Choose your battles wisely...

Having been on the losing end of several blogging debates, I think I finally know the meaning of the phrase, pick your fights wisely. That's why being on the offensive is so important when fighting a battle. Your opponents will focus on your weaknesses, and you need to focus on the weaknesses of your opponents. We're assuming neither side is perfect. Of course, ideally, you'd be able to defend your positions as well.

I'm not saying that I should be going on the offensive, but should stop just fighting battles I tend to lose against an enemy that has the higher ground.

Who'd have thought IE was less forgiving...

Beginning Javscripters beware: IE refuses to believe an object exists unless you pre-define it first (outside any conditionals). I'm tempted to say it's like C.
(UPDATE: I am a big idiot. I had to do this because I didn't use the declaration operator "var".

Also, thanks Simon for having a link to MS's script debugger.
To use it, insert debugger in your code. I inserted it as debugger; but I have limited experience with it. It also acts as a break point, so put it after the problem areas. Just remember to take it out when you're done.

PHPness

Do not use bare double quotes within a php echo statement!

Rudimentary Programmin Lesson in Java

I started and my partner finished our programming project for our Internet Technology class. Dumbest errors that wasted a lot of time? Redefining global variables locally and getting NullPointerExceptions. Other error is multi-threading related, but Mike was able to find an interesting workaround. More on that eventually, I hope. Otherwise, Eclipse is a great IDE! Unfortunately, they didn't have it at the lab as I thought. AH! I actually remember now, it was at the Engineering lab that they had Eclipse.

Stock trading lessons

When placing stop-loss orders, remember to take into account the intrinsic price volatility. I set my limit on Apple a bit low (sold at 53.50) and by closing time it jumped back to ~55. I didn't have the brains to just buy again (partly because I wasn't aware of the cause of the sudden fluctuation, Now, I know it was probably due to some institutional shareholder dumping a lot of shares). The next day, the price jumped a couple of dollars. The next day, again. The same principle that would've kept me out of trouble (don't be too conservative) got me into trouble because I assumed the price would drop back down. Well, the stock isn't that volatile. Finally bought back in at 65 :/ What's happening in the background? Analysts are predicting that the iPod could be doing a lot better in sales and that PC users who buy iPods (who have an almost insurmountable market share in MP3 players in general and iTunes music sales) are significantly more likely to buy Macintosh computers.

Next lesson... When I actually bought the same number of shares back at over 10 dollars more each share, I bought it when the market opened.. now, granted it was after Thanksgiving, but before-hours trading had the price almost a dollar over what it had closed the previous trading day.. I guess I should've let things cool down and let the real traders takes hold first.

Here's to that $100/share price target that crazy analyst set.

UPDATE 10:41 EST 11/29/04: I'm good for now! Apple rose 3 points today to $68.44 probably due to Bank America raising AAPL's price target to $73 dollars. Merril Lynch also supposedly raised its target.

Post exam analysis

I was burned this week from 3 exams that were all much easier than they could've been. Why? Asides from the class that I was really behind in, I thought I understood concepts I didn't really have a good grasp of. So the lesson is that you don't know it until you can prove it. Eh.. whatever... the real lesson is study in advance and don't fall asleep in class. There's always the finals, right?

Update concerning procrastination: it's not only possible to underestimate the time it takes to accomplish tasks, it's almost certain to happen. Compound these miscalculations with interruptions and set-backs and you're surely screwed.

Boring post again... but this is for my own good anyway.

Taking the bus back to college avenue in the evening

On weeknights, after 9:30, I believe, the A bus becomes the only bus running from College Avenue to Busch Campus. It takes the H bus route, however. Good to know, right? Why am I writing about this? I missed the A going back to College Ave by waiting on the wrong side of Werblin and had to take the A as it entered the Busch Campus.

"It has been said that idleness is the parent of mischief

, which is very true; but mischief itself is merely an attempt to escape from the dreary vacuum of idleness."—George Borrow.

While waiting for the bus to go back to College Ave, I got bored and started throwing my keys high straight up into the sky and trying to catch them. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at this activity and my keys often ended up in the street. So I turn around and face the lawn in front of the Werblin Rec. Center—standing in front of a nice-sized tree. It takes me one throw to lose my keys to the nebulous branches of the tree and my heart sinks.

I immediately begin pondering the consequences of my idiocy: relying on Mike (my roommate) to open get access to our dorm room, paying the $60 fee to replace the lock, waiting until winter for the leaves to abscize off the tree to get my wonderful Fleet bank compass keychain. I tried in vain to shake the tree, the branches, doing so only half-heartedly because I couldn't see my keys anywhere in the tree through the darkness.

Having already prepared myself to accept the worst case scenario, one of two guys waiting at the bus stop asked me what I was staring at. I tell him I was really stupid and threw my keys into the tree. Quickly, one of the guys spots my keychain and the other suggests using my shoe to knock the keys down. I try and miss, but
the other's throw was true. Soon after, I was putting my shoe back on and asking for the names of my benefactors. Now I forget their names, but I will try to remember their faces. Both were business majors who were on their way to the College Avenue Gym to play basketball after finishing up playing at Werblin. What have I learned?

1. Don't do idle things with important objects of critical value (i.e. your keys).
2. Now, I'm not sure whether I would've eventually found the keys in the tree by myself, but don't panic or give up too easily in the face of adversity or you might miss seeing boat on the horizon.
3. Anything else?

Up there on the list of worst ways to procrastinate

is 'To blog about procrastination.' Let me just warn any sympathetic soul who might be reading this that this will not be the last post about procrastination.

