It is Fall, and a season of change for me. This post is long overdue, but today is the first day I've been able to relax a bit and think about blagging.

A lot has been going on in my life lately. Namely:

• Quit my job at Volvo IT
• Joined Microsoft in Charlotte as a Sharepoint Developer
• Moved twice
• Started paying rent for the first time ever
• Dropped a car on my foot
• Attended DevDays in Washington, DC

All of that in the span of little over a month has been daunting, but overall very good, other than the car dropping incident.

With Volvo, it was my time. After four and a half years there, a change was long overdue. Overall it wasn't a bad job, which is what made it so difficult to leave, but I had reached what I like to call a "career cul-de-sac" and had been keeping my eye out for a fresh new opportunity for some time.

When I got the call from Microsoft saying they wanted to hire me as a contractor, the news was bittersweet. Having lived all my life in Greensboro, NC there was no way for me to know what the coming transition would be like, or would feel like. I didn't really hate my job, and loved the team I worked on. CWPTeam is a unique and talented bunch of people whom I feel privileged to have been one of the original members of. Then I'm reminded of this quote from Mario Andretti

”If things seem under control, you are just not going fast enough."

While mostly tongue-in-cheek, there is a lot of truth just behind the seams.

Seth Godin's book The Dip had been a quick read around this time and put some important thoughts in my head. You have to close a door, even a perfectly good door, to open another one. When you distill things down enough, I was afraid of being a quitter, afraid of change, afraid to go outside of my comfort zone, afraid to jump. But to jump is exactly what I needed to do.

Since joining Volvo IT as a "permanent employee" in February 2008, to say things had gone downhill would not really be full disclosure. Sure the manufacturing and transportation industries are quite cyclical, but things had realigned at a very fundamental level. I joked that our motto had morphed from "Let's make sure" to "Let's make do," but this was hardly in jest. This environment had made me stop caring, an unnatural stance for me. When that happens, it is time to leave and go do something you can and *do* care about, for every-one's sake. The shift in focus helped me to realize that my passion was solely for the software, and the rest didn't matter to me.

Oddly enough, my current manager and I discussed this during my interview, as he had recently left a job with a large bank for a similar reason. It was a light-bulb moment when I came to realize the stark shift in priorities between a company that makes software, and a company that just happens to write software to accomplish a line-of-business task they haven't outsourced yet. While my team there was a talented group of individuals, each of whom I would jump at the opportunity to work with again - but that culture and quality was the exception rather than the rule in the wider scope there.

My first day at Microsoft was tough, and included a minor fender bender at lunch, but I learned the ropes quickly and was committing code to source control before the end of the first week. The fresh new challenge was a welcome one and I buried myself in the codebase, learning everything that I could from the collective intelligence in the air around me. I'm learning new things every day and that's exactly what was missing.

We'll have to see what the future holds, but no regrets thus far.

Charlotte has reminded me how easy I had it with Greensboro traffic. It is no DC, or Atlanta, but commuting was much more challenging until I moved into my new place yesterday. Now my commute is 15 minutes and I can take the light-rail to work if I want. This evening I walked a few blocks to enjoy dinner at Thai Taste and am surprised to admit, that I like urban living.

Source: back of a napkin

The morning started out normal enough- a sunny Sunday morning with pavement waiting to be ridden on. About 25 members of the Impatient Triad Riders met at the usual spot, the Shell Station in Oak Ridge at 68 and 150. There was a great turnout for this ride in memory of Mason Levin, one of the founders of the group, who lost his life from injuries from a ride on July 18th.

So we rode out and hit Highway 66 near Danbury for some twisties and stopped here at the shack for a short break and then began the ride up to Hanging Rock.

When I got to the end of Lynchburg Rd I became increasingly concerned that, unlike a minute or two before, there were no riders in my mirrors. I hesitated (and shouldn't have) for about a minute and turned around to find out what was up.

It wasn't instantly apparent what had happened when I arrived on this scene, but I knew it wasn't anything good.

To make a long story short, the rider behind me, Chris, had a Tree Fall On Him!

His reaction to this completely random flying timber was absolutely spot-on. He cracked open the throttle, hunkered down, and hugged the gas tank as closely as he could. With his side mirrors ripped off and helmet scuffed, he miraculously kept the bike up.

Next in the formation, Richard, wasn't as fortunate. Seriously, what are you supposed to do when a tree falls into your line of travel? There is no amount of experience to prepare you for that kind of thing. He did all he could with the brakes and limited stopping distance and reaction time, and laid it down before impacting the unexpected tree. He sustained some leg and knee injuries, but still made it out relatively unscathed for such a strange chain of events. He was taken to Baptist Hospital for treatment of his injuries.

Overall I was extremely impressed with how the other ITR members reacted on the scene before and after medical personnel arrived.

Kudos guys, you're a top-notch bunch!

All photos

Find nearest object query with LINQ

While LINQ simplifies your DAL in myriad ways, this seemingly simple query made me stop and think about how to properly explain this to the query engine

Problem: Given an input of a current location (latitude and longitude) find all objects in the database within a specified radius

Disclaimer: This is using a bounding box hack rather than an accurate radius forumula, use at your own risk as there is some loss of precision.

     /// Find all courts within a specified radius (in miles) to a point (latitude & longitude)
     /// <param name="latitude">degrees(decimal)</param>
     /// <param name="longitude">degrees(decimal)</param>
     /// <param name="radius">miles</param>
     /// <returns></returns>
     public IQueryable<Court> FindNearbyCourts(decimal latitude, decimal longitude, decimal radius);

The first order of business is to convert miles to degrees of latitude and longitude, respectively.

     decimal radiusLatitude = radius / 69.04;
     decimal radiusLongitude = radius / 59.96;

Once we have these conversions in place, we are ready to build our LINQ query:

     IQueryable<Court> nearbyCourts = from court in _db.Courts 
          where (Math.Abs(court.latitude - latitude) < radiusLatitude) 
          where (Math.Abs(court.longitude - longitude) < radiusLongitude) 
               select court;

Return the IQueryable object nearbyCourts you just generated and you're all set.

How do grilled BBQ Ribs, a Cauldron of Brunswick stew, chicken, hotdogs & hamburgers sound for a Saturday in Spring? I thought it sounded great, so I'd like you to join me this Saturday for the festivities. Slated to be an extravaganza of southern food, your tastebuds will not soon forgive you for missing out.

Saturday, May 9th at 7pm

Please RSVP if you have not already

Some suggestions for items you might want to bring:

• Chips / Dip
• Sodas
• Beer
• Any Adult Beverages you might like (some will be provided)
• Smores ingredients: Marshmallows, Chocolate Bars, Graham Crackers
• A Blender (i have the stuff to make Margaritas, but a broken blender)
• Anything else you might feel inclined to bring and share
• Or, just bring yourself and a guest if you like

Looking forward to seeing you!

~Chris & Bridget

Google provides a Charting API with a host of useful charts. I spent a few minutes playing around with the map chart section to create a color-coded map of the states I have visited in the USA.

The Venn Diagram was an interesting option that I had not expected, but good stuff.

If you are building a dashboard, the Google-o-meter might come in handy