Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week

I realize I've really been neglecting my blog here in 2010. I really don't have time for a theme or a witty anecdote this time; just some random updates to share:

- I've lost 21 pounds so far since January 11. They started a Biggest Loser contest here at work for the IT department, so I signed up because I thought it would be extra motivation for me to drop some weight before my brother's wedding (where I'm the best man, and I don't want to be the chubby old guy up there in the wedding party). I thought the other IT contestants would've given up by now, but I'm only in 4th place with a total weight loss of 10.29% (if you're decent at math then you should be able to figure out my starting weight). The winner gets $610 - every participant paid in $10 and there are 61 participants, with winner take all. The contest goes until mid April. I probably won't win, but I'm happy with how I look so I guess that's something. If I keep my current fitness level up it could turn into a McConaughey summer at case de Howard (a McConaughey summer being that one only wears a shirt when required).

- I recently got another tattoo, so if it does turn into a McConaughey summer then I've got something new to show off. It's the letters AJ on my right ribcage - I'll post a pic for all to see.

Chet at Mercy Seat Tattoo is awesome; he's done both of my tattoos and I highly recommend him. He listens to your ideas and works with you on a design that is unique, and his shop is clean and he takes pride in his work. What more could you ask for in your tattoo guy?

- I've been helping the KCPD Crime Lab with migrating data from their old software system to a new software system. It's been very trying because they are on a tight timeframe (the goal is to be online with the new system by the end of March) . The previous "DBA" had 18 months to accomplish the data migration, and the crimelab realized in mid February when they attempted to do a test data load that it failed because the old data was either not migrated correctly, or it wasn't migrated at all. So I volunteered my services to assist. I didn't get 18 months though to work on it- I got 3 weeks. That's right, 3 weeks, or 3.8% of the time the first guy had. And that's 3 weeks of after-hours work and on the weekends, not during the day like the previous "DBA" had. I'll say this and then I'll stop complaining about it: there is something to be said for relational data integrity and constraints. Without those, your data is just a warm pile of sh#t.


Song of the day: "Triumph" by the Wu-Tang Clan. I've been going back to the archives and listening to some of the older stuff I have. A rap song that is over 5 minutes long and doesn't have a chorus, bridge or break - just each member spittin a verse.

Jump out the pool on that!

I recently went on a quick two-day trip to southern Georgia to attend my brother's graduation ceremony at FLETC. I don't know if I'm really supposed to be announcing this (but I will anyway because I'm a proud brother and wanted to let people know): my brother is now a deputy U.S. Marshal assigned to the state of Texas. It's a pretty cool job if you're into the law enforcement thing; the U.S. Marshals Service is a very proud organization and they take good care of their agents. My brother is really excited about it, as he will be involved with a lot more "action" as a U.S. Marshal than he was with his previous agency (OIG), where he investigated mostly white-collar crime. It's odd for me to imagine that someone would voluntarily seek out and actively pursue a more dangerous job, but people are wired differently. I would've been content with getting to carry a gun everywhere but still working with spreadsheets and computers all day as an OIG Agent, but I guess that's why I'm a DBA for a bank and not out chasing fugitives.

A couple of random things that came across my mind while on the trip:

1) A bad day for me typically entails that a SQL Server is having issues or something is not going well with a project I'm working on. As I looked at the graduating class of deputy U.S. Marshals during the ceremony, I realized that a bad day for these graduates could involve shooting someone and/or being shot at. That is crazy to me.

2) As an older sibling, I wondered at what point in my life was my little brother able to kick my @$$ if he chose to do so. Maybe this is something only older brothers think about, I don't know. I guess it would've been when he was late in his college career as he was training to meet the physical requirements for his federal agency/law enforcement exams. I'm sure if you asked him it would've been much earlier than this, but realistically I think I could have at least held my own up until then. Now it's quite obvious that I can't mouth off to him like I used to.

3) It's weird to see my little brother as an adult who has an adult job and is getting married this summer. I've always seen him as someone I needed to look after and take care of, but those days are long past. He's doing a good job of taking care of himself, and has actually helped me out with a couple of things.

