New years… Blarg!

So, here it is… September 19th and I haven’t kept up with any of my resolutions. Is this new? Nope. I think anyone can say that it is sometimes difficult to stick to your resolutions, especially when one of them concerns your weight. I Had such hopes for that one. I was doing very well while going to a personal trainer twice a week. I felt good, I was loosing weight and building some more muscle. Then something came along. I moved!

This is not a bad thing. I am very, very happy with my decision to move as I am now living in a house and not an apartment. But some things came with this that I wanted but kinda hindered the loosing weight a bit more than I wanted. I am now living in a house and working from home. I do not have a car or need one but with this comes the fact that I am always inside. I have also been more busy with work, also a good thing but with all of this combined it has killed my fitness routine. I had plans of walking every morning, using my Wii Fit, the tension cables my trainer gave me before I left and various other fitness activities to keep up with. So far I have done none of them. I am hoping to change that for the next couple months and redeem some of my lost steam before the end of the year.

I just launched a program for a client and the craziness that was that project should now be back to normal and back on some semblance of development cycles from here on out. This will let me manage my time better so I can hopefully squeeze in some walking and Wii Fit. I’ll also be able to manage my other clients better with this projects launch wrapped up.

My other goals I was not very good with either. Shaving everyday? Ha! That didn’t happen long Build miahandines.com? I haven’t even had a chance to start that site. To busy with paying clients to get any time to do the site. Web Games? Nothing their either. Same case as with miahandines.com. Wedding goal? The plans have changed once again their. We have decided again to pay off some of our debt before doing the wedding.

So I think the only thing I might be able to salvage is to lose some weight by the end of the year. It won’t be as much as I wanted but some is better than none.Well this wraps up my rant on my New Years resolutions. Till next time!

- Miah

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We’re like super villains” — Jonathan, BTVS Season 6

Getting Form Values with Javascript

I am building a CRM/Scripting System/Scheduler for a client and I needed an easy wrapper function to quickly grab the value of a form input with javascript. I use alot of AJAX and was noticing that I was repeating the same set of code over and over and over and over…. You get the jist In programming this is a bad idea. You want to strive for reusable code. Now the code I was writting over again is pretty simple but I still wanted to save myself some typing, another thing you strive for as a programmer, so I came up with a couple simple wrapper functions that will get me the value of a form input with a single function call.

Without further ado:

/**
 * Returns the value of a select box. It will
 * work for both a multiselect box and a normal
 * select box.
 *
 * The function returns an string of the selected
 * values separated by a ','.
 */
function getSelectValue(selID) {

	var selectList = document.getElementById(selID);
	var optionsLength = selectList.options.length;

	var results = "";

	for (gsv_i = 0; gsv_i < optionsLength; gsv_i++) {
		if (selectList.options[gsv_i].selected) {
			value = selectList.options[gsv_i].value
			if (results == "") {
				results = results + value;
			} else {
				results = results + "," + value;
			}
		}
	}

	return results;
}

/**
 * Returns the value of a form input.
 */
function getInputValue(id) {

	if (document.getElementById(id).type.indexOf('select') != -1) {
		// We have a select element. Lets call the function for selects.
		return getSelectValue(id);
	} else {
		// Else we will just return the value of the element
		return document.getElementById(id).value;
	}

}

/**
  * USAGE
  */

function getTestValues() {
	var inputValue = getInputValue('textInput');
	var selectValue = getInputValue('selectInput');

	alert(inputValue);
	alert(selectValue);

	return false;
}

And now for the HTML:

<input type="text" name="textInput" id="textInput" value="Some Value" />
<select name="selectInput" id="selectInput">
	<option value="option 1">Option 1</option>
	<option value="option 2">Option 2</option>
	<option value="option 3">Option 3</option>
</select>

<script type="text/javascript">
	getTestValues();
</script>

Since I’m not a Javascript guru I am not guaranteeing this is the best way to do this. It is just what I found most convenient for me and I believe will be convenient for others

I hope you enjoy and if you have questions feel free to ask

Later!
- Miah

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I believe that’s the dance of a brave little toaster.” - Xander, Something Blue

Week 1 Update

Well the first week is over. It is starting to be a slow start but I have good feelings that things will soon slide into place.

