Moving On

Well, all two of you that have this blog in your feed reader need to move on with me. I've moved over to my very own domain, www.runningnotes.net

Yancy got me all set up on Planet Lotus, so I am good to go!

I've been told my blog may go down at a minute's notice, along with Duffbert, Paul Mooney and some others, but I have faith! :)

Some of you (okay one of you) may have been with me on my old blog and may be thinking what is with this woman? Well, this time I am switching to my own domain, so this should be the last switch for a while! :) Thanks for sticking with me!

Running Secret

Psst. Wanna know a secret? It’s about running. And, it’s a little crazy.

I hate hills.

That’s not the secret, that’s the set up. I would guess that most runners dislike running up hills. It’s hard work, your legs burn, your lungs burn, it sucks. You want to slow down, or walk. But I don’t. And it’s not because I’m a great runner, or really strong or any of that. It’s because I’m stubborn. I refuse to walk. I refuse to slow down. It really is mind over matter. That is the biggest lesson I have learned from running - what you decide, is what you can do. (Consider that a bonus tip since that isn’t the main tip in this post).

Back to hills. My secret is to get mad. Here’s where the crazy comes in. I get angry at hills, especially big hills. My run at home includes a lot of hills. Here's the elevation graph from my Garmin.



Some are long, some are short, some are steep, some are not. In my opinion, the short, steep hills are easier. You can see the top, it’s not that far off. You can push and once you get up there, you can recover. Long hills, on the other hand, are mentally *and* physically tough. You can see just how far away the top is, and you know it’s going to be a while before you get to recover. You can’t just sprint up the hill. Especially if you hit a hill with what I call a false peak. You *think* you’re at the top, but there’s just a little dip and then more hill. F%$&ing hills.

A long hill mentally and physicall defeats you. So I get mad. I refuse to let that hill beat me. I look at the road (I try not to look up to the top of the hill) and I think, “Screw you hill. You won’t beat me. I will kick your ass.” And I run. I warned you, I said it was a little crazy, but it works! I’ve sworn at hills. Whatever it takes, just get up that hill.

I am not a fast runner. I am not a great runner. I am a middle-of-the-pack runner. I don’t win races, or even my age group. I don’t even come in top 10 or 20. BUT, I get compliments on my hills. I’ve passed many people on hills and had them catch up to me later and compliment me on getting up that hill. So get out there, run those hills and GET MAD!

The Value of Twitter

A LOT of blog posts have been written questioning the value of Twitter. A lot. I know. So move on if you aren’t interested in reading another. But, I think (hope) mine has a slightly different slant.

Many proponents of twitter will argue that they get value by following like-minded individuals, mining through the worthless tweets (“I’m at the grocery store!”) for the valuable nuggets (“Oh, to fix that, just do x”). And I agree there is value like this to be had on Twitter.

However, the greatest value I get from Twitter is the community. I work in IT. IT departments can be small. Mine is. We’re well-suited to the size of our company, but still, there’s only three of us. I am the only developer (as I may have mentioned about 50 times on this blog). Twitter provides me with a virtual water cooler. A place where I can vent about silly, but frustrating things TO PEOPLE WHO UNDERSTAND. Seriously, if I said half of the things I say on Twitter to people “in real life”, they would look at me like I have two heads. Or at the very least, their eyes would glaze over, they would mumble something incoherent and walk away.

Twitter is a place where I can “hear” about other people’s similar frustrations. We can all laugh about stupid end users (not mine, of course, users of my applications are all brilliant). I can vent and rant, and read other people’s vents and rants. I can be frustrated and tired and not thinking clearly and tweet about it and get back six snarky and hilarious replies. The value of Twitter is that I can laugh and move on, get back to work refreshed and ready.

Seriously, isn’t that incredibly valuable to a company? Rather than pumping me full of crappy coffee in the hopes that I can caffeinate my way through the day, we should have mandatory Twitter breaks.