Song of the day: "On To The Next One" by Jay-Z, from the Blueprint 3 album. It seems appropriate, as my brother is moving on to the next one.

Please stop the bus to let my brother Jack off

There hasn’t been a lot going on lately with me, so I haven’t had much to write about. The Haunted House DJ gig went pretty well. People who were listening to the music seemed to be enjoying themselves. The high school dance/step troupe wanted to perform the “Thriller dance” every 30 minutes for the crowd, so that provided an opportunity to play around mixing in and out of that Michael Jackson song on the fly. I was heckled a bit; not by the kids, but by Jennifer and Jack. They would yell out random songs (mostly Ghostbusters) that they wanted to hear, and would boo if the next song wasn’t their request. It was all in jest though and we all had a good time.

I did recently donate blood at a blood drive at my work, and had somewhat of an interesting experience. I’ve given blood before and am not afraid to do so. I’m not bragging or anything; I give because 1) I’m sure I’ll end up in the hospital some day and will need someone else’s blood. 2) in the big scheme of things I’m hoping that doing something nice for strangers will make up for all of the times I’m mean and insensitive to strangers, and 3) I think the world will be a much better place if more people had some William Howard blood pumping through them.

As you probably know, before you donate they have you answer a myriad of questions regarding your medical history, your international travel history, and your sexual history. Two of my answers on my questionnaire required the technician to ask me additional questions and delve deeper into my past than usual: I had traveled outside of the U.S within the past 3 years (Australia), and had gotten a tattoo within the timeframe listed on the questionnaire. They had to look on a world map to see if Australia was considered a “safe place” (it was, and just by looking at the map, it looked like it was mostly Africa that was “unsafe”), and they had to write down the name of the tattoo shop I visited. That was kind of fun because to that technician I seemed a lot cooler than I really am.

One question I found odd on the questionnaire was this one, which was under the HIV/AIDS portion: “Have you been in juvenile detention, lockup, jail, or prison for more than 72 hours?” Really?! So I guess they think that if you spend longer than 3 days locked up in a correctional facility . . . something’s going to happen and you’re going to get some action. That should serve as a reminder to never get in trouble with the law on the Friday night of a 3 day/holiday weekend, because by Tuesday you could come out of lockup with a whole new set of problems.


Song/Album of the day: Girl Talk’s “Feed the Animals” album. Girl Talk is somewhat of an oddity to me, and I’m having a hard time fully committing to it. I read an article about him in GQ (article) and didn’t think much of it until Jennifer asked me if I had listened to his album (she read the article as well). I downloaded the album (album here). As I’ve said before, I’m a fan of mash-ups but this is sometimes almost too much, even for me. It’s really impressive that he did all of that with just a laptop, and he used a lot of well-known random songs that I like. It is very professionally done (he changed what key certain songs are in so they’ll blend well with the other songs and the timing is impeccable). If you get a chance, download it, listen to it and let me know what you think. The first time I listened to it I couldn’t get past trying to identify all of the samples being used. So if you’re like me and need a cheat sheet of all of the samples being used for each track – find it here.

Now here's a little story I've got to tell . . .

I don't keep in touch with very many of the friends I had when I was growing up. Of those childhood friends, there are maybe five people that I keep in touch with that I've put forth the effort to transition those friendships into adult friendships. I had the opportunity to hang out with two of these adult friends over the Thanksgiving holiday, so I thought I'd share something that occurred while we were hanging out.

