New layout
As you can see the new layout is more or less completed. Hopefully, I will be able to modify this the way I want, but we shall see. Ultimately, this will be driven by a little database of mine...
Joe and Matt's Birthday Picnic
As for pictures, well, they sucked. I will put them up here (someday when the photo archive is done) and also include the entire video as an .rm file (Real Media, get the player if you want to see it). If you are on a dialup connection, well, I'm sorry. It'll take about an hour (at 56k, 2 hours at 28.8) to download and it is only a little over 7 minutes long. I did put up some pics so you can look at those if you want. The "big problem" has to do with backlighting the images. The camera didn't compensate for that well at all. I'll probably be trying to see what I can learn so that it doesn't happen again.
Fax Machine Dies
My poor fax machine/printer/copier has perished. A check of mine was stuck in it and it was dismantled to fix it. In the process I tore apart a small "thingy" that appears to be a thermometer of some sort. Actually, I'm pretty sure it maintains temperature of the fusing assembly. I don't know for sure how hot they can get, or if it could actually catch paper on fire if it failed. So instead of trying it out and finding out with the fire department, I decided to buy a new printer/fax/copier. The MFC-8300 was selected (as a backup, but ended up being the one I got) and as usual, Brother doesn't have software that actually works correctly with Windows 2000 Professional and their printer. So, I can't do some little cute things (receiving faxes to the computer, printing to the fax modem on the printer, controlling the one-touch dialing options, etc), but no big deal. It is up and it works and life is good.
Jackson County Fair Visit
OK, I went to it. Actually, it was kinda entertaining to watch baby Joe try to take in all the people and activities. We ate some food (cause that's what you do at the fair). We did one cheap carnie thing - a b-b gun experience where you knock down 6 little metal circles using a bad Beretta replica. The chick gave me mine and it had 2 shots in it and no front sight. Needless to say at 6 yards (or whatever it was) they weren't exactly accurate. Joe did much better than I did, but he later said he was just watching the bb and chasing the X so to speak. Of course, my stupidity I started aiming.
Had to conclude that Joe is quite the social animal. I think we saw 12 people he knew in a 2 hour period - I can see the appeal for the fair. Go, drink beer, see freaks, run into people you know. I guess when I was younger it was more like go, enjoy rides, eat stuff mom never lets me eat, watch some of the freaks, run into people you saw 2 months ago in school. Being younger definitely has a need for more money. I think we spent less than $20 at this one and when I was about 15 I went through $140 (neither counting gate charges). Even at 21 I spent a few bucks in there, of course, I was trying to impress some chick. Hahaha.
The technology pavilion once it was in place had some appeal for me (being a nerd) when I was younger. This year they didn't have anything in there that was all that spectacular. Except for the cool bubble lights from Project A. And it did make me want a flat screen monitor much much more. There was a Medford cop in there with what I'm guessing was one of the laser radar things (I don't know for sure) and he had a patrol car with the laptop (don't remember the cool acronym for it). He was busy with a few people so we didn't stop and wait, but I do want to see one of those some day. Anyway, back to work.
The Cell
Now here is something eriously twisted. Not near as bad as Event Horizon at least on the "uuuh I'm now going to puke" level, but definitely up there. Well, not as much raw gore, but not something I would rent again. Nice little computer room with a bunch of nerds mapping out the human brain and transferring information back and forth so that each can experience some drummed up version of the other's brain. Never mind that she drives some crap car, but her office and clothes say "I have a million million million dollars" - well, at least until the final scene when she has a smock on that reminded me of pictures of my Great Great Grandmother. Anyway, we are talking about the ability to transfer active consciousness between two people. We can barely make a rough map at this point - you'd think they would at least set this in the future (say 50+ years). But, since it has probably been done a zillon times, someone figured it would be cool to make a sci-fi in the present time. Total crap. But, J.Lo looked good - but that was to be expected. Oh and by the way, UCLA is doing some cool brain stuff, that is more of a here and now thing. (Suspend belief, just for a few hours to watch a show??? Um, you have to make it alot easier on me.)
Still haven't finished any of the Photo Archive or News Archive or even actually this part of it (yes, I'm faking this part in Dreamweaver until I decide that I really want to keep it, I guess). Or maybe I'm doing this until I actually get the time to work on play stuff. Someday, I'll have free time, I just know it. For now, my little journal to the world will be a manual effort (which may include spelling mistakes).
Oh yes, and one more thing. This is my political statement of the moment. If you are using Yahoo! and you have any serious belief in the Constitution (say specifically the 2nd Amendment), you need to switch. I did a simple search yesterday at Yahoo! using the search word "handguns". The first two matches were under the heading "Yahoo! Category Matches" and they were none other than "Handgun Control, Inc. and..." and the "Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act". Needless to say, if you know anything about handguns, the 2nd Amendment, the NRA, etc, you know these people aren't real interested in anyone having them.
I did a search using the same phrase at MSN.com and the first entry was "Find Gun Shops Near You". Good. The 2nd was American Firearms Industry and #5 was the NRA. Very good. Very right wing (you don't think it was called the right wing for nothing, do you?) Anyway, my quote for the evening being as I'm having one of those 2nd Amendment supporter moments is from a man who was on track to become a world leader in his day. Definitely not someone I agree with, but someone who had alot of power and alot of people following him around. He had a few ideas on civilian gun ownership that we should probably take seriously. Of course, I'm sure you'll agree once you read the quote:
"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!"