Lotus Temper Tantrum

(Commence Temper Tantrum) I want to go to Developer/Admin2009! I live 45 minutes away! I went last year and had a great time! Waaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! (End Temper Tantrum)

Okay, I'm okay now. I will just have to live vicariously through everyone's tweets. And sit and wait and be patient and hope details come out for IamLUG really soon, so I can have something to look forward to that is sooner than Lotusphere!

Weird Behavior in Designer Client?

Anyone else have this? When I am in the Designer client (8.0.2) and am working on some Lotusscript, say in an action or something, if I get an email in my Notes client, the focus in Designer is taken from the action and puts me up in the "Window Title". I don't have popup notification (because it's too distracting!), just the icon in the system tray. This behavior drives me a little nutty when I'm in the middle of coding something and it loses focus. I have enough trouble keeping focus!

Has it really been over a week?

Oops. I ran the half marathon on Sunday, April 5th...and haven't run since. I took training easier this time so I wouldn't get burned out. I don't think I did. I didn't run on purpose for the first few days. Then, I just got lazy. It was too cold, or too rainy, or too windy. Basically, I needed to HTFU.

So, today, I am running. In about an hour. It is a sunny and windy 49 degrees out. I am looking forward to it, which probably means it is going to be a terrible run. But, I am okay with that.

I've only got a few 5ks and a couple of 10ks planned this summer, so I'm thinking I may try to increase the number of days I run, rather than the distance. Three miles/5 times per week, with a 10k thrown in once a week. Sounds good.

The Redhook Memorial 5k is my next planned race. I had a pretty slow time on it last year. It was hot, and I realized I run my slowest on the flats, and this race is nearly pancake flat. I've done a lot more running this year than last year, so hopefully I can have a better time. I'll never be fast, but I like to beat myself! (that doesn't sound right, but you know what I mean)

ETA: Just back from run. That was horrible. My legs hurt from my hips to my feet. Bad combination of half marathon last weekend, no running for over a week, eating horribly the last week, not hydrated and brand new shoes. Starting to get a migraine now...ugh. But the weather was really nice. :)

WOW! Amazing account of an incredible journey

Some of you Lotus peeps might know Tim Lorge, well he Tweeted this:

Wanna read a great running story? My GFs friend ran the 6 day 156 mile Marathon des Sables in Morocco. http://sportsrlife.wordpress.com/

Her story is phenomenal. Parts 1 and 2 are up now and it is an amazing read! Check it out.

Should I Call The UI Police?

So, while filling out an online application for a race (look, running and developing in one post!), I came across this field…



Seriously? The form had radio buttons for other fields, so clearly they are aware of the technique. They just chose not to use it, but THEN they have to include instructions (that no one will read), for the user to select only “a Maximum of 1”. Ugh. That isn’t even well written. Ignore the fact that it says “Mens” shirts, but that the shirts are Unisex. Oh, and there is an asterisk, as though there is a footnote, but there is no footnote. One presumes it references the poorly worded instructions in red.

The worst part is that this is a huge website, used by TONS of races for the purpose of registering racers. This isn’t some podunk little site that no one ever sees. And this wasn’t exactly their first race registration form.

I was very tempted to check them all off, just because I could.

[ETA: BTW, when I got to the race, they just asked me what size I wanted!]

Great Bay Half Marathon – April 5, 2009

The forecast kept changing from 56 and sunny to 47 and rainy and back again. I woke up Sunday morning to what looked like a sunny day. I decided to wear my running capris and a long sleeve shirt, but bring a running skirt and short sleeve shirt just in case.

Jess and I got to the Newmarket high school (which was the finish of the race) at 9:30. The race website warned that it would be hard to find a parking spot after 10AM and they were right, I think we got the last one. Well, actually it wasn’t a parking spot, but Jess parked there anyway!

It was really windy. I mean really windy. The flags on the flagpole were fully outstretched due to the wind. So, I think it was 50 degrees, but it felt cooler with the wind.

We jogged over to the elementary school around 10:30 AM. Race start was supposed to be at 11 AM. I think the race started a little late, but we were off! Our plan was to take it easy and run about the same pace as our training runs, which was around 10-minute mile pace. We took a left and hit our first hill. First of how many you ask? I have no idea because there were soooo many of them. Thousands. I think. That’s how it felt anyway.