On the food front, it was rough. Wednesday my fiancée got sick and we stayed home. I worked from here but our schedule was thrown off so we didn’t quite eat as much or what we should have. The next few days did get better. Then today we slipped again. I stayed up late last night and woke up late which again threw off the schedule. Things will get back into place

Friday with the trainer was good. He had us focus on legs and biceps. Surprisingly I could walk this weekend! I attribute it to the protein shakes we are taking with the nutrition plan.

Well this is a short update. It’s late and I’ve been working all day and still have a few things to get done before I can call it a night.

- Miah

Updating my Fitness Resolution

OK, I have spoken with my personal trainer (yes I have a personal trainer ), and we have adjusted what this goal will be. He doesn’t want me to focus on loosing 100 pounds off the bat. He has bigger and better plans for me Also he is right in how people tend to get discouraged if they set such a lofty number. This is why I am changing the weight loss resolution to this:

To stick with a fitness plan and increase my overall health throughout the year.

I may not be loosing 100 pounds but in total more like 50-70 pounds. This is because I am not only doing cardio and weight loss exercising but I will be doing weight training as well to build more muscle. This will allow me to loose the body fat, gain muscle and be in an overall healthier state and since muscle is heavier then body fat this is why it will be more difficult to loose 100 pounds. I’m cool with the plan and am excited to get some results.

The basic plan is this. I am on a nutrition plan that will give me all the nutrients I need to keep up with the plan. I’m taking a series of natural vitamins and making my own protein shakes. I will be eating every 2 1/2 to 3 hours and will be drinking at least 8 glasses (8 oz each) of water a day. I have purchased a food diary so I can mark down what I am eating and the exercise I am doing. This will allow me to make sure I stick with a good diet and not stray and eat fast food or other unhealthy foods as my trainer will be looking each session what i have been eating

As for the exercise I meet with my trainer twice a week, every Monday and Wednesday morning. At training I will be doing 30-45 min of cardio on the treadmill or elliptical machine then 45 min – 1 hour worth of weight training to tone up and build muscle. In addition to this I will be doing cardio 3 more times a week, Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings. Either on a treadmill/Elliptical machine or outside on one of the many trails is Sarasota. The other two days, Tuesday and Thursday will be days to rest up and cook meals ahead of time for the next day.

Since I am here I will give a quick update on how this week has gone so far. I will normally give an update each weekend on Saturday or Sunday for the whole week.

Yesterday was the first day back with the trainer after the holidays. I was glad to be back and starting to work on my fitness. Did 25 minutes on the treadmill and 45 minutes of weight training. I’m a little sore today in the shoulders but not too bad. I had expected my legs to feel it more but surprisingly they are fine. As for the meal plan. I took my morning Vitamins but missed out on the afternoon set. I had a good breakfast of Oatmeal and Fruit and my lunch and dinner consisted of 1/2 of a Publix sub each meal. I had some Fiber Selects wheat thins for snacks (garden veggie flavor) and fell victim to two slices of pizza at the end of the night (grrrr) . Not too happy with that but I got home late and needed to eat something. The pizza was left over from the weekend and I would feel bad wasting it. If anyone wants to take it off my hands feel free lol.

Come this weekend I’ll give an update of the week. I’m feeling good about this! w00T!

- Miah

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To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.” - La Rochefoucauld

Day 11,386 :: A New Beginning

Well it is the last day of 2008 and what a crazy year this has been. I have left my job at Gravityfree and started my own business in web development called Igzactly Development. I may be partnering up with one of my clients with a program I am developing within 2009. My brother got married, I’m still living in Florida and loving it, Still struggling to keep a budget and not go under but lucky enough to not have been impacted too much by the economic downturn of this past year. I now have a turtle as well as a cat, I have become a “Mac” only user and have been PC free for month! I own an iPhone, no longer have a 2005 PT as the lease ran out but now own a 95 Chrysler LXI. I have my own office. Still hate the cold. Working with a trainer to get a handle on my weight and overall health. I no longer eat pork. I made more money this year then I ever have. My best friend had a beautiful baby girl and have a second one cooking in the oven. I own a PS3 and am a master at GH/Rock Band.

