Note: after finishing this post, I felt the need to warn you that this is just a cathartic post.  A little humor, a little whining, a little trying to excuse my recent output, but mostly I am whining because I want to get back to myself and post and such. 

Mercy, I have started to pile up commentary type posts as I still have the time/ability to come up with ideas, just no time to do the writing.  I figured today I would just bring you up to date in a plea to not unsubscribe from my blog if it is annoying you just sitting there never producing messages.  Feel free to email me at drsql@hotmail.com if you want to tell me so yourself.

Anyhow I still have this problem that I am unable to sit at a desk for more than like 2 hours without pain and cumulatively 8 hours a day is very near my limit most days.  I am pretty sure that I am the first person my physical therapists have ever heard ask that they help a person sit before. Not walk, not ride a bike, just sit.  Of course, if I could run a marathon that would be nice too.  Right now it is hurting quite a bit, so I might cut this shorter than I hoped to. 

After the MRI showed very little, my orthopedic doctor sent me to a doctor to have an EMG done.  This if you don't know, is basically the scientific version of what Jack Bauer would do to you if asked him how he went 24 hours without eating, drinking, or even going to the bathroom (which might be explained by the no eating or drinking policy.) M ore or less (you can read the real version of what electromyography is here,) electrical conductors are taped to part of your body, and then to another part of the body either a cattle prod is touched somewhat anti delicately to another part of your body and they measure how well your nerve conducts electricity.  Jack would probably use a 12V battery and some speaker wire, or that could be McGyver, or Kelly Robinson, or... Hmm, maybe I watch too much TV.

Note, if you have ever stuck anything metal into a wall socket (and I will just go ahead and assume the woman reading is thinking "how stupid" and all of the men reading are thinking back to the first time they did that as a kid because "it sounded fun") if felt a bit like that.  Only instead of just oscillating through your hand (the wall socket was alternating current so you can feel the waves going at 60 per second or so) before you drop the knife, exclaim "cool!" and depending on the IQ of the reader, tried it again, this time the person kept the electrode on for seconds.

Now, I am glad my doctor wasn't mad at me, because if she had been, she could have make the test last for minutes instead of seconds.  It actually redefined by understanding of pain.  It was the second worst thing I have ever felt (stitches in my nose between the nostrils was number one.  I was eight and I can still remember the entire episode...I remember very few experiences that well from before I was 40 (and that birthday isn't for a week and a half!)  I felt my entire foot light up like it was completely on fire.  Many times, from many different locations on my leg.

The good news:  My nerves are all still working like the finely tuned carriers of pain my Creator instilled in them.  That however, is also the bad news.  No problem, no solution.  So another week, another visit to the doctor.  Or two.  But, I will never ever smart off to Jack Bauer.  Never.

Every time I drive somewhere, there is the inevitable one or two (or three or four) people that have to ask: "You didn't fly? Why?"  I have said it before, but yesterday, when I was driving back from Virginia Beach to Nashville, I started pondering that question (along with the internal architecture of a new product I am working on, which was useful too..) and started compiling a list on my smartphone.  I have ten to start. 

And yes, there just as easily could be a list of reasons why flying is better than driving "fall asleep in the airplane, wake up refreshed, fall asleep driving, end up with a toe tag (and I have almost done this myself a few times too many when I was younger and stupider.)" 

Feel free to add to the list:

1. In order to get in my car this morning, I wasn't scanned, poked, prodded, fondled, or anything of the sort.  I just pressed a little button on my key fob.
2. Once seated in my car, no little voice was played on my car stereo teaching me how to put on the seat belt that another nice person had already checked to make sure I was wearing.
3. When I opened up my window, an oxygen mask did not fall from my visor area, nor was my head sucked off through the window (yes, the Mythbusters proved this wouldn't happen anyhow, but it still looks mighty convincing!)
4. No other person fondled any of my clothes from the time I zipped the case and loaded it into my car to the time I arrived at my hotel.
5. I did not have to turn off my electronic devices for takeoff OR landing.
6. The only person who can throw up within three feet of me is me. (Happened on my trip to the MVP Summit, which I was subsequently sick for myself :( )
7. When weather forces cancellation of your drive while it is getting a bit late, you can just go to a hotel.  When weather forces cancellation of your flight, you might end up spending the night on an airport floor (done it twice at Chicago O'hare because it was 11 at night and I was rescheduled for a 8:00 flight)
8. Getting the pilot to divert course for a little shopping did not end up with me married to a rather large fellow named Bubba in Leavenworth.
9. Engine falls out of your car, you get out and check the damage.  Engine falls out of your plane...
10. Very seldom is the food at an airport nearly as good as I had at Quarterback's BBQ in Hampton, TN.  Very nice BBQ, excellent beans, etc.  Just to prove that the Internet is everywhere, a dive like this has a website (http://www.quarterbacksbbq.com/).  Only real problem with the place was that they had a picture of Jeff Hall on the wall.  Dude, he was a kicker :)

You probably have noticed that I haven't been writing as much on my blog lately.  Well, this is because I finally decided to quit.  I have had enough of working on queries, and articles, and just the whole lot.  I have spent more time blogging than I have watching TV, playing my Wii, Xbox, or heck, even spending time with my family.  This blog is just too darn much work and I just don't freaking care anymore.  No one reads it, and no one cares.  I think I have had approximately 10 hits on the site in the past month of Sundays.  And have I ever made a difference?  Not really.

I had started this blog to drive book sales, but according to my latest statement, approximately 10 people (perhaps the same ten that accessed the site) have purchased a copy of my book "Pro SQL Server Database Stuff I Know That You Also Oughta."  

I will bet that it is this blog that is stopping people from buying it and not the fact that every other word is "like".   I thought it was trendy, but one reviewer stated: "This book is like so bad I cannot even believe it even got published. It was apparently written by a 10 year old."  Well, Mr. Smarty Pants it was actually written as an experiment using my thousand monkeys code.  What this jerk reviewer didn't know is that this was the best version of the book that SQL Server could produce using only a random number generator. 

And as for working in forums?  Aye carumba!!  I just go there and answer the same question over and over and over.  My password never changes, so why do they keep asking me?  Not to mention the questions that people ask.  Dynamic SQL this, and Cursor that.  Yikes, from now on any and all questions I answer will be of the variety: "Game over, play again?" 

As for my career, I am giving it up for a job as a goat herder on a small ranch in northern South Dakota, or possibly southern North Dakota.  Day in and day out just writing SQL and designing databases is getting too old.  Nothing like a pack of square eyed capra aegagrus hircus devil beasts to keep a person happy throughout the day.  I also figure to have some sheep and chickens too.  It is going enjoyable spending my days milking the chickens, shearing the sheep and dancing with the goats.  Ah, dancing with goats takes me back to the good old days.

It is this kind of subliminal messages that really should get the book flying off the shelves, I tell you what.  Still don't believe me, well probably good for you!  But I can dream right?  Anyhow, another good season of 24 and a moderately painful goodbye for Alias.

Don't get me wrong, I loved Alias, but in some ways the end of this show felt like the end of a big computer project with only the sketchiest of design.  Most every episode of Alias was great, but the overall picture could get muddied by this mythology that it never felt like they tied together.  Computer projects often end like that, with interfaces and objects and scripts that all have to be reconciled in the end.  Now if you read this at work you won't need to feel guilty :)