Category Archives: Hodge Podge

Musings that don’t fit other categories

…and back to your regularly scheduled website

Posted on by Lane
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Sorry about that down time, apparently, a little billing mishap occurred and my site went down for a few days.  It’s amazing what happens when emails aren’t sent to your correct addresses.

And since I’m talking like I’m in a commercial, I’ll give you a preview of what to expect on Lane Holloway dot com in the coming months.  First, more content about programming process and design.  Second, more content about programming in Java and Scala and, if I get the time, Clojure.  Thirdly, I’ll talk about some of the newer things out there like “Big Data” (gotta have the air quotes).  Fourth, since I’m taking a class about SAT solvers, I might work up some articles on SAT solvers and some of the issues surrounding them.  It’ll help me understand them more and perhaps, give you, a chance to get your feet wet with them.  Lastly, I don’t know, I’m sure I’ll find something interesting to write about.

Anyway, coming up next will be some articles about programming.  I’ve got a few in the pipeline for y’all. :)

The playset is down

Posted on by Lane
2

So, my younger brother got tired of me blogging about how I haven’t taken down the child’s playset that was left in my back yard by the previous owners of my house so he and his friend came over and helped me take it all down today.  I paid them back in beer and pizza, now I’m left with getting it ready for bulk pickup and removal and probably a trip to the dump to dump the big-ass metal poles used to hold it all together.

It came apart surprisingly quick with three people working on it.  I’d say we spent about 30 minutes on it total.  I can mark another item off my to-do list and push another one on it :) .

2012 Goals

Posted on by Lane
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Yeah, so it might be a little late to write about my goals for 2012 but what the heck?  I’ll write about them anyway, not so much for anyone else but for myself to make sure I stay honest about them.  As I wrote in my last post about New Year’s Resolutions/Goals, I felt overall I did a really good job hitting the majority of my goals for the previous year, however, I still didn’t hit them all and others I completely missed / forgot about.  So, it’s time to re-evaluate and create a list of short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals.

Short-term goals are goals I feel that should be completed within three months.  These would be goals such as: start eating healthier, begin to jog twice a week, or something of that nature.  A goal to break a bad habit or get started doing something new.  These, can then morph into mid-term and long-term goals such as continue eating healthy, etc.  A mid-term goal is a goal that will take six months to a year to complete.  I envision these goals to take the form of: pay off X% of a loan, save $Y, take part in a marathon.  Each month though, I might be able to move a mid-term goal to a short-term goal.  Finally, a long-term goal is something that is going to be just that.  Something that I can’t finish within the year (or even years).  These will be things like: Pay off my house payment X years early, finish paying off my car in Y years, or continue on an exercise routine and a healthy lifestyle.  And much like the mid-term goals, these could be moved as they get closer to completion.

The main goals I’ll talk about here are non-finance related ones, since I’m sure other sites explain how to handle them better and besides they’re always the same: get out of debt, save more money, etc.  And without further ado, here are my goals…

  1. Participate in Tough Mudder / get in better shape (long-term)
  2. Continue learning to play the guitar (long-term)
  3. Propose my PhD topic (short-term)
  4. Learn another programming language and brush up on some old ones (short-term / mid-term)
  5. Finish painting the rooms in my house (mid-term)
  6. Remove the children’s playset from my backyard (long-term)
  7. Brew my own beer and make it good (short-term — get one made, long-term — do it often)

If you’ve kept up with my blog, you’ll see that I’ve already started on a few of these goals such as #1 and #7, but I figure a gut check at the end of this month will really help me decide where exactly I am in each of these goals.

The Woodworking Project: A Semi-Hollow Body Gibson ES-335 Replica Guitar

Posted on by Lane
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As I mentioned in the post about VLC, I’ve been deciding on a new project to take up.  That new project is a hollow bodied electric guitar with hand carved top and bottom; the one I’m planning to build is going to look a lot like this, a Gibson ES-335.  I have a lot of oak so I want to make use of it extensively in the guitar even though it is a rather unconventional wood for guitars.  Unfortunately, this time I’m not going to use the oak; perhaps for the next instrument :) .  As far as the other specs go, I’m wanting to use dual humbuckers, dual volume and tone controls with the ability to coil tap the humbuckers.  Of course, you’ve gotta go with the Bigsby B7 vibrato, 22 frets and a few custom touches.

Here it is a little more broken down (and where I intend to get the electronics and such from)

  1. Electronics
    1. Two Humbuckers (Wolfetone Pickups)
    2. Two Volume pots (long stem, 500k)
    3. Two Tone pots (long stem, 500k, push/push)
    4. Bigsby B7 Vibrato
  2. Woods
    1. Maple top and bottom and center block
    2. Mahogany sides and neck
    3. Ebony fretboard

Of course, there is so much more to get, like the wood for all the molds that will need to be made along with some tools that I am lacking in order to make it.  I could do it without some of these tools, but really, where is the fun in doing something without a new tool to play with :) .  When I finally gather all the parts and start actually working on the project, I’ll be sure to update the website to keep y’all informed of my problems and successes and other such ramblings.

College sports investigations, sanctions, and other fun things we all know happen but don’t talk about since this is all amateur athletics and they don’t get paid for their performances

Posted on by Lane
7

Looking at the college athletics landscape you can see multiple colleges in trouble with the NCAA and facing sanctions and investigations: USC’s basketball and football teams, University of Memphis’ basketball team, University of Tennessee’s football, and the list goes on.  The problem is, these sanctions never really solve the problem.  In many cases the breaking of the rules leads back to the head coach.  So why punish the school?  The coach can leave before the sanctions and fines hit and go away scot-free to the next school (for example, John Calipari and Lane Kiffin come to mind).

So an idea I discussed with my brother and father is to have some of the sanctions follow the coach (where appropriate).  The coach can either continue coaching at the same level through the sanction or sit out from coaching until the sanctions have run their course.  What do you, dear reader think?  Is this idea good, bad, or just plain stupid?  If so, what could be changed?