Just in case you think you had a bad day here’s a true story that I bet you’ll have a hard time topping.

It was about 9:30 this morning as I was driving south on I-275 – which fortunately – was more of a parking lot than a thruway, when to my total and complete amazement I saw a tree frog (you know the kind, greenish-brown, about two and a half inches long with “ET” looking feet and tiny suction cup toes) clinging tenaciously to the inside of my drivers side window.

Being the nice guy I am I figured I’d let him out of my truck so he or she (who would know except another frog) could continue with life in the great outdoors. I began to slowly lower my newly repaired (but that’s another, not to mention expensive, story) power window. Having dropped the window far enough for my uninvited guest to depart I decided to gently encourage him when he showed no incentive to leave on his own.

Big, Big, Big Mistake!!!

You would think this slimy amphibian would be appreciative of my kindness. Not so.

Immediately upon touching him ever so gently to move him toward the opening he turned on me.

With what I am sure was utter and complete malice he leaped straight at my throat, peeing all the way. He must have needed a rest stop for quite some time based on the volume of his output.

After barely avoiding a ten-mile an hour accident, that I’m certain would have gotten me a ticket, (Can’t you just see the cop listening to this story?, ”Honest officer, it was all the frog’s fault.”) I grabbed a tissue and wiped-off my hand, pants leg, shirt and door panel.

Having adequately recovered I started looking for the frog. He had disappeared. A few minutes and maybe a half-mile down the road he reappeared. The malicious mutant ninja frog was sitting on my console taunting me and daring me to touch him. I’m a slow learner. I grabbed a tissue and attempted to grab the frog. After turning the tissue into toilet paper he jumped on to the dashboard and then leapt to the passenger-side window glaring and pissing all the way.

I quickly lowered the passenger window and the little ingrate jumped to the outside rear view mirror. I quickly powered the window up. He immediately stuck himself to the outside of the glass and glared at me all the time moving his little frog-lips angrily. I’m not sure of what he was saying to me but I suspect if I took a guess and put it in this email your spam filters would reject it.

After a few minutes he finally got tired and left.

I hope a semi ran over him.

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Note: I wrote this little tale in the spring of 2006. Due to subsequent HD crash I don’t recall the date. As with all original content published on elmerhurlstone.com “The Tree Frog and Me” is copyrighted by Elmer Hurlstone. All rights are reserved.

Product creation usually begins with a question.

In the case of the WF Thread Downloader it was a simple question my friend and JV partner, Tom, asked on an onging Skype chat in which we both participate. Tom asked, “anyone know how to get all posts in a Warrior Forum thread to display in the printer friendly view? I don’t want to have to create 19 pdfs to get one thread!”

His question was answered with resounding silence.

On the ongoing Tom/Elmer Skype chat I offered a possible in place solution–without first checking it–that proved not to work. (Once again I’ve learned the definition of assume.)
Over the next couple hours or so Tom and I chatted back and forth about the benefits and necessary features of a forum thread download utility. All the while he was diligently coding. He would code, test and send me the output to compare with the original work. Before long the “proof of concept” product was up and running.

Less than two and a half hours after posing his question Tom made this post in the group chat: “to answer my own question, I didn’t find any way to get all posts in a thread, so I wrote a program to download all pages in a thread … problem solved”

Over the next few hours, as group members had the chance to drop in, the comments–all positive–began arriving.

Three or four of our non-Mac using friends offered to test the WF Thread Downloader for us.

Now the work begins in earnest…

If there is one takeaway (so far) from this little tale, it’s this: (And it has nothing to do with programming skills or ability.)

When faced with a question that doesn’t seem to have an easy answer keep searching. Tenacity pays!