Yesterday was move-in and last-minute packing day. Onsite key pickup lasted until 4:00 PM and I get there at 4:00 PM. I waited until the last minute to pack and needed the help of my entire family to gather and prepare everything I needed into the back of our minivan and couldn't have made it without them. Not that I made it in the sense that I got my key at 4:00 (I didn't), but had the housing people still been there at 4:00 PM, I wouldn't have missed my opportunity. And that's what this is about. Missing opportunities.

But before I discuss further, let me just explain how I didn't get in any trouble. The housing office itself is operating on extended hours, which means the deadline was actually an unmissable 8 PM (which is why when I succeed, luck is a major factor). Had I known this, I may very well have dragged my feet even longer and have gotten locked out all night as my roommate went home after moving his stuff in.

What have I learned? Well, this kinda happens every time I move in... so let's see if blogging about it will help. I should add that I've actually read the first half of a book on procrastination. The read the parts explaining why people procrastinate and stopped after I got into the 'here's what we're going to do' part.

1. Be realistic! Although real tragedies occur if tasks with no actual deadline are then delayed or put-off indefinitely. There are always deadlines: your life is finite. If a task cannot be put off forever (obviously none can), doing it early is better than doing it late!
2. Some days your luck just runs out. Others you miscalculate how long things will take, often failing to take into account logistical and time-consuming steps.
3. The only sure way to trump luck or miscalculation is to do things earlier than they actually have to be done. That means they'll be done without the adrenoline rush and you won't get last minute help from family and friends (btw, thanks to my friends for helping me carry stuff up to my room).
   
4. Enlisting the help of family and friends can help you achieve your goals faster.
5. Simulate that adrenoline rush (or otherwise biochemical surge) if necessary. Coffee (effect too weak) and a red-bull analog (effect too strong) haven't served me very well. If you're hard-core enough (and don't have a heart condition), watch this extremely scary commercial to give you a shock and to wake you up. I'm certainly not often motivated enough to watch this video. Trust me, I fell off my chair when I saw it. (NOTE: I did not actually make sure the link worked because I don't want to watch it again. Yeah, I'm a coward, but I intend to go to sleep soon. Let me know if the link is broken or wrong. Again,please do NOT watch this if you have heart problems or you have a family history of heart problems. If you are a feed off fear, let me know if this is not as scary as it sounds.
   
6. Anything else?

It's important to make a note that chronic procrastination often stems from underlying fears —fear of success, fear of failure, or other anxieties— that would lead you to put something off. Dealing with these fears, debunking their logical foundations, and questioning their legitimacy in inhibiting your actions will help deal with the source of your procrastination problem. This is of course is much less apply if you're only lazy about trivial tasks and do not procrastinate from doing important ones.

It's called being more assertive...

Today we were at Charlie Browns with my family celebrating something for Suki and as usual I took a very long time to order. The last time we were there, Suki and Kathae being wordly and smart people ordered a 24 oz. Double Cut Prime Rib entre for $18.49 because it was the best value—the next cheapest item was an 18 oz. Charlie's Cut for only a couple dollars cheaper. That time, Kathy and Suki each paid half the bill to celebrate our parent's twenty-somethingeth anniversary and they convinced Tom to order the expensive item too.

I personally resisted their attempts to order something big (being a self appointed martyr of not ordering expensive food at the expense of others) and chose to order what I considered the best value, a 16 oz. chopped steak for around 13.99. Kathy was quite surprised that I ordered it, and when it arrived in front of me, I was informed by our server that it was basically a big hamburger. So much for value. I dutifully chomped down almost all of the 'steak', but resolved next time not to order the oversized hunk of ground beef.

Sorry for the runaway flashback, but to get back to yesterday, I held usual reservations as I propped up the menu for scrutiny. It looked just as it did last time, but with one fewer option available to me. I didn't really want chicken, because chicken was chicken. I didn't want salmon because salmon was salmon. I wanted a combo of prime rib and something else, but that entailed eating a Queen Cut which had excluded itself by declaring itself fit for a Queen. As I floundered in choosing an entre that was at once stood for value, good taste, and non-banality, Suki tried making me the next victim to fall for the Double Cut rationale. I resisted capitulating to her strength of will and internally settled for a 16 oz Sirloin steak. Kathy, sharing the Rationale followed in dismissing the choice of Sirloin.

Tommy had already settled for a Double Cut—Kathy and Suki had, expectedly, the same. My dad ordered without much fanfare some grilled chicken, and my mom had not yet voiced her choices. With our server about to make a third visit to solicit our selections, Suki repeated her proposition that I share the Double Cut with my mom. To make a long story short, I ordered the damn Double Cut but not without getting defensive about the choice. Not realizing that the plan to beat the system with sharing and splitting would leave my mom without a need to order, I informed her quite bitterly that my they (referring to my sister and her friend) insisted that she order the Salad Bar. With the server hovering and probably not that impatient, she ordered it after considering the option to not order somewhat inappropriate given our restaurant setting.

At this point, my pent up and unacknowledged frustration about not having been able to successfully order an entre caused me to blame my sister for coercing me to order the Double Cut resulting in my mother ordering the 8.99 salad bar. My anger and edged words directed against (but mostly bottled up) Kathae (and Suki) were quite unreasonable and are the subject of my post.

I feel that my mistakes in this situation are numerous.

1. I should have been able to pick an item from the menu while giving only the consideration it deserved.
   
2. If I truly wanted to make my own independent choice, I should have voiced my intention to do so. That could've avoided any pent up frustration from exacerbating any stress that had been burdening me.
3. Anything else?