Tyler Hardison's Diary

First, obviously I'm slacking in my narcissistic duties as a blogger. I will try to post more often.

Some updates, I've recently partnered up on a project that processes data from helicopters that are used for firefighting. Each helicopter is equipped with a SCADA unit that tracks GPS coordinates, how much they dropped, altitude, and numerous other things. These units are fairly innocuous since they are only used for data acquisition, and take no part in controlling the aircraft. The part that I work on however is the data processing. Using the "point data" I am creating spreadsheets that are used in billing. It's fairly complicated since I really do not understand 100% all of the data being captured. So I'm learning a lot about how these little boxes work. This is a paid gig, so once I complete the first stage of the program, there should be a fat check waiting on the end.

But what about the title of this entry?

On my way into work this morning, I was struck by how generally bleh I was feeling. Then I started to think about the rain, and was once again feeling a little more optimistic. See, I grew up in and around farms. My grandfathers on both sides were almond farmers (yes pronounced amond, because "when they hit the ground it knocks the 'L' out of them", read aloud for full effect). On one side they also grew peaches, and apricots. I spent a lot of time working as a child, although surely not as much as some. But why like rain? Because rain gives life, but that answer also is not terribly satisfying to me. So what other reasons could possibly exist. To find that answer, we must travel back to my childhood. For some reason I have vivid memories of kindergarten. Other grades are a blur, until about 5th grade, but that first year was the year I was introduced to the "Rainy Day Schedule". Which for some kids was akin to a death sentence, it meant horrific games of dodge ball. For me, it represented an upset in the status-quo, a sudden change that removed the daily routine and replaced it with something that was *different*. I wasn't terribly social as a child, that was something I grew into. So instead of being alone on the playground, or trying to make friends, I could do things like self-absorbed play, and reading. One other thing that I like about the rain, forgetting all the scientific explanations, is the shear magical event that rain is. It's responsible for all things that we see green, that isn't irrigated. It falls from the sky and washes away all the pollutants in the air. It can also be destructive, but then forces the building of something new. For those of us who rejoice in a certain amount of melancholy feeling in our life, it brings dark ominous things. For all this we return to water, it can help things grow, it can kill, it can change landscapes , it can be used for torture.

foreach my $value ( @values ) {
  # -- Do something with the value 
}

values.each do |value| 
  # -- Do something with the value
end

So not much different for either. Those are pretty pedestrian examples. Lets do something a little more complicated. Iterate through rows in a database.

my $sth = $dbh->prepare("select col1, col2, col3, col4 from foo where bar = 'baz'");
$sth->execute();
while ( my $row = $sth->fetchrow_hash() ) {
  # Do something here
}
$sth->finish();

sth = dbh.execute("select col1, col2, col3, col4 from foo where bar = 'baz'") # One step executes.
sth.fetch_hash do |row|
  # Do something with the row
end

values.each { |value| a = value * 2 }

• Carry the Mamiya or Yashica
• Carry the film I really want
• When finished with a roll, process it