Now I'm sure you are wondering who actually said that and why it is that you can't think of the nation that has full gun registration or why we aren't following their lead. Well, that is because the man who said this was Adolf Hitler. The year was 1935 and the country was Nazi Germany. Needless to say, I don't want to follow his lead, do you?
OOOOOHHHH, My Butt hurts
Lately, I've been noticing some upstream problems on the old Charter cable modem (run via @Home). And I did a speed test today and got the lovely results of 3,405kb download and 75kb upload. Yep, 75kb!!! Usually this is in the 1000+ range, but today it rivals that of a dialup modem. Yes, there have been petitions and comments and articles about this lovely new 128k upstream cap, but the only thing they will understand is if you find someone else to go to. Yes, when AFN is available, I will be leaving. Why? Cause I'm getting that proctology exam kinda feeling here. On the upside, that'll hopefully be the only bad news for Monday.
The Photo Archive
Well, it looks like the photo archive might get some priority here in the near future. Dawn is busy scanning photos and has created several gig worth of data to go through. All of the scans are at 600dpi (way more than needed to recreate excellent photos from oFoto or Kodak) and they each take alot of disk space so having several gig isn't as cool as it sounds. With some luck I'll find a few moments here and there to start working on them and I can share a few here before the archive is up.
Like this one of me holding Joe on the couch in 1972. The stamp on the side (which we all figure is when it was developed) says 'Aug 72'. I'd say it was August at the latest given how little Joe was. Anyway, there are zillions and zillions and Dawn is working through them at night when she watches TV so I'm sure they will eventually get done.
Speaking of old photos
Now here is a statement to the end of the 70's. Rachel, Rich, Joe and Angie on our bikes in Sams Valley. I think that is Grandpa Holt's truck in the background, but I'm not sure. Night.
Featuritis
A 30-something man stands in the middle of a small room staring into a semi-circle of people he has never seen. A confused, semi-scared look comes over him. He appears to be almost hiding behind the small wooden podium. A good looking man he stands right at a perfect 6' and it is obvious he has spent some time at the gym. His hair cut is almost military short it stands straight up, almost at attention, jet black and almost blue in the right light.
Leaning forward he opens his mouth, but no words come out. He pauses, closes his mouth, shifts his feet slightly, looks around and starts over.
"Hello, my name is Richard and I .. I have featuritis"...
I should start a club. Hahaha. Anyway, I've been working on an installation for seemingly forever and have forgotten the golden rule of iterative development. "Don't do it all in the first pass." Tomorrow is Friday and the week is over. It'll be the ultimate test. To see if I can create a core installation that is functional, deployable, and complete. Wish me luck.
Power Quest sucks. I don't know if it is me or what, but DriveImage Pro 4.0 from Power Quest SUCKS!!! I have tried several times to get their crap to work correctly at restoring a drive image of Win2k or NT4 (we tried one of Win98 back when I first bought it for Joe's machine, but guess what - YES, IT SUCKED) and it has NEVER worked correctly. Everything seems to go into place, but everytime there is some weird problem. Today I had question marks in really weird places in the registry (HKCR\Installer\Components - which is kinda a critical area for doing installations). It works fine at getting files out of a drive image, but otherwise DAMN.
FYI, for what it is worth, there is a cool tool for Linux that does a good job, but I don't remember the name of it at the moment. It does work with Win2k and NT and etc and if you are wondering send me an e-mail and ask about it and I'll get the name of it.
Anyway, gotta hit the gym tomorrow so I can kick some butt. We are gonna go get Joey for Saturday so I can do something besides work in environments without debuggers.
It's the weekend!!!
One more frustrating week of installation scripting. I really wish they had a debugger for all that stuff that worked (Yes, MsiBreak environment variable is cool, but doesn't help if you don't get time to attach the debugger to the msiexec.exe process). I did find a few little secrets that Microsoft seems uninterested in posting on their website, but nothing that gets the entire job done. So, I'll be spending a good part of the weekend playing with scripts. On the upside, stepping away from my featuritis did wonders for getting stuff done. There are still areas I'm not sure about, but I'm really needing a success in something here.
But first today we are going to go level Joe's lawn (hopefully). Actually, there is no master plan at the moment, but since it is a cooler weekend (highs in the low 80's) it makes since. Joe was going to work today and Dawn and I were going to watch Joey, but now that he took the day off (some objection to working 7 12-hour days in a row) we figured we should probably get out of the house, too.
So, with all that we'll probably hang out with Joe for a few hours this morning and then come home and make script. Yeaaaa.
Didn't do much personally, Jason and Heather still in Europe
That's about what I did yesterday. Not much. We went to Joe's, but he wasn't looking too interested in working on the lawn. I'm sure it had more to do with the fact that he has been working alot lately. So we eventually left and came home and Joe and I played games on the net for a while. Then we went to Red Robin and had some dinner and came home (of course, I had a Big Mac attack on the way home - so now I'm 3 pounds heavier - keep that up and I can weigh almost 500 pounds in a short 3 months)
Today we shall be going to the gym (too much eating last night), come home and work then out to Dad's for a few hours to get some stuff on his computer straightened out. After that we'll probably come back home and do some more work (just cause I need to get some stuff done).
Heather and Jason took off to Europe for a big party and now they are in Florence enjoying the fact that it isn't Communist China and they can get to Internet Cafe's relatively easily. I'm sure there will be cool pictures up somewhere on the net when they return.
Webdesigner Cool Link of the Minute
Check this out. They do some cool stuff and they definitely have some interesting ideas.