Useless Conversation

[Furiously]

I just bought the older boy an O-gauge Polar Express train.  I'm losing my fucking mind.   

When we get there we'll say "Yea"! On the Polar Express!

[ghost]

Here's an interesting article from Wired-  the Top 5 Toys of All Time. 

Obviously this guy has never played Demons Souls.   

[Sky]

You think Demon Souls is hardcore? You never played sticks with us. I still have scars ON MY FACE from sticks. It's the scar the denotes the time I learned I had berserker strength of my people and could beat the shit out of someone twice my size. So it's a mark of awesome imo.

[ghost]

We only had PvE sticks.   

[Sky]

It got dumber when we climbed the gear progression ladder to bb guns, cherry bombs and corn cobs. Surprisingly, the cobs caused the most injuries by far. I think we were just more cautious with guns (as we were all taught) and explosives (nobody ever lost fingers, and we used to pack our own), but hey a cob is a cob, right? THWACK

[Xanthippe]

What can you do with cobs that you can't do with rocks?

[Sky]

Cobs won't kill someone.

[rattran]

One of the outside cats got into the back of my FJ while I was unloading groceries and scared the crap out of me when I went back out and picked up a paper bag of eggs and cat.

Eggs were fine, cat seemed confused. He's now out back, jumping in and out of the bag weighted down with a rock.

[ghost]

That's awesome.  Cats are evil.

[Sky]

Speaking of trees, the city planted my blue spruce yesterday morning. I had lobbied three years straight, including being the catalyst for a paper trail for requests. Then this year I gave up 

Then they dug the shit out of my big maple's roots (one root was a good 10" diameter) and didn't remove the old stump next to the new tree. So I hope they didn't kill the maple - it's a three-trunk with a split crotch, I don't know why people don't know to nip the weaker shoots when trees are young. The biggest trunk is aimed at my house and will pretty much demolish the entire thing. I also hope the stump removal doesn't hurt the new tree. Yay muni workers.

[Furiously]

Stumps are darn hard to remove!

[rattran]

Stumpgrinder if you want it gone NOW, or just let it rot for 4 years. I've got a 3' diameter oak stump in the back yard that's 3.7 years old, it's almost gone

[Merusk]

It depends on the environment and the health of the tree, doesn't it?  I know there's a stump near my parent's house from a 7' diameter tree that got hit by lightning that's still there 20 years later.

[Sky]

Stumpgrinder if you want it gone NOW, or just let it rot for 4 years. I've got a 3' diameter oak stump in the back yard that's 3.7 years old, it's almost gone

I've been in the house for 3-1/2 years and it's been a stump since I've been there, it's pretty shot at this point. Still, I'd rather the city mess with it, since I pay them to do that service.

Also, just to underscore what I was saying earlier - if you have young trees or saplings with multiple trunks, think hard about lopping off the weaker trunk(s). The bark inclusion is a bitch, and it's only a matter of when (not if) it will split there. Especially if you live in a winter zone, the ice heaving will split it like nothing over time. But anywhere can get a good blow that will knock it over. Just a bad idea, and worse the more it threatens your house.

/publicservice

[murdoc]

It's finally snowing! I think this is the latest we've gone without snow of any significance in a LONG time.

[Sand]

Shut your man trap! 
I was enjoying the mid-60 degree days and 50 degree nights.

[Minvaren]

And a late welcome to page 500.   

Debating upgrading DSL to U-Verse Internet only (I don't watch TV), as the promo price is $cheap for a year, and it will let me hit my cap twice as fast.      That said, TOR betas and DCUO/Portal 2 downloads put me at half of my cap for the month right there.

[ghost]

It's in the 70s here..... 

[NiX]

It's hovering around 5 degrees here. That's 278 Kelvin for your Americans

[RhyssaFireheart]

I still need to bring a space heater to work, my cube is cold, although it seems to be more me than the office space.  Also need to bring my little coffee maker in so I can make tea at my desk.  I simply cannot make decent tasting tea one mug at a time.

