The Asencio's

McCAULEY, NANCY LILLIAN MASTERSON, 83, died Saturday, September 5, 2009.

Survivors include three sons, David, Larry Sr. and Donald McCauley; and one daughter, Jane Asencio.

October 01, 2009

We love you Maw Nancy!

Love your great-grandsons,

~

Dallas & John Houston Kirkland,

Lebanon, Kentucky

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September 29, 2009

Grandma Nancy kept all the drawings my mom sent her over the years. As a child and teenager, it pained me to part with any of my art but it was great to know my humble work meant enough to her to save all these years. With love your grandson,

~

Aaron Asencio,

Akron, Ohio

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September 17, 2009

I miss you so much Maw Nancy! You were truly sensational and an inspiration to me. You always seemed to make me laugh, between your histerical jokes, and your impersonations of people. Your house was the first place i would think of to go to if i wanted to catch up on the buzz on celebrities, because you would always have peoples magazines laying around somewhere i could find them. Although, you may had beat me on some of the card games we used to have, you were one of the greatest poker players i had ever met. I would just love to fix your hair up, even though it was already beautiful.Even though i had a perfectly comfortable bed at home, i would always love to spend the night at your house when i got a chance, i guess it was just because i was in the comfort of you being there with me. You were such an excellent cook, and i have always hoped that one day i would be as good of cook as you were. I always seemed to not like all the shows that you used to like when i was watching them at home, but when i was down to your house watching them with you i loved them, because we would always make bets about who we thought was going to win the money on a game show or who was going to get a good out look on life on a reality show. I will always and forever cherish the moments we spent together, because there will never be another great-grandmother like you.?

~

Kelsey Thompson,

Lebanon, Kentucky

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September 16, 2009

We love & miss you already Maw Nancy! I especially miss the good chocolate candy that you would always make & all the good stories you always told. You were the best grandmother & great-grandmother anyone could ever ask for, always full of life & so much fun to be around. You were definately one of a kind & no matter what, you will always be in our thoughts daily & most of all you will never be forgotten. With Love your granddaughter.

~

Cristi Thompson,

Lebanon, Kentucky

I was so sorry to hear about your Mom. I stopped by several years ago to visit her–sweet lady. I have good memories of your family. So nice.

God bless you all and may your faith keep you strong during this difficult time.

You have my deepest sympathy,

Brenda Masterson Greenwell

I’ll miss all those wonderful phone calls catching up on all things family. Those calls meant so much when living in California did not give us an opportunity to see each other often.

Love,Your daughter,Jane

Groovy has some great tools to simplify database queries. In this example I show how to fetch column names from a database table. This can be handy if you want to write a result set to a comma separated values (csv) file or to an Excel file using Apache POI and want the column names in the first line.

For this example, I am using MySQL but any database should work if you change the query accordingly. The code creates a connection to the INFORMATION_SCHEMA database and lists all the columns in the Tables table. Be sure to change db_user and db.user to a user name and password in your database.

def sql = groovy.sql.Sql.newInstance("jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/INFORMATION_SCHEMA", "db_user","db.user", "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver")
println sql.rows("select * from TABLES limit 1")[0].keySet()

The column output from the Tables table should look something like this:

TABLE_SCHEMA=information_schema
TABLE_NAME=CHARACTER_SETS
TABLE_TYPE=SYSTEM VIEW
ENGINE=MEMORY
...

Note, in order to make a database connecation, a JDBC driver needs to be in your library path. The MySQL database driver can be downloaded at http://www.mysql.com/products/connector/.

Tags: groovy

Just 26 miles off the California coast. You can catch a boat from Long Beach to Avalon harbor and be a world away in hour.

In the distance you see the famous Casino.

Within the Casino is the and the Avalon Theater with circa 1920’s Art Deco design.

We took two tours on the Island, the glass bottom boat and the Avalon tour.

Armstrong’s Seafood

Miniature Golf

Antonio’s Pizzeria

Catalina Cantina – greatest people watching spot.

Marlin Club – where the young surrender and the old grow tender.

El Galleon  – Karaoke and liter German beers

Descanso Beach Club

Pancake Cottage

Steve’s Steak House

I have been working on several marine paintings for Diego’s (my son) bedroom which has a nautical theme.

This picture is hung about Diego’s crib. This fair lady of the sea watches over him.

This is a juvenile Garibaldi, California’s state fish.

I really liked the idea of painting a walrus and found several great pictures of them online. I think a walrus would make a great logo.

I am in the process of painting an octopus and this sketch is the basis for the painting.

At 19 months . . .

Diego knows how to do the baby sign language signs for over two dozen words:  light (first sign), more, eat, milk, book, cat, dog, fish, pig, giraffe, rabbit, chicken, frog, bird, duck, bath, comb, brush teeth, sleep, socks, shoes, moon, tree, flower and thank you.

Diego invented signs for bee, yogurt, wash hands, swim and spoon.

Diego can say: all done (first words), daddy, momma, grandpa, pool, towel, shoes, hat, cat, owl, hot dog, apple, A&D (ointment)  and up. He can make animal noises too – woof and pant like a dog, moo like a cow and hoot like and owl.

Tags: baby sign language

I attempted to capture a miniDV tape from my Sony HC-96 Handycam mniDV camera using Sony Vegas 7 but I could not get the entire tape to capture. Some tapes Vegas would capture almost all and others it almost seemed to jump around. The capture software would also warn of dropped frames.

The issue was not the capture software but miniDV’s time code. Unwittingly I was breaking the time code when by reviewing the tape and cued the tape past the end of the last footage I captured. I always let it play until I saw the blank blue screen so I did not overwrite any of my footage. Because the tape started past any previous footage, the time code would start over when I started recording again. If I reviewed a 60 minute miniDV tape in the Handycam, I could see the play time in the upper right of the HandyCam’s LCD screen never get to 60 minutes (actually 62 minutes for a 60 minute tape). The capture software uses the time code to determine the begin and end of the tape and will not capture an entire tape if the time code restarts.

To fix the broken time codes I used a miniDV tape deck to play the tape with the broken time code and recorded the play back on the Handycam. The recorded video had one consistent time code. I could of also used another miniDV camera to play back the footage – you just need the proper connectors.

Prior to realizing the issue was with the time codes, I thought the problem was due to dirty Handycam heads or because I was not capturing directly to an internal drive. In fact, I have few issues capturing to my Western Digital My Book Firewire External Hard Drive using Sony Vegas 7. Occasionally something goes awry and I have to recapture the tape to get all of the clips. I also don’t work on the computer during the capture process.

To avoid breaking the time code in the future, before I playback video or remove an unfinished tape from the Handycam, I shoot 5 seconds of junk footage. Before recording again, I rewind the tape to the beginning of the junk footage. This provides a buffer that can be safely overwritten well before the end of the time code so that the code does not start over.

I also don’t recommend taping up to or past 60 minutes of tape. If I have filled the entire DV tape, about 62 minutes, Sony Video Capture 6.0 will grab the first scene and the last 2 plus minutes of the tape when using the capture tape button. I end up having to use advanced capture, setting the time code in to 0:00:00;00 and the time code out to 00:59:59;00 and running Transport -> Advanced Capture – > Capture In/Out to grab the rest of the footage.

Tags: sony vegas hc-96 video miniDV