I'm not a typical IT guy. I don't have a Blackberry. I don't carry a cellphone. My home computer is an off-the-shelf HP Pavilion with upgraded RAM. I don't have satellite or cable. We didn't even have DSL internet until my wife learned she could talk to her mother in Europe for free with Skype. I've never had any secret programming project at home that will make me rich some day.
But I do love to tinker with Excel. It all began with my family budget. I use Quicken for my home finances. I like it. It works well. But they didn't handle budgeting--not really. They still don't. Not the way I like to do it, anyway. So though I'm loathe to duplicate effort, I created a spreadsheet to accompany Quicken so I could see at a glance where I am with my monthly budget.
That spreadsheet has evolved over the years. It began with a simple list of budget categories and budget targets. To the right of each category in an ever-increasing row I'd list any transactions that fit that category. I'd then sum that row to know what my current expenditures were.
It was messy, though. The next year I created a new version that took the more common categories (like food or household expenses that have lots of transactions during a month, as opposed to the electric bill that I pay only once) and created columns off the side to enter transactions in to be totaled, and that total recorded with each category in the list so I could compare expected, actual, and difference.
The main problem with that spreadsheet was on split category transactions. If we went to the store and bought some items that count against the food category, some items that count against pet supplies, and some items that count against home maintenance I could record them in their appropriate categories, but I couldn't link them to each other. Tracking transactions after the fact was difficult.
So this year I got fancy. I have one column for all transactions. I record the payee, the amount, and the category code in one continuous column. Split-category purchases are all right next to each other for easy reference. But the spreadsheet goes through that column and totals all the transactions by category and enters them in the appropriate place in my budget category list. If later on I need to recategorize a transaction I just change the code rather than having to cut and paste the transaction to another column.
Oh, and did I mention that my spreadsheet automatically detects how many paychecks I get per month and adjusts certain budget targets accordingly? For example, I get paid weekly right now. Sometimes there'll be a month with five paydays instead of four. Since my food budget is calculated based on so much per week, on five-week months I need to automatically adjust upward by 25%. My spreadsheet does that for me.
So yes, I'm an Excel geek. It comes in handy at work, I'll tell you. Just this week I created a spreadsheet to help customers requesting services from our group. They check the boxes representing functionality they want and by the time they're done the spreadsheet will recommend which solution they should ask for.
This week I also discovered macros! This could revolutionize everything!
Anyway, I'm a big fan of spreadsheets. I even have one to help generate role-playing game character sheets. You enter the character's attributes and it'll fill in all the resulting data points that are based on that attribute. It's really quite cool, and looks so neat and orderly when I print them out.
Take my word for it.
So there you have it. I may curse Microsoft Word to the sky some days, but I've got nothing but love for Excel.
Most of the time.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Popular Mechanics Essential Skills
Popular Mechanics recently posted a list of 25 essential skills all men should know. They covered how to do each of these in their Oct 2008 issue (and now available here). Here's the list that I'm pretty sure I can do:
I guess the real question is "how well do you have to do it to count?"
2. Protect your computer
3. Rescue a boater who has capsized
4. Frame a wall
5. Retouch digital photos
7. Build a campfire
9. Navigate with a map and compass
12. Perform CPR
14. Maneuver a car out of a skid
15. Get a car unstuck
16. Back up data
17. Paint a room
18. Mix concrete
23. Paddle a canoe
24. Fix a bike flat
I guess the real question is "how well do you have to do it to count?"
To Dad
When I was young my father made us the world’s best hot-dog roasting sticks ever. He worked at the local university as the PE department’s equipment manager. As a result he got first dibs on any cast-off equipment before they threw it away. So when they were getting rid of their damaged badminton racquets and some old fencing foils my dad had an idea.
That night he came home with a set of fencing foil blades fastened into the handle and shaft of the badminton racquets. Viola! Comfortable handles with a long reach. This was important for a family of eight, plus their friends, roasting hot dogs in the backyard around a fireplace enclosed on three sides. You had to be able to reach the fire if you didn’t want to go hungry or eat a cold dog.
He built the fireplace, too, from cinder blocks and bricks I’m sure he salvaged from somewhere.
