2 Tbsp Natural PB

¾ Cup Plan-Non Fat Yogurt

Granola

Raisins

1 Packet Splenda

Cinnamon

No Sugar Chocolate Syrup

2 Scoops Protein Power

Stir the pig up and throw it in the freezer

I'm going to try it tonight and will report back.  He swears by it.

One of our clients requested a second menu independent of the main tab menu.  This is not possible with any of the free modules provided in the dnn framework. 

Our first idea was to write a flash menu which reads XML to populate the relevant items and locations.  Our hangup here was the requirement of the the menu to fly out child menu options.  The menu needed to be vertical and the area to the right of the menu would not be contained in the flash workspace.  We googled a bit but could not find a clean way to expand the flash workspace, so we moved on to the buy option. 

We spent a day researching many types of menus on Snowcovered and the DNN Marketplace.  We tried the Navigator which was a solid option.  I probably did not give this one enough effort, due to finding The DNN Menu first.   It handled all of our needs for a small price of $25.  It came with 20 menu skins out of the box.  The design of the menus has a very nice admin and WYSISYG feature.  There is a helpful wizard which allowed our less technical personnel handle the design of the menu. 

The best feature is being disconnected form the hierarchy of the dnn tabs.  You can start at any tab and have it trickle down.  You can also specify an xml dta source instead.  At the end of the day, it was the best $25 we've spent on software this year.

The Hinkel and Merz clan got together on Friday, April 11, to have some fun at Otterville (Johny's toys).  Kathleen, Carson, Maisie and Maximus had an absolute blast.

Kat and Maisie try some ballet!

While Carson played in the balls.

Kat and Maisie on the slides.

Max had a slide to himself :)

They painted their own faces.

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea....

Wiped out.  That just cannot be comfortable.

Thanks Amy and Kim for the great pictures.  I hope I can be in attendance next time.

Unknown - 7/14/00

Recently I was honored to be selected as an outstanding famous celebrity in Texas, to be a judge at a chili cook-off, because no one else wanted to do it.

Also the original person called in sick at the last moment, and I happened to be standing there at the judge's table asking directions to the beer wagon when the call came.

I was assured by the other two judges (native Texans) that the chili wouldn't be all that spicy, and besides they told me I could have free beer during the tasting, so I accepted.

Here are the scorecards from the event:

Chili #1: Mike's Maniac Mobster Monster Chili

JUDGE ONE: A little too heavy on tomato. Amusing kick.

JUDGE TWO: Nice, smooth tomato flavor. Very mild.

ANDY: Holy smokes, what the hell is this stuff? You could remove dried paint from your driveway with it. Took me two beers to put the flames out. Hope that's the worst one. These hicks are crazy.

Chili #2: Arthur's Afterburner Chili

JUDGE ONE: Smoky (barbecue?) with a hint of pork. Slight Jalapeno tang.

JUDGE TWO: Exciting BBQ flavor, needs more peppers to be taken seriously.

ANDY: Keep this out of reach of children! I'm not sure what I am supposed to taste besides pain. I had to wave off two people who wanted to give me the Heimlich maneuver. Shoved my way to the front of the beer line.

Chili #3: Fred's Famous Burn Down the Barn Chili

JUDGE ONE: Excellent firehouse chili! Great kick. Needs more beans.

JUDGE TWO: A beanless chili, a bit salty, good use of red peppers.

ANDY: This has got to be a joke. Call the EPA, I've located a uranium spill. My nose feels like I have been snorting Drano. Everyone knows the routine by now and got out of my way so I could make it to the beer wagon. Barmaid pounded me on the back; now my backbone is in the front part of my chest.

Chili #4: Bubba's Black Magic

JUDGE ONE: Black bean chili with almost no spice. Disappointing.

JUDGE TWO: Hint of lime in the black beans. Good side dish for fish or other mild foods, not much of a chili.

ANDY: I felt something scraping across my tongue, but was unable to taste it. Sally, the bar maid, was standing behind me with fresh refills so I wouldn't have to dash over to see her.