And you can keep all the damn snow, murdoc.

[murdoc]

Snow + quattro = FUN.

We're going to bundle the boys up in their snowsuits tonight and let them run around out in the snow for this first time. Should be fun.

[rattran]

I'm planning to go shopping Saturday near you Rhyssa, so expect piles of snow then.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I'm planning to go shopping Saturday near you Rhyssa, so expect piles of snow then.

I'm counting on Tracy to be right!

[Chimpy]

That is a Chicago forecast. You should know by now that it can be awesome and sunny in the loop and be nasty and snowing a half a mile away :p

[RhyssaFireheart]

True, except rattran's only going to be down the street from me shopping (Algonquin Commons?) and we're out in the NW Suburbs. So I'm figuring that anything so close is going to affect me no matter what.

I can go through several different types of weather just on my drive to work though, that's for sure.

[rattran]

Whatever the shopping megaplexii at Randall Rd are called. When I moved to this area, that was all fields!

[Margalis]

Winds of up to 85 MPH in LA tonight supposedly.

[Selby]

I still need to bring a space heater to work, my cube is cold, although it seems to be more me than the office space.

Same problem here.  My office is COLD all the time.  Even in the summer the AC freezes me out.  No space heaters allowed though, so I have to bundle up extra.  They finally turned the heat on in the mornings...

[RhyssaFireheart]

Whatever the shopping megaplexii at Randall Rd are called. When I moved to this area, that was all fields!

Yeah, probably Algonquin Commons for the main stuff then.  There are some nice stores there.  When we moved to the area almost 11 years ago now, Algonquin and Randall were still 2 lane roads and fields were everywhere.  Now - both are 4 lanes at least and Algonquin is trying to take away Schaumburg's retail crown.  It's crazy how much the area has grown.

I still need to bring a space heater to work, my cube is cold, although it seems to be more me than the office space.

Same problem here.  My office is COLD all the time.  Even in the summer the AC freezes me out.  No space heaters allowed though, so I have to bundle up extra.  They finally turned the heat on in the mornings...

Well, technically space heaters aren't allowed here either, but it works in a "if we don't obviously see it, it doesn't exist" way, so I should be fine.  Usually I just put on my shawl or wear a scarf, but some days I'm just freezing and nothing helps.

[Mrbloodworth]

So, after 13 years of being a graphic designer. My company is asking me to create and maintain a MS access database. 

Thankfully they are willing to send me to training fully paid to do so.

So, what am I getting into here? Insights?

[Yegolev]

People still use Access?

[Miasma]

Wow, MS Access.  I didn't know they still made that.  You sure you're being asked to "create" and not maintain some incredibly old system they can't seem to get rid of?

[Murgos]

If it is 'create' and there isn't a need to maintain an old DB I would see if they'll train you in something else.  MSSQL, for example (and to stick with a Microsoft product), training and experience would actually have monetary value to you in the future. A good DBA can easily get 6 figures.

[Mrbloodworth]

It is an older project that is already based on it. However lots of modifications are required, but its the starting point and requirement. Even if in the end i use nothing from the other project ( Likely ) They key factor is its a DB multiple users will be using and the front end needs to be web based. If that makes any sense.

I suppose my question is, just how complicated is using MS access? And if any of you have any info I can ingest about the subject that helped you in the past.

[Minvaren]

Back up your database about every hour.  Access seems to LOVE to corrupt its databases regularly, at least when I supported it previously.  Aside from that, from what I've seen it's not terribly difficult to learn - but if you're wanting stable concurrency, I'd really look at migrating it to SQL server.

Also, on the space heater thing - they're a major fire hazard, and tend to blow breakers on a regular basis here.  Our building is alternately boiling and freezing cold all over the place, so I understand why people want them - but keeping a building without fire suppression from burning down and people's PCs powered on ranks a bit higher than comfort for me.