That was the way my dad was, though I never realized how unusual that was at the time. He was always fixing things, improving things, or creating new things that never existed. He fixed the centrally-controlled clock system at the gymnasium; something I realize today probably wasn’t in his job description. He devised a system of checking towels out to students for their workouts that ensured he got every towel back again.
He renovated our house. He fixed sewing machines as a side business. He experimented with different chemicals and methods for cleaning things. He jury-rigged our cars to get us all home. He was an unofficial spokesman for WD-40. We teased him about it, but today I know exactly where my can is at any given time.
In short, my dad was never just an equipment manager, just a janitor. He was a systems analyst, a process analyst, an inventor, a mechanic, an engineer, an architect. Whether he wanted to be all those things or if it grew out of necessity I don’t know, but I know he enjoyed it. And we absorbed it, not knowing that Dad was helping us kids become more self-sufficient.
When I was a teenager he asked me to come help him fix the faucet in the kitchen. I was not thrilled—and was even less so when I found out he intended for me to do the work. I felt that “you need to learn to do this for yourself” was a pretty lame excuse. But I did it.
Over ten years later I became a homeowner myself. Thanks to my dad, I am an empowered homeowner (that’s the modern terminology, mind you. In my father’s day it was just being “competent”). Leaky faucets? Faulty ducting? Broken lamp? No problem. Build a shed from scratch? Sure thing. Replace a sink? I can do that.
I didn’t learn to do all of that from my father, but he taught me the most important thing: your two hands, coupled with a decent brain, can do most anything if you’ll just try it.
It’s been two years since my Dad died. It’s strange. It seems the longer he’s been gone the more I miss him, the more I understand just how much of who I am is because of him. I never thought of myself as an unappreciative person—you know, the “the older I get the smarter my parents get” type—yet that’s exactly what I’m finding as I get older. I thought I knew how good my father was, how smart he was, how creative.
I didn’t know squat. Part of it is just because it’s hard to see what is right there in front of you all the time. You don’t realize your parents are special, because they’ve always been that way. The things your friends' parents do amaze you, because they’re new, but your own parents can’t impress you because they’ve always been impressive.
But part of it is because some things you just can’t really understand until you go through it yourself. I got a late start in getting out on my own and starting a family. Now that I’m finally learning the questions to ask, he’s not here to ask anymore. Would I have had the guts—or the time—to even ask him if he were? I don’t know. My father and I were not all that close. Did that bother him? I’ll never know. Not in this life, anyway.
The Mike and the Mechanics song “In the Living Years” is as true as any scripture (via LyricsFreak:
It’s not like my father and I didn’t get along. We did. But I don’t think we really understood each other. At least I never really understood him.
I’m starting to, and it’s at once both wonderful and painful.
I didn’t set out to write something this tender and emotional. I just thought it would be a fitting “first post” on this blog to pay tribute to the man who taught me the joy of making things. Say it to yourself: “Mmmaking things”. It’s thrilling just to say it. To do it--even more so. To bring into existence something that didn’t exist before elicits an almost primeval, sinewy satisfaction. I…Made…That.
I like making things, whether it’s a piece of software or a bench, a new recipe or a planter box. For the longest time I thought I was on a different career path from my father. It turns out we’ve been in the same line of work all along.
I love you, Dad. I miss you. We’ll have a lot to talk about next time we meet.
That night he came home with a set of fencing foil blades fastened into the handle and shaft of the badminton racquets. Viola! Comfortable handles with a long reach. This was important for a family of eight, plus their friends, roasting hot dogs in the backyard around a fireplace enclosed on three sides. You had to be able to reach the fire if you didn’t want to go hungry or eat a cold dog.
He built the fireplace, too, from cinder blocks and bricks I’m sure he salvaged from somewhere.
That was the way my dad was, though I never realized how unusual that was at the time. He was always fixing things, improving things, or creating new things that never existed. He fixed the centrally-controlled clock system at the gymnasium; something I realize today probably wasn’t in his job description. He devised a system of checking towels out to students for their workouts that ensured he got every towel back again.
