My brother Kevin passed away last weekend. I wanted to write something brief about him since he was a huge part of my life.

Kevin was my stepbrother, but I never thought of him this way. He was and always will be my brother. He had one of the biggest hearts of anyone I knew. He loved people and people loved him. He had amazing people skills and a sense of humor that could make anyone laugh. His ability to tell stories and recall details of situations was truly a gift from God. He didn’t settle for passivity; he was usually fighting for other people and their relationships. He cared so much for others, and listening and cheering them up was definitely a ministry he lived out. Unfortunately, he also had some personal addictions he didn’t beat. Kevin always said he was proud of me. In hindsight, I was always super proud of him, especially to be his older brother. He was a listener, an adventurer, comedian, joy giver and my best man. These are things I was always treasure about him.

I have so many awesome memories with Kev, I never want to forget any. He had a passion for life and I know he is in Heaven now. He knew the Lord as his Savior and I have that peace in my heart. I will always love my brother. He is one that just can’t be replaced by anything.

Love you Kevin. I will miss you bro.

His obituary.

Some photos of my brother, my best man.

When using IBATIS, use $parameter$ to inject literals in your sql maps. For instance, if you have a sql query that injects a comma separated list of ids, using #parameter# will put quotes in the sql, causing an error if you were using the “in” operator. Using $parameter$ removes the quotes and your sql is content.

Example with #:

select filter.id from filter where filtertypeid = #filterTypeId#
and typeid in (#typeIds#);

could yield

select filter.id from filter where filtertypeid = '2' and typeid in ('0,1,4');

Example with $:

select filter.id from filter where filtertypeid = #filterTypeId#
and typeid in ($typeIds$);

could yield

select filter.id from filter where filtertypeid = '2' and typeid in (0,1,4);

Conclusion:

Remember to use your dollar signs.