When things in your lives seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee.
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.
The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous “yes.” The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.
“Now,” said the professor as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things–your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions—and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. The sand is everything else—the small stuff.
“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.
“Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first—the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked.” It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, “there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”
I’m usually not a big energy drink fan, but these Celsius energy drinks that Michelle has been getting at Wal-Mart are really, really good! There are several different flavors, but the one that I have come to be most fond of is the Celsius Green Tea Peach Mango. It is fantastic! It’s the perfect pick-me-up for when I start to get lethargic in the afternoon.
Thankfully I have just discovered that you can purchase them via Amazon in bulk.
One reason that I like these drinks is that they are sweetened with Splenda, not Aspartame. Aspartame is nasty stuff – it metabolizes into formaldehyde in the body.
Splenda is an excellent substitute sweetener for sugar. You can even bake and cook with it. I pretty much only drink sweet tea now if it’s been sweetened with Splenda, not sugar.
The reason that the Green Tea Peach Mango is my favorite flavor is because it isn’t carbonated. Usually you will only see me with a Dr. Pepper in my hand, but a non-carbonated energy drink tastes good for a change.
Do yourself a favor. If you haven’t tried one of the Celsius energy drinks, pick one up today!
Michelle and I watched the election results late into the night last night. OK, it was about 1:30am when we went to bed. By then, everything that was going to be decided by last night had been announced.
Yes, the people have spoken with a mighty voice. The majority of the country, which is in fact center/right, does not like the current policies, agenda, and attitude of the people and their party that are currently in power. America isn’t about getting something for nothing, and it’s not about losing touch with the principles of free enterprise and a market-based economy. I’m sorry, but nothing is too big to fail.
The politicians also need to realize that they are in office for the purpose of letting the voice and the will of the people be heard and represented. They work for us.
You know the one single thing that bothers me over the past few years? It has been the motivations and actions taken to silence the conservative opposition. Strangely this isn’t a normal attribute of the Democrat party.
But it is the Progressives’ strategy. Maybe with a little of the “Chicago Way” mixed in.
It will not succeed.
Anyone who has to win by silencing the opposition is the enemy of all Americans. Stealing votes, cheating, mud-slinging… all have become too common yet are not true symbols of the American democratic process.
Sure, we may disagree with each other, but when did we part with the spirit of democracy expressed in the following quote:
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
When we abide by this single principle in American politics, everyone wins regardless of the winning political party.
That, my friends, is what makes The United States of America the greatest nation on the face of the earth!
At my request, my wife Michelle has been quilting a wooby for me. She has been sitting in the dining room with her Janome sewing machine and various selections of beautiful fabrics that she personally hand selected. Watching her diligently carry on with cutting, pressing, and sewing all of these fabric swatches together makes me appreciate the end product even more.
I am so excited to get my very own wooby I can hardly stand the anticipation!
But alas, some of her blog readers have asked what exactly is a wooby? To those readers I say: It’s very difficult to explain the true definition of a wooby to a man. The derivation of the word is lost to history. I have, however, found a video clip that may shed some light on this mysterious subject.
Most Mac owners do not realize that they are the owners of a full blown Unix workstation. This has been a welcome fact for many fellow Linux users like me (I’ve used Linux since about 1994 starting with the Slackware Linux distribution) due to all of the open-source software tools that are available. The availability of the GNU compiler collection and supporting development utilities truly makes the Mac a Unix software developer’s dream.
The first thing you will want to do is to understand how to access the Unix command line under Mac OS X. Open up the Finder and look in the Applications > Utilities folder on your hard drive. Double click on the Terminal icon, and you will now have access to your Mac’s Unix underpinnings!
Note: I’ve reduced the size of my Terminal window to make the text more readable in the screenshots below.
Execution of the uname -a command on the Mac command line.
You will also want to make sure that you have the Xcode developer tools installed from your Mac OS X install media. The GNU C compiler is included as part of the Xcode software install, as are some of the other supporting tools such as gdb.
The GNU gcc -v compiler command as executed on my machine.
For additional reference on the Unix underpinnings of Mac OS X I recommend you check out some of the following books as reference resources:
A few years ago I had the privilege of teaching math for the Upward Bound program at Midland College. It really appealed to me to have the opportunity to teach math and computers to high school students. The fact that I am not an educator by profession, however, did make me slightly nervous.
The students at that time were being relentlessly drilled in school on the information necessary to pass the TAKS test, the standardized test here in Texas that would determine if they advanced a grade and/or even if they would graduate!
I hate standardized tests… but that’s another topic entirely. Maybe one day I’ll discuss my opinion about that.
So I wanted to go in and teach them something completely different. I didn’t want to repeat to them the topics that were going to be “on the test” – I wanted to bring in some real-world perspective. I wanted to teach them some things about math that their school teachers otherwise weren’t given the time to do.
I “wanted to” do a lot, that was for sure. The question was, how to make a memorable impact on them.
So this is what I did. I think it was pretty effective.