He renovated our house. He fixed sewing machines as a side business. He experimented with different chemicals and methods for cleaning things. He jury-rigged our cars to get us all home. He was an unofficial spokesman for WD-40. We teased him about it, but today I know exactly where my can is at any given time.
In short, my dad was never just an equipment manager, just a janitor. He was a systems analyst, a process analyst, an inventor, a mechanic, an engineer, an architect. Whether he wanted to be all those things or if it grew out of necessity I don’t know, but I know he enjoyed it. And we absorbed it, not knowing that Dad was helping us kids become more self-sufficient.
When I was a teenager he asked me to come help him fix the faucet in the kitchen. I was not thrilled—and was even less so when I found out he intended for me to do the work. I felt that “you need to learn to do this for yourself” was a pretty lame excuse. But I did it.
Over ten years later I became a homeowner myself. Thanks to my dad, I am an empowered homeowner (that’s the modern terminology, mind you. In my father’s day it was just being “competent”). Leaky faucets? Faulty ducting? Broken lamp? No problem. Build a shed from scratch? Sure thing. Replace a sink? I can do that.
I didn’t learn to do all of that from my father, but he taught me the most important thing: your two hands, coupled with a decent brain, can do most anything if you’ll just try it.
It’s been two years since my Dad died. It’s strange. It seems the longer he’s been gone the more I miss him, the more I understand just how much of who I am is because of him. I never thought of myself as an unappreciative person—you know, the “the older I get the smarter my parents get” type—yet that’s exactly what I’m finding as I get older. I thought I knew how good my father was, how smart he was, how creative.
I didn’t know squat. Part of it is just because it’s hard to see what is right there in front of you all the time. You don’t realize your parents are special, because they’ve always been that way. The things your friends' parents do amaze you, because they’re new, but your own parents can’t impress you because they’ve always been impressive.
But part of it is because some things you just can’t really understand until you go through it yourself. I got a late start in getting out on my own and starting a family. Now that I’m finally learning the questions to ask, he’s not here to ask anymore. Would I have had the guts—or the time—to even ask him if he were? I don’t know. My father and I were not all that close. Did that bother him? I’ll never know. Not in this life, anyway.
The Mike and the Mechanics song “In the Living Years” is as true as any scripture (via LyricsFreak:
Every generation
Blames the one before
And all of their frustrations
Come beating on your door
I know that I’m a prisoner
To all my father held so dear
I know that I’m a hostage
To all his hopes and fears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years
Crumpled bits of paper
Filled with imperfect thought
Stilted conversations
I’m afraid that’s all we’ve got
You say you just don’t see it
He says its perfect sense
You just can’t get agreement
In this present tense
We all talk a different language
Talking in defence
Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It’s too late when we die
To admit we don’t see eye to eye
So we open up a quarrel
Between the present and the past
We only sacrifice the future
Its the bitterness that lasts
So don’t yield to the fortunes
You sometimes see as fate
It may have a new perspective
On a different day
And if you don’t give up, and don’t give in
You may just be o.k.
Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It’s too late when we die
To admit we don’t see eye to eye
I wasn’t there that morning
When my father passed away
I didn’t get to tell him
All the things I had to say
I think I caught his spirit
Later that same year
I’m sure I heard his echo
In my baby’s new born tears
I just wish I could have told him in the living years
Say it loud, say it clear
You can listen as well as you hear
It’s too late when we die
To admit we don’t see eye to eye
It’s not like my father and I didn’t get along. We did. But I don’t think we really understood each other. At least I never really understood him.
I’m starting to, and it’s at once both wonderful and painful.
I didn’t set out to write something this tender and emotional. I just thought it would be a fitting “first post” on this blog to pay tribute to the man who taught me the joy of making things. Say it to yourself: “Mmmaking things”. It’s thrilling just to say it. To do it--even more so. To bring into existence something that didn’t exist before elicits an almost primeval, sinewy satisfaction. I…Made…That.
I like making things, whether it’s a piece of software or a bench, a new recipe or a planter box. For the longest time I thought I was on a different career path from my father. It turns out we’ve been in the same line of work all along.
I love you, Dad. I miss you. We’ll have a lot to talk about next time we meet.
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