Hill after hill after hill. Did I mention there were hills? Don’t think I’m just a wimp. My neighborhood is essentially at the top of a large, but gradual hill, so every run I go on involves quite a few hills. This *is* New England, not Nebraska. Even so, this course was pretty hilly. According to mapmyrun.com (since for some reason my elevation data is missing from my Seacoast Half Marathon entry), the Seacoast Half Marathon that I ran last fall had a total 197 foot ascent and 194 descent. The Great Bay Half Marathon had a 253 foot ascent and 249 descent. YIKES! It really WAS hilly.

It was a pretty course, too. We had some nice views of the bay through the trees at one point. However, it was during the second half of the race, so I can’t really say that I enjoyed the views. I was too tired and focused entirely on the pavement in front of me just to get up the GIANT hill at mile 8.

There was some interesting course entertainment. At mile 2 and again just before the end there was a guy playing bagpipes. There were some guys in their driveway around mile 9 just jamming, a couple of guitars and drums. They were a great pick me up. Two folk singers at one point with a guitar and an accoustic bass (I think). A female barbershop quartet. And strangest of all, belly dancers at mile 10. I promise I was NOT hallucinating, there were belly dancers. Had to be the strangest course entertainment I’ve ever seen.

Jess and I took turns feeling good. Not on purpose, it just seemed whenever she got her second wind, I was lagging and whenever I perked up a bit, she lagged. It worked out. We had some fun smiling and waving together whenever we saw a photographer. So no matter how we felt, I think we looked good in the pictures!

So the mile by mile pace breakdown:

1 10:10
2 10:01
3 10:35
4 10:20
5 10:19
6 9:53
7 10:11
8 11:27 – I SAID there was a BIG hill.
9 10:27
10 10:42
11 11:07
12 11:16
13 11:12
0.1 9:41 (pace)

Finish time-2:20:18

And a bad cell phone picture taken right after the race (in other words, I look like crap)…

THAT Makes Sense – Lotusscript to Excel (a vent and some tips)

I was asked to take some data from a Notes application and make it into a pretty report in Excel. Okay, no problem. A little lotusscript here, a little lotusscript there, a dash of VB. And VOILA, lovely report in Excel with shaded cells, borders, date formatting. Except for one little problem. I couldn’t get the Page Setup.FitToPagesWide to work.

I checked and re-checked my code. Went home and came back this morning and checked it again. It was correct and yet it didn’t work. Huh? A quick Google search gave me this…

“In Microsoft Excel, you cannot use the FitToPagesWide or FitToPagesTall property in Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications code to change the Adjust To option in page setup.

To change the scaling from Adjust To to Fit To in page setup, set the Zoom property to false as in the following example:

With ActiveSheet.PageSetup
.Zoom = False
.FitToPagesTall = 1
.FitToPagesWide = 1
End With
”

SERIOUSLY?! THAT makes sense. Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? [end sarcasm] I have to explicitly turn off the zoom in order to set the Adjust To option, even though every other parameter that Excel spits out for PageSetup can be ignored.

Sigh. Deep breath.

Anyway, I know other blogs have covered this, but I thought I would share a bit of the code for creating a “pretty” Excel sheet from Lotus.

Use Lotusscript in the normal manner to get some data. When you’re ready…

‘We need to launch Excel from Lotus
Dim excelApp As Variant
Set excelApp = CreateObject ("Excel.Application")
‘We need to create a new Workbook
Dim excelWB As Variant
Set excelWB = excelApp.Workbooks.Add()
‘And of course, get a handle on a Worksheet
Dim excelS As Variant
Set excelS = excelWB.ActiveSheet

Now given the handle to the Excel Worksheet we can use a little VB to simply populate fields…

‘Either with direct text
excelS.Range("A1").Value = "Hello World"
‘Or with Lotusscript
excelS.Range("A1").Value = udoc.FieldGetText("greetingField")


