HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY
I hope every on e has a good St. Patrick’s day today, remember wear GREEN.
Tracking the Miles I have biked this year
Well I tried the site that does those tracking things, but I really did not like how it is done, so I will just update the header file for my site to with the number of miles I have biked this year, as of not it is 23 miles, if you look at the top of the page next to the my logo, you will be able to see the number of miles I have done this year, I plan on keeping that up to date.
I am out of shape
Today I biked up to Squall hill, then down to the Pittsburgh Irish Center for the CCE meeting, this is a group of people that meet to play music together (I don’t play, yet, I hope to be able to join them in playing in the future when I get OK with the Irish Tin Whistle) I was OK going to the place, but coming back (around 9:20pm) coming up Forward Av. I could only make it only 3/4 of the way up. I was whipped out when I got to the top of the hill, but when I got up the rest of the way I got back on and rode rest of the way home, even up Murry Av. I know tonight is going to be a really bad night with my legs.
OK maybe I should give some back info here, for the last year and a half I been having trouble with my legs, cramps and violent twitches of the legs at night, that causes them to kick very hard, I have a bit of a fear that one night I am going to wake up in major pain from a broken toe.
I am hoping that by the end of May that I can bike up Forward Av with out having to stop at all. I have in the past mastered the hill on Neville St. and the hill of Bates, and Forbes Av from Oakland to Squall Hill.
This is wrong, just pure wrong, and I don’t see how it fixes the problem.
In this post I talk about how I had a problem with static variables in a class Well I have solved the problem, but the answer is wrong, just wrong. The way I solved it was call from the program area, the calls to the functions that change the value out of the second lib, into the program itself and it worked. But why does this fix the problem? I don’t know why or how, in fact I still think that the problem should not exist, but it did, and even with the problem, I don’t see the different from the static variable and static functions point of view is.
I still have the middle lib, but I just have to call the static functions that create the data from the program, but then when I am in the middle lib the data is now there for use. Go Fig, if you have any idea what was wrong, is wrong.
static members of objects
I think I am going to scream. I have an object in a lib that I made, this object has a static member that I expect (as per the C++ specs) that it should be the value I set it to last time I used it. So imagine the following class.
[code]
class a
{
private:
static int A;
public:
static void setA(int v) { A = v; };
static int getA() { return A; };
// there is more stuff but these are what is important
};
[/code]
that is the .h file, now the .cpp file has
[code]
int a::A = 0;
[/code]
Now the above code is compiled up into its own .lib file (MSVC++ 6.0) Now I have another lib that is linked to the above lib and it does something like
[code]
void f()
{
a::setA(20);
}
[/code]
now lets say I have a program that links to the second lib so lets say I call the following
[code]
void main()
{
f();
cout << a::getA() << endl;
}
[/code]
I would expect the output to be
[code]
20
[/code]
but the output is
[code]
0
[/code]
I am trying to figure out how to have the value of a::A to stay the same across the calls to the libs.
Attention all Hams and SWL
Qrz is reporting that we might see a massive spike in sun spot activity. I don’t know much about how this will affect people into astronomy. But I do know that this will affect RF on earth. It will not help me on the Ham radio band since I do not work on the bands of 6 meters or below. I can work 6 meters, techs are allowed on it, but below 6 meters I can not go on legally. But here is what is exciting me, this should make listening to the Short Wave Radio fun, since the RF in these area of the bands will be able to travel better under high sunspot activity.
Snow??
Well I went to lunch with one of my coworkers, and it was snowing out there. What happend? it was in the 70’s yesterday, and now we have snow. I really hate snow, I wish it would go away.
Well I tried to play my first song on the Irish Tin Whistle today
Well as I have said about 2 times before, I am trying to learn the Irish Tin Whistle. Well as I was practicing today (and boy do I have a loooooooong way to go, before I can do anything OK), but today, I did try a song, a very simple song, but I did try it, and it resembled what I thought it should sound like. I am hoping that by Christmas I can play a few Christmas songs.
