She’s still a tad warm, [weatherwise] so I may use the car to head for a bookstore later. Only this time I phone to make sure the coffee shop is in operation. I wish Books-A-Million wasn’t so far away (in the Sawgrass Mills mall). It is interesting to note that most of the really big bookstores in this area now have Spanish sections. Empty, but Spanish. I’m usually the only person in the store who can read any of it.
Later, I did spend the day at the bookplaces. You get a recap of what I read all day. Yes, SQL has evolved slightly, but nothing I can’t handle. They’ve added some very interesting new data types and procedures that were lacking in the first place. One thing they’ve done is standardize the date format, which I will adopt whenever possible from this point onward. That format is YYYY-MM-DD, a style I’ve advocated since I was 20: Largest dimension first.[Author's note 2016: I did not know that Europe used the YYYY-MM-DD format. I based my decision on how databases most effectively sorted and searched. The largest grouping first, working later into the more detailed fields.]
I even read a joke book, my favorite being, “This Irishman walks out of a bar.” Scientific American again announced the arrival of the personal jet. This was the hundred best inventions of the year issue, one of the few I buy. My favorite new item? It is an attachment about the size of a large refrigerator which freezes ordinary water during the night when it is cool. This contraption is hooked to a regular air conditioner. During the day, the ice is slowly melted to take the strain off the condenser coils. Brilliant, and not only that, I understand the technology.
After all that, I never even had a coffee at the Barn. I scored one of the lounge chairs as soon as I walked in, kept it all afternoon by reading a complete textbook on PHP. There’s another language I conclude is far simpler to learn than to get it to work on a PC. I could not even decipher the command lines needed to install the product. What is complicated is that these “new” languages have heavy reliance on external files and interfaces. On the other hand SQL, a traditional language, works by itself with dozens of unconventional command line settings.
These things are, I say again, a hobby interest. I have no idea where the skill of something like SQL would place me on the job market. I know I regularly see positions, so maybe I’ll read them more closely. Whereas I like writing, I am quite aware it may take years of publishing to find my market and I will likely take a job before then. This has been thought through several years ago. My job will likely involved teaching, that is, something I can do no matter what.
As I just said, the blockade is publishing, not writing, yet I didn’t even bother to read anything on the topic today. I mentioned the $1.50 per book earnings, which is not great but it is something concrete to go on. Now to imagine some booklet I could sell those 10,000 copies of. I’m thinking. Give me a little room. No matter what the ebook place says, I stick to my share being the $1.50 and I should be okay. I know about all those book-signings and touring appearances, but that just sounds too much like work.
Don’t place any bets, but I read an article on cat pregnancy that says things are not definite. Apparently cats are not always able to conceive (no, I didn’t know that). The book says that once they do their mating behavior stops. Well, Pudding-Tat is still mewling and the tomcats are still outside. There is the slimmest of chances she may yet be a virgin. The paragraphs that described spaying are quite unambiguous that the procedure is very invasive and should only be performed on cats before they have had kittens. Rumor is that vets want $250 for the operation.
Return Home
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