We can have some fun with the VB, by inserting Lotusscript. I used the following to increment the row in the sheet each time I looped through a NotesViewEntryCollection.

excelS.Range("A"+Cstr(y)).Value = viewentry.ColumnValues(2)

Now let’s get our Format groove on. One thing I found is that code like this won’t work…

.Orientation = xlLandscape

You need the code for “xlLandscape”. Lucky for me, I found Joe Litton’s old post on a quick and easy way to get the code. I was already recording macros in Excel and poaching the VB to use in my Lotusscript, but he showed this gem…

MsgBox "The value of xlPaperLetter is <" & xlPaperLetter & ">"

Ahhh. A thing of beauty. By putting that in an Excel macro, I could get the code for anything I needed for my formatting. So this:

With excelS.Rows(“2:2”)
.Font.Bold = True
.WrapText = True
.HorizontalAlignment = xlRight
.Borders(xlEdgeLeft).LineStyle = xlContinuous
.Borders(xlEdgeLeft).Weight = xlThin
.Borders(xlEdgeLeft).ColorIndex = 17
End With

Is now this…

With excelS.Rows("2:2")
.Font.Bold = True
.WrapText = True
.HorizontalAlignment = -4152
.Borders(7).LineStyle = 1
.Borders(7).Weight = 2
.Borders(7).ColorIndex = 17
End with

And it works! So pretty.

One last tip, it’s a good idea to make Excel visible at the beginning of your code while developing, so you can see what’s happening and what’s not happening and when. But when you are done, you should probably move “excelApp.Visible = True” down to the end of your code so users aren’t watching the screen make every little format change. While magical to the user, it is slower.

Facebook – Not Interesting or Multiple Personalities?

I’m not feeling the love for Facebook lately. Or maybe I’m just not using it right. Maybe I’m like one of those people who signs up for Twitter, doesn’t follow anyone and then “doesn’t get it”.

I signed up for Facebook sometime last year, probably May, judging by the date on my first profile photo. I friended a bunch of actual friends. It was fun. A great way to share photos, catch up, etc. I put in my high school and college information and a bunch of people from that part of my life started finding me and friending me. Initally, that was fun, too. We caught up on our lives, shared more photos, talked about careers, families, and more. However, after each initial connection, there would be a flurry of discussion and then it would die down. They would become just another photo in my friend list.

Then, Facebook started gaining in popularity (I know it was already popular, but then it started gaining in popularity with the 30+ crowd). Suddenly, EVERYONE I knew was on Facebook, and started friending me. Seriously, I am “friends” with my friend’s mother. Groups that I have vague associations with now have given me oodles of “friends”.

I have co-workers as “friends”. I see these people all day at work, do I really need to get home and see that they’re making dinner or feeding the dog now? Accompanied by pictures of said dog? (Sorry, if you’re a co-worker and you’re reading this, I really did love that picture of Fido!).

I haven’t really started connecting with people from the Lotus community on Facebook. I did connect with a few, but we’re in the Domino Divas group, how could I pass that up? :) The reason I haven’t connected with Lotus people on Facebook is because I’m not entirely sure I want to mix up my Lotus world with my personal world. (I know, I know, I’ve mixed running and Lotus on blog, I’m a hypocrite, what can I say?).

I honestly find Facebook confusing enough as it is. I already get 500 requests to “pass a drink”, do I really need to add a whole new community to that? I can’t handle the news feeds either. Is there a way to filter it to only show things that might actually interest me? I WANT to see when my friend posts pictures of her new baby. I don’t really need to see that 45 people took some silly quiz.

I know there are lots of Lotus peeps on Facebook. How do you handle this? Do you have multiple personas on Facebook? Do you just tune it all out? Do you freely mix your personal life and your Lotus life? I realize many Lotus peeps can actually be your friend and that’s a bit different, but how do you handle all the people who aren’t really and truly your friend? Connect with them anyway? Let them see that awful picture of you in high school that someone else posted? Or that stupid note that your friend’s sister’s brother-in-law wrote about you and some embarrassing story from the third grade?