At the beginning of one of our Saturday morning classroom sessions I told my students that I needed help solving a math problem. I walked up to the dry erase board and began to write. It took me about a minute to transpose the math problem from paper to the board.
(Hehe, it had taken me longer than that to transpose it from the Calculus book I had in my closet the night before, and even longer to find one that I was confident they couldn’t solve!)
I saw the students’ faces go from eagerness to help to disappointment in record time when I turned around to face them. The huge Calculus integral on the board was a problem that even I wasn’t sure how to solve.
Then, I sprung my idea…
I told them I needed some help solving this problem all right. Then I pulled out my wallet and held up five crisp $20 bills and said that I was willing to pay someone for the answer to my problem.
(At the same time, I prayed there weren’t any Calculus geniuses in the room that could solve a third-year college Calculus problem!)
What was the reaction? A lot of them complained and said that it was unfair, that it was too hard of a problem for them to solve in order to get the money. That’s where the life lesson came in…
I told them that there were people out in the world with similar math problems. They might not be problems out of the back of a math book, but problems that corporations, businesses, or the government might have. Regardless of who has the problem, they are usually willing to pay big bucks to the person or persons that can solve them.
Hence the importance of an education. In this example, I explained that if someone had a math degree, he or she could walk up to the board, solve the problem, and put $100 in their pocket for about 2 minutes of work.
Then I asked how long someone would have to work at a fast food restaurant to earn the same amount of money.
I hope I got my point across that day. Pursue your education. Period.
Teaching those Upward Bound students was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing many of them on Facebook complete their educations, get married, start families, and otherwise excel at life.
To those former students of mine I would like to say: the privilege and the honor was mine to have you in my classes.
Any of you out there that has an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch is going to want to check into this application. It’s called iDos, a new emulator application that appeared in the App Store and allows users to run DOS and Windows 3.0 on their iOS 3.1.2 or later devices.
iDos running Solitaire under Windows 3.0
This is a pretty amazing little piece of software. The best news? It’s only $0.99!
From the AppShopper site:
This is a DOS emulator based on dosbox.
Features:
- PC compatible soft keyboard
- Mouse support
- Screen mode: Portrait/Landscape/Fullscreen
- You can force 4:3 screen aspect ratio
- Customizable floating keypad for iPhone, and iPad fullscreen mode.
List of freeware/abandonware included in this release: digdug, Ms. Pac-Pc. More to come.
iDos running old DOS on an iPad!
I wonder if I can load Borland Turbo C++ on this thing… I’m such a nerd!
Update: Apparently it’s been pulled from the App store. I’ll post more updates as they become available.
Susan Boyle’s highly anticipated second album The Gift will be available on Nov. 9, 2010 via Amazon.com for only $9.99. It is now available for pre-order!
From an editorial review of the album:
“The Gift sees Susan Boyle and world acclaimed producer Steve Mac reunited to present a breathtaking seasonal album. Featuring yule time favourites ‘The First Noel’ and ‘O Holy Night’, Susan also fearlessly takes on iconic pop songs including ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ and ‘Perfect Day’ giving them a new identity.”
Here’s a track listing from her new album:
1. Perfect Day
2. Hallelujah
3. Do You Hear What I Hear (Duet with Amber Stassi)
4. Don’t Dream It’s Over
5. The First Noel
6. O Holy Night
7. Away in A Manger
8. Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace
9. Auld Lang Syne
10. O Come All Ye Faithful
If you haven’t already purchased it, Susan’s premier album I Dreamed A Dream is still available!
I took the plunge and officially joined both the Mac and iOS development programs today. In addition to doing some teaching about software development on this site, I’m really going to take my hobby to the next level!
When things in your lives seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee. 
“Now,” said the professor as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things–your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions—and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. The sand is everything else—the small stuff. 
. It is fantastic! It’s the perfect pick-me-up for when I start to get lethargic in the afternoon.
One reason that I like these drinks is that they are sweetened with Splenda, not Aspartame. Aspartame is 
Thank God!
At my request, my wife 
and various selections of beautiful fabrics that she personally hand selected. Watching her diligently carry on with cutting, pressing, and sewing all of these fabric swatches together makes me appreciate the end product even more. 
The students at that time were being relentlessly drilled in school on the information necessary to pass the TAKS test, the standardized test here in Texas that would determine if they advanced a grade and/or even if they would graduate! 
At the beginning of one of our Saturday morning classroom sessions I told my students that I needed help solving a math problem. I walked up to the dry erase board and began to write. It took me about a minute to transpose the math problem from paper to the board. 
I told them that there were people out in the world with similar math problems. They might not be problems out of the back of a math book, but problems that corporations, businesses, or the government might have. Regardless of who has the problem, they are usually willing to pay big bucks to the person or persons that can solve them.
, iPhone, or 
is going to want to check into this application. It’s called 
will be available on Nov. 9, 2010 via Amazon.com for only $9.99. It is now available for pre-order!
is still available!