Chili #5: Linda's Legal Lip Remover

JUDGE ONE: Meaty, strong chili. Cayenne peppers freshly ground, adding considerable kick. Very impressive.

JUDGE TWO: Chili using shredded beef; could use more tomato. Must admit the cayenne peppers make a strong statement.

ANDY: My ears are ringing, and I can no longer focus my eyes. I farted and four people behind me needed paramedics. The contestant seemed hurt when I told her that her chili had given me brain damage. Sally saved my tongue by pouring beer directly on it from a pitcher. Sort of irritates me that one of the other judges asked me to stop screaming.

Chili #6: Vera's Very Vegetarian Variety

JUDGE ONE: Thin yet bold vegetarian variety chili. Good balance of spice and peppers.

JUDGE TWO: The best yet. Aggressive use of peppers, onions, and garlic. Superb.

ANDY: My intestines are now a straight pipe filled with gaseous flames. No one seems inclined to stand behind me except Sally.

Chili #7: Susan's Screaming Sensation Chili

JUDGE ONE: A mediocre chili with too much reliance on canned peppers.

JUDGE TWO: Ho Hum, tastes as if the chef threw in canned chili peppers at the last moment. I should note that I am worried about Judge Number 3. He appears to be in a bit of distress.

ANDY: You could put a grenade in my mouth and pull the pin, and I wouldn't feel it. I've lost the sight in one eye, and the world sounds like it is made of rushing water. My clothes are covered with chili which slid unnoticed out of my mouth at some point. Good! At autopsy they'll know what killed me. I've decided to stop breathing, it's too painful, and I'm not getting any oxygen anyway. If I need air I'll just suck it in through the 4 inch hole in my stomach.

Chili #8: Helen's Mount Saint Chili

JUDGE ONE: A perfect ending, this is a nice blend chili, safe for all, not too bold but spicy enough to declare its existence.

JUDGE TWO: This final entry is a good, balanced chili, neither mild nor hot. Sorry to see that most of it was lost when Judge Number 3 fell and pulled the chili pot on top of himself.

ANDY: -------(editor's note: Judge #3 was unable to report)

We store datapoints as a double.  Over the last 3 years, this has fit every situation we needed for the User_Group_Datapoint_Timeframe persistent storage.  Our latest requirement is to store a financial date of submission each month.    The challenge was taking the date time and converting it to a number.

These are the two transforms we use to convert the date to a number an back in code:

   1:  

   2: //Transform from a date to a number

   3: public object Transform(object objectToTransform)

   4: {

   5:     if (!Utils.IsDate(objectToTransform))

   6:         return null;

   7:  

   8:     DateTime dt = System.DateTime.Parse(objectToTransform.ToString());

   9:     return Double.Parse(dt.Ticks.ToString());

  10:  

  11: }

   1: //Transfer an int64 to date in the format of MM/dd/yyyy

   2: public object Transform(object objectToTransform)

   3: {

   4:     if (objectToTransform == null) 

   5:         return string.Empty;

   6:     double d = double.Parse(objectToTransform.ToString());

   7:     if (d <= 0) return string.Empty;

   8:     long l = Convert.ToInt64(d);

   9:     DateTime dt = new DateTime(l);

  10:     return dt.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy");

  11: }

I also had to store some values directly in sql, so I found this handy article on code project:

Convert DateTime To .NET Ticks Using T-SQL

We've only had to worry about the date being accurate up to the day thus far.  I'm interested in doing some testing down the road on the conversions to the millisecond.

A Sql helper function:

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[DateTimeToTicks] (@d datetime)
RETURNS bigint
WITH SCHEMABINDING
AS
-- converts the given datetime to .NET-compatible ticks
-- see http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfsystemdatetimeclasstickstopic.asp
BEGIN
RETURN
dbo.DateToTicks(DATEPART(yyyy, @d), DATEPART(mm, @d), DATEPART(dd, @d)) +
dbo.TimeToTicks(DATEPART(hh, @d), DATEPART(mi, @d), DATEPART(ss, @d)) +
(CONVERT(bigint, DATEPART(ms, @d)) * CONVERT(bigint,10000));
END

GO