The two friends are siblings (twins actually); one is a kindergarten teacher at a public elementary school in Warrensburg, and the other a medical doctor who practices internal medicine at a hospital in Dallas, TX. For the sake of not using real names we'll call the doctor friend Leia - that seems fitting. We met up on Friday night at a bar to have a few drinks and catch up with one another. We had only been there about 10 minutes when a random woman hurried over to us and frantically asked if we had any baby aspirin or any type of aspirin at all. Me being the @$$ that I am, my first thought was, "Well maybe if your baby has such a headache then he/she shouldn't be in a bar on a Friday night in the first place." (I'm kidding, and I could tell it wasn't the time to say this out loud). It seems that an elderly gentleman at the end of the bar was experiencing a "mini-stroke", or TIA (Transient Ischemic Attack for those wanting to know the official medical term). Leia went over very calmly and assessed the situation, evaluated the elderly gentleman's condition, spoke to his family and also spoke to the EMTs once they arrived and updated them on the situation and the old man's status. The elderly gentleman was taken to the hospital and our night progressed like nothing had happened. The old man's family was very thankful to Leia, and I could tell having a doctor there with the old man until the EMTs arrived really put the old man's family at ease.

I know I'm probably not supposed to say this, but I was a little excited when this situation presented itself, and here's why. I'd never seen Leia "be a doctor" in person. We grew up together and I have memories of her in high school and what not, but since she practices medicine in another state I've never gotten to see her do her thing as an adult. She's very humble when it comes to her profession - she doesn't talk about it much, and always works to downplay the fact that she's a doctor when she's around other people that she grew up with. Maybe she's just a private person, or maybe she doesn't want it to look like she's bragging that she's a supersmart doctor or something - I don't know. She's very nice and will answer any question about her job when asked, but she doesn't volunteer much information and she'll subtly steer the conversation to something else by asking someone else a question or by bringing up another topic.

It's a good thing that Leia was the doctor there at the bar on Friday instead of me, because If I had been the doctor then the situation would've been totally different. I'm sure I would've stood up, chest puffed out, and said something cheesy like, "No need to fear ma'am, I'm a doctor" while winking to the lady and then rushing over to the old man, all the while dramatic instrumental music would be playing (it would be very ER-esque, with me looking like George Clooney\Dr. Doug Ross circa 1998). I probably would've tried to score free drinks from the bar for the rest of the night, because after all, I did single-handedly save this man's life.

In all seriousness, it was a little weird to think that at any time my friend could be called upon to save a stranger's life. I'm pretty sure that there will never be a situation where I'm out socially and someone will say, "Is there a DBA here? We have deadlocking on a OLTP server and need assistance STAT" (I threw in the STAT part for effect). It just won't happen. I guess that's the responsibility that comes with those types of professions (medical doctors, law enforcement officials, etc.); always being "on call." Scary.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I am very proud of my friend, and it was cool to see her do her thing in person. It's just too bad that the old man's airway wasn't blocked; maybe I could've seen Leia stab an ink pen in the old man's throat so he could breathe (how cool would that have been?!). Oh well, there's always the next time we hang out.

Song of the day:  "Am I Wrong" by Love Spit Love. It's on the Angus soundtrack, and it's a good "hangin out" song.

You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave

I’m sure everyone has a memory or situation that he/she uses as a “baseline” for their worst experience that helps to put the current situation in perspective. When something isn’t going well, you might say, “This is bad, but this isn’t as bad as the time _______.” In my life I’ve experienced a couple of things you’d think could be used as my baseline: a kidney stone that was too large to pass so it had to be removed via “a laser” (picture an Austin Powers Dr. Evil impersonation while reading the word “laser”) blowing it up into smaller, passable pieces; or maybe running the last 15 miles of the KC marathon after hurting my knee on mile 11 and eventually requiring knee surgery after the marathon. Surprisingly, neither of these things compare to what I use as my baseline/rock bottom. For me it’s the week in 1995 that I spent at Boys State. I can say that I no longer fear hell and can live through anything because I survived Boys State.

