JohnFiala'sWebsite

I like crowdfunding. Especially Kickstarter.

I love the idea of it. It's hard to make something interesting and cool these days - it costs serious money to make something, even something that's not meant to be pernament, so why not come up with a way to let a lot of folks who are interested put in a little money to help make it happen? If you can't find 1000 fans to put in $10, then maybe you should try something else, and if you can find those thousand people - or two thousand, or five, then something really cool can happen.

Here's a link to the article: https://www.newmediadenver.com/blog/using-haversine-formula-drupal7

I'm lucky enough to have started come across a recommendation of this book in another blog, and was up until about 12:30 last night finishing the damn thing, because I just had to stay on and see how it ended. So, I think it's pretty damn good. Plus, I'll warn you that this book won an Edgar award in 2013 for "Best Original Paperback", so apparently a bunch of other folks also liked it.

So, that's 2014.

Not a great year for the US in general, or for the world, but personally it went pretty well. My daughter started Preschool and daycare, which she's doing well at, which allowed my wife to look for a job which - as expected - mostly helps pay for the preschool. (Although preschool will get a little cheaper once we're done with toilet training.)

Also, Rose is continuing to grow and become more of a person, which is fantastic. She's now partially toilet trained, which is a great relief, and is really getting her alphabet and counting down. And she recognizes her name.

Well, it's been a very nice Christmas, although it looked a little touch-and-go for a bit.

Two weeks ago Rose started getting sick with a cold, a cold that then attacked Tammy and me with a vengeance. Where Rose was sick for a day or so, both I and my wife were stuck at home for two days, with me only returning to work at the tail end of the week by working from home.

(If you missed it, my previous post on this topic was Using Doctrine Migrations Without the ORM.)

So my previous blog post laid down a good start on how to use Doctrine to move changes to the database, but soon I ran into a new problem - what about when you have data to change in addition to changing the structure of the database? For instance, my first try at this was putting a default row of data into a new table, or maybe putting initial data into a new column?

My first try was simple, but unfortunately not quite right, I used the addSql() command:

Recently I was handed a PHP project at work which already existed but the owner wanted a variety of tweaks and improvements added to it. The project wasn't built with any framework I could name, and although it has a sort of MVC feel to it, is not strictly an MVC project.

It's been a while since I've remembered to blog... oh, well. Parenting is distracting.

This weekend's been fun. Yesterday we went out to see things - first we went by the Cherry Creek Farmer's Market, where we picked up some interesting pie and ravioli, and also found a really cute dress for Rose. We also got some neat snacks, nibbling on some Pirogi and Chinese dumplings.

Once we were done with that, we wandered off to the Valverde Bazaar, which was near enough to where we lived. Lots of interesting antiques, scrap, and various bits of art - my wife got a garden decoration made from sticking together various sunny plates and glass dishes, and I picked up four dark red scrabble tiles that spell out R-O-S-E... as well as looked over some really nifty typewriters. For some reason, I really like the idea of getting a nice looking typewriter.

An interesting weekend for gaming. This weekend is Tacticon/Railcon, the big train gaming event, so my wife went off to play and left me with Rose for two days. Which has been fun, but I'm already worn out. (The first day was Friday, so today she's spending time at home.)

With Rose both tired and a handful, I wasn't really able to visit the dealer's room at the convention when we dropped by yesterday, but I did pause momentarily at the table that Black & Read had to pick up the latest expansion for Netrunner. (I've been picking up the expansions, but haven't really had a chance to play. I probably should try playing online, but haven't been motivated to yet.)

My mother's in from out of town visiting, and we've been having a lot of fun. One of the most satisfactory things we've done together is what we did on Thursday, going to the first full day of the "Just Between Friends" consignment sale here in Denver. (If you're a parent, these things are magic - cheap used items (or cheap unused items) all in one place.)