?" Not as in "for whom do you work", but physically where I work. When I try to explain it, it gets a little confusing, so I thought I would clarify how work is working out now for those who are interested.

The company I work for is a great company. In order to reduce their expenses in leased space in expensive areas, they're allowing many of their associates to enter a program whereby they can work "in a variety of locations". In order to do this, employees who voluntarily enter the program give up their office space and cubicle and permanent location. Yes, I'm a wanderin' man - but not a Ronin.

Now, at this point most people assume I work from home. Or that because I have my employer's blessing in working from home that I choose to do so. Don't get me wrong, I love working from home sometimes, but in our current situation (read: third-grade and pre-K classroom in the same house) it's difficult to work from home. Many people who enter the program work from home most of the time. I only work from home a couple of days a week, and that's assuming there's not construction in the parking lot or some reason to meet teammates face to face in the office. When we move into the new house, I'll work from home more often.

My employer rents space in buildings here in the suburbs of our beautiful city. In those spaces, they set up cubicles with phones, network connectivity, and all the supoort needed for a normal office environment. But the cubicles are not assigned. Those are called "satellite locations". I can work out of a satellite location if I choose, but I have to reserve my cubicle in advance - or find one that nobody else has reserved.

Also, for those who did not enter the program to work from a variety of location, the company has opened a floor for my department out here in the suburbs as well - in a different building about 300 meters from the first one I mentioned. That one is mostly "traditional" space with assigned seating and you can keep family pictures around and stuff like that. I don't work in one of those.

On that same floor that is reserved for my department are more of those cubicles that belong to nobody, but must be reserved in advance. Also, since those cubicles are on a floor designated for my department, the people who reserve those cubicles can only come from my department.

So, with all that introduction out of the way, here's where I work - BB&BetiHixonHills. And yes - my cell phone carrier works there.

The two buildings where I reserve a spot and visit are only 10 minutes away (8 with no traffic and if I catch the lights just right), and all the local eateries there are far too expensive to eat on a regular basis, so I've been much better about packing a lunch. The days I work from home, if the girls are here, I have lunch with them. I need to force myself to take a walk after I quit work so that I have a clear line between being "at work" and "at home". Sometimes I get up from the computer early but go back and back and back to it well into the night.

So there you have it. If you ask me where I work, I'll just tell you "a variety of locations" and hopefully you'll understand. I love the program, and I don't really miss having a cubicle I can call my own. (Although, I do miss having two screens most of the time).

I Don't Know How She Does It

Mrs. At Home is amazing. If you ever hear me say anything to the contrary, shoot me.

The one example I have today is just running some errands. You could probably surmise from My 25 Things that I don't do too well with crowds, either. Tonight, we went to the library, the local game store, and to Target. All of them were crowded, and when I get in a crowd, I get really frightened.

As much as I love K and L, they complicate my fear of crowded places. They did nothing wrong tonight, so there was nothing to correct them for. But they seem to be incapable of looking out for other people or staying out of the way of carts, stock persons, clerks, or large moving equipment. They never collided with anybody, but just walking through the store with them, I'm constantly watching out for them, knowing that at some point I will have to yank one of them out of the way of somebody who was just practicing defensive shopping. But then again, this is America - if you've ever seen the traffic on (and off) the streets of any city in China, the same disorder exists in any retail store here in the US.

I know it seems like such a small thing, but how does a stay-at-homeschool mom deal with hundreds of events like that in a day? The last thing I want you to think is that I'm daughter bashing - on this trip, they did nothing wrong, nothing for me to complain about or correct. But adding them to my fear of crowds makes things tougher.

Publishing Chess Games

During Summer Tour Stop 2, JMMM spent quite a bit of time teaching K how to play chess. She enjoyed it very much, and I played JMMM a few times and got slaughtered each time. K and I determined that we would begin playing so that the next time we get together with the MMM's we'd be more of a challenge for JMMM.

As I understand it, one of the best ways to get better at chess is to record your games so that you can review them later. In that spirit, I intend to begin recording the games that K and I play, and I thought I'd add a web-ish twist to it and post those on my blog so that the two of you who actually read this can have something more regular to read - although it won't be of much interest to you. I also have selfish motives - that maybe somebody who actually plays chess will happen by and see the recorded games and offer help.

So if you see them and want to play them out yourself, feel free - particularly if you're willing to offer suggestions on how to improve our games (unless you're just trying to sell us a book).

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

On Bad Code in Books

I saw this in a book that's not yet been published. Can you find any security or code correctness flaws with it?

#import <Foundation/Foundation.h>

int main (int argc, const char * argv[]) 
{ 
  FILE *wordFile = fopen ("/tmp/words.txt", "r"); 
  char word[100]; 
  while (fgets(word, 100, wordFile)) { 
    // strip off the trailing \n 
    word[strlen(word) - 1] = ‘\0’; 
    NSLog (@"%s is %d characters long", 
        word, strlen(word)); 
  }
  fclose (wordFile); 
  return (0); 
}

For now, we'll disregard the trustworthiness of /tmp/words.txt - we'll just assume we trust that it is indeed a normal file.

What is the code flaw? fgets() reads at most size bytes minus 1, but will stop reading at a newline. Then it appends a null byte to the string it read. Pretty safe, right? Well, not if you care to keep all the bytes of your data. Suppose you have a line greater than 99 characters long - what will happen? fgets will read 99 characters, and put a null byte in slot 99 - so far so good. Except now, the length of the string is 99, and we always assume that the last char is a newline, so by replacing that last char, we lose some of the user's data. Yes - this works in all cases but the unexpected ones.

Just goes to show that even the books can use a good code review.

Friday, August 8, 2008

My 25 Things