For those who don’t know, Boys State is a week long summer camp sponsored by the American Legion for boys between their junior and senior years. It is supposed to be an honor to attend, and it’s considered a leadership-type mock government camp for the “future of tomorrow”. Don’t be fooled by any of this propaganda. Make no mistake, you do learn things from attending Boys State, but it’s not leadership. Now don’t’ get me wrong, nothing horrible such as inappropriate fondling or anything like that happened (at least not to me) – my anguish was more of the mental variety. Anyway, let me share my Boys State experience with you:

Missouri Boys State is held at UCM’s (formerly CMSU) campus in June of each year. It brings together approximately 800 17 year-old boys for one week and subjects them to classroom lectures on politics, government, etc. You stay in the dorms on campus and have a roommate, and also a couple of older college-age guys on each floor who serve as the floor RA’s. There are a couple of rules that all Boys State attendees must follow: you aren’t allowed to leave campus and contact with females is strictly prohibited during the entire week. They were adamant about this last rule; if they saw you even talking to a girl, disciplinary action was taken. Seriously?! Whose bright idea was it to put 800 17 year-old boys together in a confined space for a week and prohibit female contact? After the 2nd day of being around all of these guys who weren’t allowed female interaction, it felt like at any point in time it could easily turn into a “Lord of the Flies” type of environment. I especially had issues with the “no female contact” rule because since I was a local (being from Warrensburg), I knew a lot of the high-school girls who were working in the cafeteria serving meals or working other part-time summer jobs on campus. I didn’t want to be rude so I’d give the “what’s up” nod to all of them and I got in trouble for even doing that; it was considered non-verbal communication with a female. Ridiculous. I ended up breaking both rules because by mid-week I couldn’t take the boring lectures anymore so I would leave the lectures and go to the college library and sit and read books and magazines for hours during the afternoon. There were 800 guys there and the only other Warrensburg townie in my “city” (that’s what your dorm floor was called) was really into the whole Boys State thing and he was having a great time, so I wasn’t missed by anyone. One day while I was at the library I saw a female friend from high school and I talked to her for a while (just to make sure I could still talk to a female and I hadn’t resorted to prehistoric grunting) and she said she was going to Wal-Mart, so I asked if I could tag along with her. I’d never been so happy to visit a Wal-Mart.

I know Boys State may not sound like the horrible situation that I make it out to be. Please bear with me; here are a few more of the reasons why my experience was so bad:

1) None of my friends went. There were a few other guys from Warrensburg that went, but I wasn’t really close to them. The one other Warrensburg townie in my Boys State “city” was really into it, probably because his father was a politician for the state of Missouri, and since I thought the whole “city” and mock government thing was dumb we didn’t really hang out that week. I try not to be a negative, condescending person, but come on. Having fake policemen, fake judges, fake mayors, etc. and having to play along with all of it (as a high school student, not a 6 year-old) – it’s stupid.

2) My roommate was really into it as well, and that was really annoying. He was running for city mayor or something equally as dumb, so he tried to get me to campaign for him. I just looked at him and asked, “You realize this is all fake and means nothing out in the real world, right?” He asked another guy in our city to help him out and we left each other alone the rest of the week.

3) It was 8 days long - Saturday to Saturday. That’s too much time to be at a fun summer camp, much less a crappy one. That’s a whole week of your summer, just gone; wasted.

4) They tried to make it quasi-military and that got old really quick. We had to walk in a single-file line when our “city” went somewhere (lectures, meals, etc.), we couldn’t talk while we were walking to and from the dorms, etc. Lights out was early and you had to be quiet once this occurred each night.

5) There was never any free time. Everything was scheduled, and most of the scheduled events/lectures were extremely boring.

6) I seemed to be the only person that thought that all of the mock/fake government was dumb and didn’t buy into it. At one point I actually found myself questioning myself for a second, thinking, “maybe something is wrong with me – everyone else seems to be enjoying themselves for the most part.” But then I realized that I was letting Boys State get to me and I needed to snap out of it. There’s nothing wrong with me; the rest of these guys are just average, 17 year-old guys who will end up selling insurance, used cars or becoming real estate agents in their hometowns. That’s right, I said it.

You may be asking yourself, “Why did you go (or stay) then if it was so bad?” I went and stayed for 2 reasons: Boys State attendees got a $1000 scholarship to CMSU your freshman year, and my parents were proud that I was chosen to go so I went because I was a good kid and I worked hard to always be known as “the good kid.”

