Today I’m in Los Angeles. They don’t call it LA here, they call it Santa Monica. Honestly, I can’t tell when one city ends and the other begins. In Phoenix, they change the color of the street signs so you know you’re in Tempe and not Mesa – and you still don’t care.
This city is huge. The weather is great and the chicks are beautiful. Beyond that (and I’m not discounting it) I don’t see what the draw is. I don’t have enough money to buy a house out here even if I wanted to move here. You spend half of your life in your car, stuck in traffic. I do like palm trees, but I like pictures of palm trees only a little less than the real ones. Cab drivers here don’t know how to drive, don’t know how to get anywhere, and don’t know how to speak English. For a guy with Microsoft Streets and Trips on his laptop, that’s not a big problem. But I’m guessing most people don’t have that advantage. When your cab driver pulls out a map, you know you’re in trouble. It took me 1 hour and US$100 to travel 20 miles.
I visited one of my Excel consulting clients (thanks for the referral J-Walk) this morning. First thing, he wanted to show me something in a program that I wrote for him. He did a few things, and…ERROR. All the times that you go to the mechanic and you can’t get your car to make that noise; All the times your IT guy shows up at your cube and you can’t get that printer to error out – this morning there was justice. The guy who wrote the program was standing right there when the error occurred – and the error wasn’t even what the client wanted to show me. It turned out to be a typo on the input form, but I’m glad I was there to witness it. It was a productive meeting, though, and I was glad to meet the people who are using the program.
Tomorrow night, I’ll be watching the University of Nebraska varsity football squad engage in a match with the University of Southern California squad. I’m going to work until noon, then kill brain cells the rest of the day. Tonight, I’m going to watch the Pads v. Dodgers. I’m not a big baseball fan, but this should be a good game. I’m sure the $8 beers will be terrific.
What sporting events will you be attending this weekend?
Hi,
Weekend is near but problem is also there. So I couldn’t wait.
Do help me with the following problem ?
On Sheet “PDB” I have a database of vendors which has been named as “PayeeName” (dynamically through use of “offset function). On Sheet “BB”, I have used the above named range for validation purposes (in range F4:F1000).
What I require is that when I feed the word “A” everything (from named range “Payeename”) starting with word “A” only should automatically get listed in the validation dropdown box (in the same pattern on which the words are placed in a dictionary). In other words the validation list should appear for only those entries which start with a particular character. As the words are continually fed, the automatically validated list should get shortened automatically to meet the autocomplete requirements.Data validation has been used in range F4:F1000 on sheet “BB”.
Well, it is getting down below freezing here at night and there is new snow at Timberline on Mt. Hood. That can only mean my sporting event for the weekend[s] for awhile is – gathering firewood. All the while in search of that ever ellusive ‘she-can’ variety. Wood she-can pack, split and start a fire ;-)
Dick,
Is 007-kanwal confusing this blog with a newsgroup forum?
Anyway, maybe you could suggest to him for me that he looks at Colo’s site – I spent some time with his utilities last week and I found them to be really cool -http://puremis.net/excel/tips.shtml, look for Data Validation. He also has a forum, kanwal.
I listened to the University of Kentucky beat Mississippi 31-14 on Saturday for its first win in an SEC opener in 19 years. I live 100 yards from Commonwealth Stadium in Lexington, KY. No need to go; I hear games live and am surrounded by tail-gaiting parties. It’s pretty fun!
Brett
Hi Dick
What kind of clothes do choose when you meet LA clients in person for the first time ?
¿Los Clientes de LA, llevando ropas?
Hi Alex,
Infact I was confusing……………. But what should I do then. All the excel Gurus are here, what is the sense of looking somewhere else……….. Anyway thanks a lot Alex, My problem is solved with just your hint (And that proves the point, I made no mistake in referring the problem here).
Warmest Regards
Kanwaljit
Good question, Harald. There were two factors that influenced my choice of garb: Excel consulting is a part time gig for me and I was essentially on vacation. So it was jeans, sandals and a ball cap. My contribution to professionalism was that I shaved and wore a shirt with a collar. Almost everyone there was wearing a lab coat, so it was hard to determine how over- or under-dressed I was. It turns out the sandals were a mistake because they won’t let you in the lab with sandals. I’m not sure why.
Dick,
Chemical spills on the toes are a bad thing, they wouldn’t let you wear shorts probably either. In our factory (We make big boats.) you can’t wear open toed shoes, because you will always stub your toe. I didn’t attend, but watched the Sandy Eggo Super Padres make there way up on top of the Division. I’m not a huge baseball fan (football is my sport of choice.), but I was born and raised in Sandy Eggo so I send the long distance love.
As for the weekend I drove from my home (an hour North of Seattle WA) to Portland OR – I took the weekend to be alone with my wife and go see a great show at a tiny venue called Mississippi Studios. (named after the street its on.) We saw Steve Poltz and if you never heard of or seen this guy perform it something anyone can enjoy. He has thousands of songs and stories to entertain you for hours. He played for about 3 1/2 hours and it was one of his best all time shows I’ve seen.
Thanks for this blog, I read it Daily (when new posts are there) and have been enjoying it for about a year.
-Steven M. Britton
DK,
The reason given in my high school chemistry for the no sandals thing was to protect feet from dropped/spilled chemicals.
Squad? Match? Not exactly down-home US of A vernacular. Brit? Aussie? Kiwi? None of the above?
Dick from what my wife tells me, according to TLC’s “What Not to Wear”, sandals are never appropriate atire for the work place. That being said, I wear sandals to work 3 months of the year. :)
Charles
What sporting events will you be attending this weekend?
Is drinking a sport?
Thanks for the info re open toe shoes. That makes perfect sense. The vernacular is pure down-home USA smartass (Omaha, NE to be specific).