A video up for my friends
Many months ago I helped some friends of mine with a video. I was the first (besides them) to find out this info, they had me hold onto it for a while. Last week I was asked if I could put a link up for them so they could post it to their blog, so I added it to my video section of my web site. You can see it at here on my site you can see the Wards web site here. They are good friends of mine from church.
Goals for this year
I am going to try to bike 1000 miles this year, I got the idea from Rob at unspace
Finally
Well I been more then busy this week, but I finally got some free time today (well not really free time, I just multi-tasked, aka recorded the Scanner Net, and finally got to practice the Irish Tin Whistle.
For the last week I been unable to get time to practice it. I also got most of the stuff I brought home from my office organized, I never realized how much stuff I took in over my 2 years and 4 months in CASOS. My couch still has allot of stuff on it to be organized and sorted, and put some where.
Todays St Patrick’s Day Parade
Well I got to help out with the St. Patrick’s Day Parade today. I also took my camera, and when there was a moment that I could snap pictures I did so, I got some pictures of people, that some in the Pittsburgh region might recognize. You can see the pictures here on my photo section of my website
It was a fun time, I also got to meet and shake hands with Rick Santrum again, that is 2 times in 3 months, I must be doing something right. I also got to meet and shake hands with Governor Rendal, and Mayor O’Connor, not my first choice in those offices (if you read my blog you probably already know that), but still a honor to meet and shake hands with them. We worked off of the .88 repeater for the time, I first was to tail one of the parade marshals that was in charge of the General Devision of the Parade, then after that I helped out with keeping track of what group was marching by so that the order of the people could be kept clear, I ran that info back to Jeff H. who then just radioed that on to the front of the pack.
I went for my first bike ride of the season
I decided to do a short bike ride today. I don’t count my rides to work and back for the last 2 days since, they are only about .2 of a mile long. I decided to try out a route to where I will be working from the 20th on. I decided on the way to go, I am thinking of dropping down Neville St. to the Panther hollow path, then jump on the jail trail, then get off of the jail trail at the Bates St. exit. At the bottom of Bates, I will cross over 2nd Av, to Technology Dr. and take a right on Technology Dr, and that will take me right to USS.
Biking goal this year
I got an idea from Rob at unspace, he has a goal of walking 1200 miles this year, and I am thinking if he can do 1200 as a goal for walking this year, maybe I should set a goal of biking 1000 miles this year. The one question I have is can I use my commute to work as part of the miles that I bike, right now the ride to work is less then a mile, but when I start over at Union Switch and Signal it will be a bit longer, so can I use that as part of the goal?
So I have 2 questions for my readers
1) should I set a goal of 1000 miles to bike this year?
2) if I set such a goal can I use my bike ride to and from work as part of the total mileage?
Miscellaneous Stuff
I just thought I would put up a post for miscellaneous stuff now, so here goes.
What does that P. in my name stand for?The P is for Patrick yes my full name is Michael Patrick O’Connor, how is that for a good Irish name for you. What does the mpop stand for in my email address.
Well you probably should be able to guess the first 3 letters, if not all, but the first 3 letters are my initials and the forth stands for what I am, a Programmer, so it fully stands for “Michael Patrick O’Connor, Programmer” Why mikeoconnor.net instead of mikeoconnor.com or michaeloconnor.com?
I figured that michaeloconnor.<*> would have been too long, heck mikeoconnor.<*> is a bit long I think. And when I went for mikeoconnor.com it was already taken so I just fell down to mikeoconnor.net, this has been OK, but there are those that when they try to email me they really want it to be .com and I have had some friends (non-computer friends) complain that I did not respond to an email they sent and when I work with them, I find that even though I stressed .net they still wrote .com, but it is still a rare case that there is some one out there that does not understand there are other things out there besides .com So can I give you some history about me?
