2008 February | ToyboxCreations

Judicial Execution

The following post is actually from my ficlets account. It's a site for short fiction, very short... 1024 characters is the maximum space you get to tell your story. Feel free to comment here, or at http://ficlets.com/stories/21152 about this story. I plan on releasing a new chapter each week.

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I woke with a start.

"Where am I?"

Sitting upright in a darkened room, I try to reach out with my senses to tell me where I am. Cold, inelegant metal bites into my legs and wrists.

"What the?" I softly question myself.

I come to realize the room isn't dark, my face is covered by unfinished leather. I feel the same around my chest and waist. My chair is hard and unforgiving as I struggle modestly against my restraints. I feel someone approach my side.

But I am not comforted.

The presence roughly paws against my head with a cold, wet sponge. The cold I knew is now replaced with something much more powerful now, terror.

I struggle more passionately now.

"What's going on?" I raise my voice to the presence.

The only reply I receive is a sharp blow to the side of my head and a chuckle.

I soon become aware of two more things, the ticking of a clock and the rumbling of a small audience.

As I shout my last words, "Why am I here?" I struggle to understand.

I can hear the switch being pulled into action.

New Photos at DeviantArt!

I've added a few photos from my trip to Raleigh, NC last December. I took the backroads to get there. I wasn't interested in making good time. I was more interested in seeing what had changed in the last decade.

You see, back in 1995 I was a up and coming freshman at NCSU. I had just graduated High school in the top third of my class, I was and still am a slacker, but I had been accepted into State with open arms. By the end of the first month, I had decided it was time to have my car on campus...ahh the beginning of the end.

I used to take NC Hwy 49 North to Asheboro, meet up with US 64 East all the way into Raleigh. It was a (relatively) quick 2 hour and 2 minute drive from doorstep to doorstep. The speed limit was for old people I used to tell people.

I had dreamed of the day they would finish work on 64, making it 4 lanes all the way from Asheboro to Raleigh. Well, I had decided to visit the school, and see how "My University" had changed. First off, the 4-lane road was completed. You can even by-pass Pittsboro now. But I took Business 64 in any way. I wanted to see how the town had changed.

Other than the highway, it felt as though little had changed.

And then I rolled up to Centennial Campus. When I was a freshman, there were only two buildings on campus there. But now there were at least 20 buildings, a lake, condos, Redhat had even moved onto campus with two seperate buildings!

It was hard to believe this was the same school I had struck out on my own to find my life, only to find out it was much, much harder than I could have imagined. I have to say the school is definitely aging well. I can hardly wait to see it continue. Hopefully I'll find my way back up there before another 10 years has passed.

You can see some of the photos I took while on my trip. Very little is of the campus itself. I have a slightly different eye than that. I do invite you to check out my gallery at Deviant Art.

And please comment, let me know what you think of the photos. I look forward to taking more this weekend. I'm heading up to the mountains to unwind for a bit.

SQL Session – Performance Point Server Dashboards

If you're not already a member of the Charlotte SQL Server User Group, go now and sign up. This group is a great resource of knowledge and connections to the SQL Server community in Charlotte, NC. Their plan is to get together once a month and discuss a new and interesting topic on SQL Server.

Ashton Hobbs, SQL Server MVP, author and developer of ApexSQL Edit shared his insights on "Performance Point Server Dashboards." This new Business Intelligence offering from Microsoft has the goal of making BI more accessible to end users. Ashton's presentation detailed the creation of monitoring components in Performance Point Server and showed some product features and their limitations. It also showed steps to using custom components that create new dashboard pieces which can improve the visual and usability aspects of your own dashboards.

Unfortunately, I don't have any materials to share for this discussion.

ToyboxCreations SELECT * FROM [My Life]

Judicial Execution

New Photos at DeviantArt!

SQL Session – Performance Point Server Dashboards

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