Overall this past year has been fruitful, hectic and interesting. I look forward to next year and predict myself advancing much further in my career. And to do this I am going to lay out some of my new years resolutions here.

• Save enough money to put a down payment on a wedding in 2010
• Shave Everyday
• Loose 100 pounds
• Write at least once a week in this blog
• Build miahandines.com
• Make at least 2 small web based games (hangman, choose your own adventure, madlibs, etc.)
• Write at least 1 article a month on a technical subject.

This is a small list but I don’t want to overwhelm myself. I need to feel as though I accomplished something this time next year

I will also make a category for each goal and try to keep updates on my progress for each. Lets see if by this time next year I have done everything!! The game is on!

- Miah

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“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.” - Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Day 11,088 :: Day of Depression

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything in here. I really need to make it more of a habit to write in here, anyways onto today’s topic… It’s only 11:05 am EST and I’m trying to get over this depression I’m in. I’m listening HUM and It might be working but who knows. This past week, month or who knows has been a tough time. I am now officially car-less and I don’t quite now what I’m going to do. I’m supposed to be getting a car from a co-worker but he moved to India temporarily and it’s been a mess ever since trying to co-ordinate things. My fiancée’s grandmother just passed away this past Wednesday and she flew up to Boston with her family. So to add to all the other things going on this is the first time in 7 or so years that we have been away from each other for even a day and it’s extremely lonely and I just can’t wait for her to get back.

Needless to say I’ve been preoccupied by a lot of things. I’m positive I’ll get through this. It’s just a hard time and I needed to put it all out in writing somewhere. So let’s try to move onto some happier things…

I’m going to be making some extra money since I’m finally able to start my freelance work. I picked up a few jobs from a past employer and I can’t wait to get the jobs done so I can get paid and move on.

I have joined this group of game developers from all around the world. We are all beginners and are trying to get things organized. Hopefully after these few depressing situations are done with It will move forward and we can get a completed game out of it.

Wow… is that all I can think of right now???? Once my Fiancée gets back there will be another good thing

So I guess I should move on today. I have Day job work and Freelance work to do as well as figuring out how I’m going to get home… Oh well… Life is a bitch, what can you do? Laugh at it! HAHA…

Later,
- Miah

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“To the left where up is down there stands a Zebra made of shapes of me and silver and the sun…” - HUM, Suicide Machine

Day 11,026 :: UFO

This Saturday started as any Saturday does. I brought Ines to work, came home and proceeded to use the computer. I played FF1 for a while, talked with my Brother and his Fiancée about building websites for there businesses, discussed dinner for the typical X-Files night, all very normal things.

Six pm came and I picked Ines up from work. We proceeded to Monty’s Pizza (tonight’s choice for dinner) and picked up out food. Stopped by Publix and grabbed some lottery tickets (yes we ARE a winner, just waiting for confirmation one of these weeks ). Next it was off to Scott’s for X-Files. On the way there Ines noticed some strange lights low in the sky over Scott’s apartment complex. At first she thought they were the air traffic towers indicating low terrain but then realized that there are none of those around here. We lived in this apartment for over a year so we knew the layout of the area and what was around. She then pointed it out to me as it was just sitting there, not moving. I had my window down and I couldn’t here any propellers or jets that you would normally here if it was a helicopter or some other kind of plane. As we looked at it, it started to slowly move south. We could still not hear what was making this thing move but it was moving slowly and silently. It had a multitude of lights on the bottom and was not in the shape of any planes I know of. As we turned into the apartments it continued south then disappeared.