Well I was born some where in the state of New York, but we moved to the Great City of Pittsburgh when I was 3. When I was born I was deaf, and was so till I was about 3, when we moved to Pittsburgh the medical system here was able to fix the problem. The problem was very simple to the point were my mom has related to me a story about when the first doctor here took the first look in my ears he started to yell at here for child abuse since the problem was so obvious to him, and so easy to fix, but it turns out that the quack in NY said there was nothing wrong with me, and that I was just “a late bloomer”. The problem was I had, had massive ear infections from birth pushing out on the ear drums, and the answer to fix the problem was just simple ear tubes. What are some of my hobbies?
Well I guess this means you probably don’t read my blog much but here they are: Ham Radio, Biking, Keeping Fish (I now have 6 tanks at home), Watching Hockey, Playing with Technology, Listening to Short Wave Radio, Messing around with Linux (but I guess this might fall under Playing with Technology). When did I first start getting into computers?
Well I got my first computer when I was about 8, it was an IBM XT with and 8088 processor, it had 448Kb of Ram, and (get this) it had a 10Mb hard drive. At that time I played around with some programs I wrote in BASIS, then when I was about 13 or 14 I started to play around with C++, I never really got into object or pointers back then, but I did play a bit with C++ then. Then in collage, I majored in Computer Science. And the rest, as they say, is history.
What is your favorite Programming Language?
C/C++. I did do some Java here and there, but I hate Java, I did some Lisp in collage, now there is a nice language.
Issues Etc
Recent Posts
- Got my ham upgread and other stuff. by Michael O'Connor
Back on Oct 11, I took the test to upgread my ham licnense from Tech to general, yesterday I got the email from the FCC that my license in the database has been updated. Also last week I decided to join the ARRL. Over the years I have heard of 3 things that the ARRL[…]
- Listening to 40m tonight by Michael O'Connor
Tonight I setup my 40m attena to tune around the 20m band of the ammature radio band, while I did not key up (still have yet to make any contacts on my new privileges that passing my general exam granted me) I did enjoy tuning around. It took me some time to get my attenas[…]
- During this goverment shutdown by Michael O'Connor
Well I been Furlough durning this goverment shutdown. I have decided to not waste the time. So I took a Skywarn class and got a skywarn certification. That was on Friday Oct 3rd, so now I am a weather spotter. Then last week I spent studing to upgread my Ham radio License from Technitian to[…]
- Getting back on the air by Michael O'Connor
For the last few years I have been off the air. And recently decided to get back on the air (Amature Radio) This was persipitated when my old car (a Scion IQ) died, the computer of it got fried. So I had to get a new car. With the change of the car I took[…]
- The Switch 2 “game key cards&… by Michael O'Connor
I think Nintendo is make a mistake with the “game key cards” the new digital only game cards that Nintendo is doing. With the situation where more 3rd parties are doing those instead of a real game card. I will not buy a game that not fully on the disc or on the cart, which[…]
- The Switch 2 by Michael O'Connor
Well looking at the new switch 2 that is to come out soon, I originally was excited and was thinking of pre-ordering it. But after the news of both the system, and the games, my doubt started to set in. Then I looked at the launch line up, and found none that I wanted. And[…]
- This is a banger of a year for JRPG… by Michael O'Connor
So far this year we have gotten some great JRPGs Persona 3 ReloadedShin Megami Tensei V: VengeanceLike a Dragon: Infinite Wealth And there are still more coming, coming on the 5th of July the one I am most hyped for The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak and latter this year we are getting Metaphor:[…]
- weight loss continues, but end is n… by Michael O'Connor
Today I weighed myself and came in at 130 pounds. When I started I set a goal of 125 pounds. So only 5 more pounds to go. I am a long way from where I started, I started at 300 pounds on March 31, 2022, it been about 15 months since I started this diet.[…]
- A summer snack by Michael O'Connor
With summer coming buy, and me still on my diet, I came up with a snack, I have always enjoyed popsicals, so what I am doing now, is I am taking those water enhancers that say they have 0 calories and use that as the flavor for my popsicals, and I have some popsical makers.[…]
- My apartment setup. by Michael O'Connor
For my friends I did a video to show my friends how I have my apartment setup, because I did some changes to the living room and the bedroom. Here is the video
Welcome , today is Wednesday, November 26, 2025