To wrap up this blog posting, I’ll say this: No normal, intelligent, heterosexual 17 year-old boy with a sense of perspective should enjoy Boys State. I know that’s a bold statement, but I stand by it. Boys State did ultimately prepare me for the future by showing me that I can tolerate almost anything. I do feel like I earned every dollar of that $1000 scholarship.


Song of the day: Coldpay’s “Glass of Water” from their Proskpekt’s March album. (“You know how I know you’re gay? You like Coldplay.”) Chris Martin is a good musician. I know I’m going to seem like “one of those guys” by saying I like Coldplay, but I do.

Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it

So I realize that I haven't been keeping up with my blogging duties lately, but I have a reason why and I thought I'd share it. For the past month or so I've spent a lot of my free time working on my DJ skills for a Halloween party this weekend. Yes, you read that correctly - William Howard is working on his DJ skills. Let me share with you how this all came about.

I've mentioned before in my blog that I'm a big fan of music and of the skills good DJs possess. I remember buying Fatboy Slim's "We've Come a Long Way, Baby" CD my freshman year of college and wearing it out because I listened to it so much, and then purchasing a few of Fatboy Slim's continuous mix CD's and listening to those non-stop while in my car. Well, after our most recent trip to Vegas, while watching a few DJs perform at a club, I thought to myself that would be fun to learn to do. Most DJs these days use a laptop and mp3s, and I have a decent collection of music on my laptop, so I'd just need to purchase some additional hardware and software.

After doing some research, I found the DJ hardware/software option that was best for me (since I was just wanting to mess around with it at my house - not wanting the professional-grade setup) was Virtual DJ software and a Hercules DJ Console RMX mixing controller. FYI - most of the professional DJs use Serato Scratch Live! software and USB-enabled Technics turntables (or similar brand) and a mixer.

Now that I had my setup, I started playing around with it at night after the family went to bed or on my days off from work. I have to admit, it's pretty addicting. I can spend hours just playing around with it, seeing what songs mix together well and just playing songs I like. Me, my wife and my brother will all take turns mixing with it when we're hanging out at the house together, and it's fun to hear the music each of us plays. It was never my original intention when getting into this new hobby to DJ a public event; I thought it would just something new, fun and challenging to do at the house.

Well, after word got out to friends and family that I had a new hobby (or they saw the setup at the house), I got a few requests to play music at a few house parties. I was a little nervous because I don't consider myself a real DJ and I didn't want people to think I was trying to be a real DJ. I prepared an hour or so worth of music to mix and I think overall it went pretty well. I realized a few things while playing at a party: as long as the music isn't too loud and you don't play something horrendous, people don't really care what music is being played, as long as it's continuous background noise and not too "jerky" (a slower song played between fast songs that brings the tempo to a crawl); most people will just ignore you.

Now to the haunted house - my sister-in-law works for the North Kansas City School District as a Media Specialist (new technical name for librarian), and they are having a Haunted House this year at the library (the library is also the public library for that area of town) around Halloween after a home football game. It costs a few dollars to go through, and the proceeds go to the library for new books, etc. I guess it's expected to gather quite a crowd because tickets are sold in the middle schools and high schools in the area the week before. The library is also right across the street from the football game, so they are expecting a lot of kids to hang out there after the football game. Anyway, my sister-in-law asked if I would play some music outside the library/haunted house to keep the people in line for the haunted house entertained and also to gather attention to the haunted house to passers-by attending/leaving the football game . Now this will be something totally new, different, and a little scary for me, for a few reasons:

1. We all know middle school and high school kids are the cruelest, most judgmental people there are. I'm not a big fan of having kids make fun of me if they're not liking what they're hearing. Please understand that I don't care what middle-school and high-school kids think of me, because let's be honest, the type of kids who would openly make fun of someone playing music outside of a haunted house are most likely going to turn out to be losers as adults. I know that's a horrible thing to say about the youth of America, but come on. We all know this to be true.

