2015
Worst Pickup Line: A Play in One Act
INT - BEER STORE - DAY
CREEPY GUY, a man in his late 50s in hiking shorts and an ankle brace is paying for a popsicle at a beer store at 10:30 in the morning with the change from what is either a …
2014
Exception Handling
I’ve been thinking about exception handling a lot recently. A., because I’m stultifying and B., because it’s been a source of contention in the codebase I’m responsible for. I wrote some formal documentation last week to try to normalize our approach, but I’m …
2014
Ground Energy: Ground Energy
Internet of Things project optimizing ground source heat pumps for homeowners and businesses
Built and currently maintain (and extend) the Django codebase that powers Ground Energy. The system receives status reports from geothermal installs once per minute, logs them to the database and provides both …
2014
Java Version Hell on OSX
In one of those “Why did I even look at the terminal” moments, I noticed Solr stopped working properly in a local Django setup. Initially I ignored a slew of 404 errors when Haystack tried to reindex because … well because who the hell cared? I …
2014
The Garrison City Should Lock From the Outside
At the beer store just before 3pm. I always get a little nervous when a car pulls in and someone from the backseat gets out.
- DUI?
- Underage driver?
- Just plain crazy?
Thankfully it was number three. After the young guy got out …
2014
Thoughts While Lowering a Crib
- I get why people with kids feel like they need a bigger house: I’m trying to adjust a crib in situ and it feels like parallel parking a parade float in Rome
- “No hon, I’ll do it during the week when the house …
2014
wxPython on OSX Mavericks with or without Homebrew
Just a short note for anyone else who runs into this nonsense: I could not get the current version of wxPython to install in a useful way using homebrew. brew install wxmac --python --devel to install into my Homebrew-controlled Python install worked …
2014
Django Profiling Bug
I’m doing some work profiling a large Django application and I was running into this weird error when I tried to aggregate the stats with gather_profile_stats.py which comes with Django. It kept throwing TypeError: zip argument #1 must support iteration if there were two profile …
2014
It’s My Party (now)
I’m trying really hard to take parenting magazines seriously, but they seem to be written for a demographic that straddles dense and insecure. The latest unsolicited offering from Parents—

is apparently for people who don’t already know ice cream cake and enou…
2014
Résumé Rewrite Services
Helping people with a job application is not something I do. Unless you accidentally send it to me when asking your friends to review your cover letter before applying to be president of a bank. Especially if the email ends, “Constructive not your usual Tom. Thanks.” This …