Mastery

No person teaches you mastery, the thing your mastering teaches you mastery.
In swimming, the coach doesn't teach you, the water teaches you.
In tai chi, the master doesn't teach you, the stance teaches you.
In meditation, the book or the guru doesn't teach you, the practice teaches you.
In art, the instructor doesn't teach you, the medium teaches you.

Pray, Meditate, Practice, Mature.

Be still.  Listen to the thing that you're mastering.  What is it teaching you at this moment.

Untitled

Heat and cold

Cracked and old

Young again in ancient mold

Fire and water

Colder, hotter

Pulsing, tingling, Mother, Father

Silent sitting

Inward stare

Born again of earth and air

once was plain

again made clear

For one who has an ear to hear

Agent Ransack for flexible file searches without indexing

Just found and downloaded.  Highly recommended.
http://www.mythicsoft.com/page.aspx?page=download&type=agentransack

Trace SQL Server using Scripting and No Client for Better Performance

There is a very good article on creating server side traces in SQL Server here:
SQL Server Pedia - Server Side Traces

The essence of the whole thing is this:
Monitoring using the SQL Server Profiler creates considerable overhead, whether you run it on the server that hosts the database itself, or on a client machine.
Monitoring using a script of the sort generated in the linked article, on the other hand, creates nearly zero performance degradation (per Linchi Shea's fine article, found here: trace-profiler-test).  I have linked to Linchi's test results as well as the article.  Test Results

RDP Scrollbars

Speaking of RDP:
I want to set my RDP session to be less wide than my monitor screen, but every bit as high.
This is an issue, because RDP wants to add the control area (minimize, maximize, etc) and leaves you with a scrollbar.

I got rid of this with the help of the article found here: http://manojtesting.blogspot.com/2011/11/pesky-scrollbars-on-remote-desktop.html

The answer is to add the following line to your default.rdp file, which you can edit with any text editor.
smart sizing:i:1

Fantastic :-)

EDIT: In Windows 10, I seem to have trouble finding default, RDP.
As noted here, the default location is %My Documents%\Default.rdp.

RDP Shortcut keys

Boy, these have made my life as a sysadmin a lot easier.  No longer need to have an RDP session in full-screen to do alt-tab etc.  Fantastic.  The ctrl-alt-minus + plus require you to use the +/- on the numeric keypad to create a local screenshot in the clipboard on the server.

A commenter also says CTRL+ALT+MINUS is equivalent to ALT+PRTSCRN, and CTRL+ALT+PLUS = PRINTSCRN.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa383500(v=vs.85).aspx

Church

Church spins me about.  It fogs things up.

It muddles my mind.

Some guy goes up in front of me, setting himself as the representative of the God I love and the Christ to which I try to make myself a disciple.  He gathers all the trappings of power and authority, ranging from an American flag to a stage and a big podium and a  cross and a bible and a business suite, and then he proclaims things with which I would vociferously disagree, based, actually, on my faith and interpretation of the teachings of Christ.

This puts me in an untenable position.  Do I resist this man who is trying to exercise this power over me, and in doing so resist what, in some powerful part of my feeble mind, is still the representative of Christ, or do I succumb to his teachings and, in doing so, abandon my own carefully studied, deeply held beliefs, that I’ve worked out with no small amount of prayer, fasting, sleepless nights, fear and trembling.

I won’t be put in that position.

My mind is my own.  My faith is my own.  I can read,  I can think critically.  I can approach almighty God, having been gifted at birth with everything I need to do so.