2. I'm old - I realize this. I don't listen to the music that kids listen to these days. I don't want to be "that guy" that tries to relate to kids by listening to Top 40 radio for ideas and then playing all of those songs, along with Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers & High School Musical tracks all night. I also don't want to go too far the other way and just play music I like, because I'm pretty sure that middle-school and high-school kids haven't even heard some of the music I like to listen to; it was before their time. I also don't want to just play Halloween -themed music all night like "Thriller", "Monster Mash", "Ghostbusters", etc. and sound like one of those Halloween sound effects CD's people play at their house on Halloween night while kids are trick-or-treating.

3. They would like the music to start around 6:30PM in order to get the attention of the football fans who are walking from their vehicles to the football game. I've estimated that based on the size/power of my speaker system and the average walking speed of adults and children that each person will hear approximately 2.5 - 3 minutes of music as they pass by the library on their way to the football game. What that means to me is that I've got to be mixing in a way that people will be interested enough in what they hear within those 2.5 - 3 minutes that they will want to come by after the game to see what's going on.

4. I don't want to seem like a hack and play the same song more than once during the evening. This may sound like an easy task and not something I should worry about, but let me break this down for you another way. The haunted house/party goes until 11:30-midnight. I start playing at 6:30. That's 5.5 hours that I will be DJ'ing. Since it's a party on a Friday night for mostly teenagers (and for the parents who are with the younger kids), you want it to play fast tempo music to give it that "party" vibe (no slow songs or "hangin' out" music). You also want to play songs that the general public will recognize. I like to mix in and out of songs rather quickly, playing at most the chorus and a verse of each song, then transitioning into the next song. This equates to each song playing for around 1 minute each. That means that if I mix continuously from 6:30 to midnight, I'd be playing approximately 330 songs.Now I have well over 330 fast-tempo songs in my music collection to play, but not all of them mix mix well together and some songs have explicit content and should not be played at a function sponsored by a public school. I realize that I can just let more of each song play, but I don't' like doing that because I want the crowd to realize that it's a DJ playing the music, and not just an iPod on shuffle that's playing each song in its entirety.

I realize that DJ'ing a haunted house at a high school library is a minute, irrational thing to worry about and I'm blowing it way out of proportion. I just want to do a good job and not embarrass myself (or more importantly embarrass my sister-in-law) and for people to have fun. My whole goal for the night is to have people like what they hear and want to hang out to see what song will be played next, and if they were to be like "Oh snap!" when they hear some of the transitions and mixes I've put together, that would be cool as well.

By the way, if anyone has any suggestions of songs they'd like to hear or could picture hearing while waiting in line at a haunted house on a Friday night after a high-school football game, suggestions are definitely welcome.


Song of the day: "Sgt Pepper's Paradise" by Beatles vs. Guns N' Roses. The easiest way to hear this song is to go to www.grooveshark.com and enter in "sgt. pepper's paradise extended" (without the quotes). I'm a fan of mash-ups that are well put together, and this is a good one. You can't help but get up when you hear the opening guitar riff of "Paradise City" and the drum beat, and then when the vocals start you're just like, "Oh snap!"

Insert random lyric or movie quote here

A husband and wife are walking down the street and they see a parrot in a pet store window. They stop to admire the bird and the parrot says to the husband, "Your wife is really ugly." The husband is furious so they immediately leave the store. The next day the couple sees the same parrot in the window and the parrot, upon seeing them, says to the husband, “Your wife is really ugly." The husband goes inside the pet store and demands to speak to the owner. The husband is livid and yells at the owner and threatens to sue the store and have the bird killed. The store owner apologizes profusely and states that bird has been a problem for a long time and he’ll take care of it. He tells the husband that he will make sure the bird never says anything negative about his wife again. The couple leaves, and the pet store owner takes the bird in the back room and proceeds to rough it up in order to teach it a lesson. The next day, when the couple walks past the store they see the parrot sitting on his perch, but this time the parrot has a black eye, his feathers are ruffled and one of his wings is in a cast. As they walk past, the husband looks at the bird, waiting to see if it’ll say anything. The parrot looks at the husband from its perch in a cocky manner and says, “Ain’t nothin’ changed.”