Needless to say I was excited and proceeded to tell Scott as soon as we got there. I then said we should call Muldor and Skully to investigate! After a brief discussion of it we sat down to eat and watch X-Files. Next week I’ll be sure to be watching to see if it reappears.

In my mind it’s definitely a UFO since I could not identify it. Now if it was just some secret military test plane or an “Alien UFO” I’ll never know. Either way it was pretty exciting!

Later,

-Miah

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“The bird’s dead, Dru. You left it in a cage, and you didn’t feed it, and now it’s all dead, just like the last one.” — Spike

Day 11,020 :: Last day of 2007

Well it’s December 31st, the last day of 2007. It’s been a very busy year. I’ve changed jobs, moved, gone through some life changing events, and I’m still here at the end of the year awaiting the new one, 2008. Things over this past year have gotten better. Overall I’m getting a grasp of the money aspect, a long time struggle, and things are looking up in all the other departments as well. My new job is with GravityFree, a local web development house specializing in ColdFusion. Now ColdFusion is not my choice of coding platforms but in the end it does the same thing, produce HTML. I would prefer to use PHP and in the near future Ruby. I’m starting a free online class to get the basics of ruby down so I can have a better understanding of how ruby on rails works.

As for the New Year I’m going to have a few resolutions on my list. First and foremost will be to keep on top of the financial and be ahead by the end of 2008. This includes being caught up on all my bills and finally out of the clutches of the annoying collection agencies never ending rain of calls from the likes of “Unknown”, 800-xxx-xxxx, and a whole slew of other numbers. I had at one point before I had my cell turned off collected all the numbers into groups so I can easily identify them. I had about 6 or 7 lists with 5 numbers each. That’s 30-35 different numbers I would receive collection calls from. You would think they would get the point but they need to ride the fence of harassment. Luckily for them I’m a pretty patient person and have an easy time ignoring them.

Another item on the list is to secure our wedding location by the end of 2008 for a late 2009 wedding. The place we have picked out is The Event Factory, Home of the Castle Ballroom. It is pretty much what I pictured, a castle wedding, the ceremony in the secret garden, mingling in an enchanted forest, and the reception in a castle ballroom, all for a price cheaper then renting a “Real Castle”! That reminds me of this past weekend at McCurdy’s Comedy Theatre. That can contain a whole blog in itself. In a nutshell, Ines and I were the topic of conversation for the first 15 or so minutes of the show. It was great!

Typically I would place loosing weight on the list but not this year. I still want to and intend to loose weight but I’m going to pass on putting it on my list. I want to concentrate on a few items at a time. If these are successful then I can assure you I would have lost weight in the process.

Other things in 2007… I still have a mess in my mind about my game projects and my career. I like my job but at this point I can’t see myself there for more then a few years. Things are in motion there so that could change in the near future. Until then I’m going to try and put my focus career wise on doing freelance web work. I have plans of traveling the world and if I could secure a good freelance reputation I could travel and get paid! Also I WILL win the lottery this year!

Well that’s about it for today. I wish all who read this a very happy new year and the best of luck in 2008! Remember, anything’s possible as the power of the mind can make anything possible!

Till next time, – Miah

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Yeah, we came to warn you about the… angry puppy. — Oz

Day 11,015 :: Lack of Motivation

It’s the day after Christmas, and I’m not sure if this lack of motivation will stop anytime soon. I’ve had no real motivation to do any “work” for the past couple weeks. I have plenty of work to do but I just am having a tough time actually getting any of it done. Here is a list of projects I have on my mind:

• Central Nervous System (CNS): CNS is a CMS system I am developing in PHP/MySQL to help me with speeding up the process of building a dynamic website. Every dynamic site out there needs some sort of admin and this is my vision of that admin. It is in its most basic form now and needs some serious attention.
• Ever-Isle: This is my RPG (Tabletop/PC/Browser Based) that I have been trying to get to a playable state for a few years now (4-5). Every time I seem to make any kind of progress on it I seem to loose motivation after a few weeks. Not sure if it’s just the lack of assistance in the graphic department or my need for perfection when it comes tot he visual side of it.
• Igzactly News: This is my news engine I build a couple years back to help out my best friend on a freelance project. Is has evolved to an OK state and is used on a couple sites. It however needs a serious makeover.
• martinezreunion.com: This is fiancée’s aunt’s family website. I developed this in 2004 or 2005. It is in need of a major update and graduation to an admin-able state. It has been put on hold in hopes to be the first site to use the CNS system.
• Various Online Games: These include Hangman, Browser based version of Munchkin, Ever-Isle, and various others that pop in and out of my mind.

The list goes on but at the moment those are the ones that are on the top of my list, and the ones I can remember. On top of all that I have my Day Job with GravityFree. I have plenty to keep me busy there. Lately when I get home I feel like I need to not see a computer screen. I’m none to happy with that feeling lately as it takes away from my projects.

Whatever the cause behind my lack of motivation lately, I’m hoping that it will go away or I discover it to remedy it. Until then I’ll just keep plugging away at my work and do the best I can to get my side projects completed as well. Maybe starting a topic on each of my projects will help me out… I’ll consider that. Who knows, it may lend some help to someone working on a similar project.

Till next time,

-Miah

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“He’s shot! Are you okay?” – Willow
“I, um, I’m shot, you know. Wow! It’s odd. And painful.” – Oz

Day 10,994 :: The Vet

Today started of with the alarm on my phone sounding its daily call to get me out of bed at 7:00 am. I couldn’t snooze for an extra hour as I normally do since it was today that my cat Lexi had her first appointment with the new vet. I was only able to sneak in an extra 15-20 minutes in bed until I slowly rolled out of bed.

The morning consisted of me doing some last minute cleaning and waiting around for Lexi to produce the stool sample the vet kindly asked me to bring in. I have never had to get a stool sample before and as I waited patiently Lexi jut stared at me with no intention of coughing one up. She had her harness on (for her leash) and the carrier was in the middle of the floor. She new what it meant and had no intention of co-operating. 9:05 am came about and I couldn’t wait any longer.

After battling her to get in the carrier Ines and I left our apartment and headed to the car. We strapped Lexi in the back seat and proceeded to drive to the vet.

About 2 minutes into the drive Lexi got the idea she would repay us for making her leave the comfort of her home by finally giving us the stool sample… Right in the carrier… Now she has never done this before and she picked a day to start when she had a very pungent bowel movement. Needless to say we were embarrassed when we finally made it to the vet 15 minutes later and asked them if they had any wipes so we could collect the sample and clean Lexi up. The vet was kind enough to do these themselves. They had to weight her and get her temperature anyways so it kind of worked out. I say kind of cause Lexi was none to happy with the arrangement.

Now Lexi doesn’t hiss or bite much at all, especially to strangers. She’s generally a very well natured cat, not today. When she got back in the exam room she wanted nothing to do with the place. The vet was nice and he gave us some good diet tips for her. She is officially 2 pounds overweight. Not bad but we want her to be as healthy as can be. So she will benefit by having more laser chasing time! I’m sure she won’t complain. After the appointment was done she had no complaints getting into the carrier. I think she new this time it would bring her home. We get home without any stinky surprises and she struts out of the carrier happy as can be! She is so spoiled!

The rest of today was pretty standard. I got to work after eating some Dino’s Pizza buffet, Sat in a phone meeting with a client for a few hours, fixed some sites, quoted some work, and surfed the net for some tidbits of amusement to make me laugh.

It’s now 8:36 and in an hour I’ll leave to pick up Ines from work, eat some quick dinner, watch some TV and find my way back into the comfort of my bed. Tomorrow I hope to jot down a few notes on one of my many game projects, Ever-Isle.

I’ll leave you with some pictures of Lexi -Little Miss Kittyfantasico!

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“We’re your bosom friends, the friends of your bosom.” — Xander (duh!)