Coming to work has been different since Tuesday because of the loss that one of our co-workers experienced, feeling her absence here during the day, and at home, thinking about how she is doing.

We were all going to dress up for Halloween at work today, but do not have the heart for that fun. I was going to be a spider. I already have four eyes so would only have needed to add two more on my forehead and on my cheeks. However, I’m grateful to have other eyes than my own two for proofing. We sent a sellsheet to our printer last week. We proofed it then, and on receiving the color proof, had several staff writers here proof it again. We found an extra space which needed to be deleted. Small detail, but important.

The advantage of having our fellow coworkers involved in the design process, whether it is a logo, a CD-ROM, an online tradeshow presentation, a sellsheet, brochure, or website, is a fresh pair of eyes and unique feedback. Invariably we find tweaks and corrections that improve the final product, and we also have the reassurance from our combined responses that the final product satisfies the client’s objective, and that it is done in an exciting and professional way.

Last night was one of the greatest nights of my life.

For casual sports fans or non-sports fans, that statement may seem outlandish and over the top — and I don’t necesarilly blame those who think so. But for me, sports have always been one of the most important things in my life — and not just because of the action on the field, court, rink, etc. I have countless memories involving the so-called “important” things in life — family, friends, etc. — it’s just that nearly all of them have some sort of a connection to sports.

• When I was in kindergarten, my great aunt would take me to hockey games on school nights, dropping me off at home long after my parents had gone to bed.
• Every winter, my grandparents would take me to a Sixers basketball game, and my grandmom would pack a complete dinner (even though I wanted nothing more than $5 french fries and big sugary sodas).
• When I was 10, I sat on the living room floor and watched the Phillies lose the 1993 World Series in the most heartbreaking fashion possible, crying as my mom said “someday they’ll win one.”
• At 18, a friend and I went to every Sixers playoff game in their magical run to the Finals.
• At 19, another friend and I drove 15 hours each way from Philadelphia to St. Louis on a whim to see the Eagles play an NFL playoff game. They lost, and our car broke down in Illinois, making it even more of an epic story for the ages.
• In college, three friends and I drove from Boston to Minneapolis for two college hockey games. Then turned around and drove right back.
• And last night, 15 years after sitting in my parents’ living room and watching the Phillies lose, I sat in my own house and watched them win a title I never thought would come.

As you can see, sports have often marked big milestones in my life, and last night was the biggest. Does it top my wedding night, or the night I got engaged? Of course not. But it definitely belongs in the all-time Top 5. It’s something I will never forget.

Non-sports fans always ask why I use the word “WE” when I talk about my favorite teams. It’s because for me, those teams represent this city and all the fans who live here. In my role as a project coordinator at Dynamic Digital Advertising, I spend much of my day corresponding with clients about their projects. I always use the word “WE” in emails, especially when requesting feedback or asking for additional information — such as “We are working hard on your project.”

For a big current project, which is heavy on video production and programming, I, as a copywriter, am not technically working on those details. But at DDA, everything we do includes the word “WE,” because when we put our name on a completed project, we don’t include our official signatures, just the DDA stamp of approval. We succeed together, (rarely) fail together, and as many have written about today, we hurt together when one of our colleagues is going through pain that is impossible to put into words.

So the next time you hear the word “WE,” don’t just brush it off as a passing thought. Take it for what it means, which is a complete team effort — even if you’re not “officially” on the team.

P.S. — You might have to deal with one more Phillies-related blog on Monday. After all, I will join a few million people for a parade in Center City tomorrow afternoon.

When I was in 8th grade, my dad coached our girls basketball team.  It was a tiny catholic school in Wisconsin, so basically it was a volunteer job for any takers.  I remember one game that we were behind 3 points at the end, I was about to shoot a one-and-one free throw, Dad calls a time out.  In the huddle he says ‘After Amy makes these free throws…’ and then proceeded to plan out our final strategic move.  I laughed and told him that I too had seen Hoosiers, so the psych up didn’t work for me.  I missed the free throw and we lost the game.  Last night, I wonder what was said to Pat Burrell before he broke that awful streak of no hits through the playoffs to put the World Series go-ahead run at second base.  In any case, we can be proud to say that there is now a champion again in Philadelphia.

So after all the fireworks and shouting last night (yes, all the way out in Hatfield people could be heard rejoicing), I watched the taped Obama infomercial, the Daily Show and Colbert Report because I was still excited and couldn’t sleep.  It makes for a groggy morning this morning, probably like most ‘Phans’ out there, but off to work again we go, no parades today.

Yesterday I had to look up something that I always forget the code for because I used it in a site we’re currently working on.  In Coldfusion, we have cfquery and cfoutput which enables easy database query programming and display.  On the most basic level we use cfquery like this:

<cfquery NAME=”qQuery” datasource=”#DSN#” > <!—optionally use username=”#User#” password=”#Password#”>—>
select field1,field2,field3
from tablename
where somefield=<cfqueryparam cfsqltype=”cf_sql_integer” value=”#someintvar#”>
</cfquery>

Then to output the full query, looping through the rows, it’s easy, just use this:

<cfoutput query=”qQuery”>
field1=#qQuery.field1# — field2=#qQuery.field2# — etc…
</cfoutput>

So what happens if you want to just output one field from one row, like if you run a query to get the first name of a person and you have only the person’s ID field, well, you would run the cfquery as normal, and then use an alternate notation form, sometimes called bracket notation — in this example, rownumber is a numeric (integer) variable that is within the recordcount results range(qQuery.recordcount) of the specific row you are looking to return:

<cfoutput>#qQuery[’fieldx’][rowNumber]#</cfoutput>

This is very basic Coldfusion programming information, but I always forget which part of the bracket notation comes first, the row number or the field name, so that’s why I went through the whole Coldfusion query discussion.  After all, a statement out of context isn’t very informative at all, it’s just a random statement.