I was actually excited to get in and started today, I had the weekend to noodle on the development issue of notes. So I got it started and it works, to an extent Unfortunately there seems to be an issue that LISTAGG can only return a string character of 4000 characters or it bombs with an Oracle error. I don’t think that’s going to work and the only other option that I can see is pulling it out as XML and use XSL to transform it into a CSV. The only problem is we’d have to dig down into a node that’s on the same level but named differently, I wonder if I can refer to node by level number.

I also got a call about another contract that I’m perfectly suited for. It’s a 9 month gig normal hours for eastern time zone, so 7am to 4pm my time. I could be a super asset on that but we’ll see how it shakes out. I feel like I’m letting this contract business get in the way of my education but I do really enjoy things I know like the back of my hand.

The back room is getting closer to complete, it’s doable this week if the spirit is willing.

Still don’t care for them and have been feeling a little off all day. I guess that’s what I get for playing last night. That’s okay, every once in a while I have to remember how good it feels to not have alcohol in the system. It was good hanging with Adrian last night though.

Today was the memorial for Claudia. It was sad and happy at the same time. It was great to see everyone but sad that it was under those circumstances. It was a nice ceremony and I learned more about Claudia than I did in the years I knew her.

Adrian and I dropped Rhonda off and headed to the hill to say HBD to Barry. I met Kelly’s dad for the first time. I’ve known Kelly for 25 years and have heard endless stories about him but it was nice to get to finally meet him.

Adrian and I headed to Whitten’s to watch the last half of the Texas game and they lost. I had a few too many and remembered why I don’t do that on any type of regular basis. SMH, getting old ain’t no fun…

While it was a bit chilly today, I got a bunch done. I had a meeting at work and they said to go ahead and build what we’ll call a ‘note extract’. So this doesn’t just mean standard stuff, this is development. So I needed to do something about working on the laptop they sent which seems to be sized for a kindergartner. Headed to Walmart for a couple of Digital Port cables to fit into the port replicator they sent. I can now hook up my lower 2 HP monitors to the laptop and move the blue tooth adapter. So now I just plug in the work laptop and switch the monitor inputs and use my keyboard and mouse and three monitors (including the laptop screen). While it’s not the best it’s a couple 100% better than it was so I can actually develop. Still need to find out where to put the other work laptop but we’ll figure that out sooner or later. I also have to pull the old server and home the new server into the UPS and all that.

Tomorrow is busy. I can go to men’s breakfast at church, then we have to go to Claudia’s memorial, and after that I should go pay my respect to Toes as he celebrates his 80th birthday. And it’s supposed to be raining and cold all day. That’s good for a funeral. I also have to finish putting the back room together, I want to get that done this weekend so we can start demo on the master bath.

I had to renew my passport and now they let you take your own picture. While this seems like a good thing, it’s a little harder than it sounds. You can’t just take a selfie and be done with it. The background has to be of a certain off-white hue, you can’t be smiling (or frowning) and it should be a quality shot of yourself.

So I found an empty wall and fortunately had a roll of white vapor barrier that I hung behind me, had to bring in the ladder to attached the lights to so I had proper lighting and pulled out the tripod to hold the camera, lined it all up with my watch remote and took pictures. The results horrified me. I mean I look at myself in the mirror everyday but what I was getting in the pictures was a much harsher reality than I was ready for. I had a turkey neck, was pale and looked more like a proof of death picture than anything else. Hell my drivers license was much more flattering if that says anything.

So where I’m going with this is I charged my wife with setting me up with something to keep my skin from looking like leather. The results were an in shower face cleanser and an after shower skin moisturizer and another for the face and neck. While I cannot stop the effects of aging, I can help soften them. This is why the ladies look nice well into their later years while the fellows look like leather neck.

I guess it happened during covid that anything that was open 24 hours wasn’t open 24 hours and hours were scaled back since then. I ran into the issue maybe last year, I had to get some band aids or something at 3am and that was never a problem as there was a Walgreens and CVS diagonal from each other just down the road. Nope, both closed. The 24 hour Walmart super center is no longer 24 hours. And evidently the home improvement stores aren’t open until 8am on a Sunday. Jackasses used to have a Home Depot that was open 24 hours and now they can’t even open until 8am. What is the point of living in a city of 8 million people if you can’t even find a hardware store open at 7am on a Sunday? I’d be really bent out of shape except there was no traffic on the roads, probably because there’s nothing open to go to…

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