Month: January 2006

Pay Your Bills

A long time ago in a far away land lived Nicholas the Dragon Slayer who was a member of the King?s court. He had a long-standing obsession to nuzzle the beautiful Queen’s voluptuous breasts, but he knew the penalty for this would be death.

One day he revealed his secret desire to his colleague, Grymbald the Physician, who was the King’s chief doctor. Grymbald the Physician exclaimed that he could arrange for Nicholas the Dragon Slayer to satisfy his desire, but it would cost him 1,000 gold coins to arrange it.

Without pause, Nicholas the Dragon Slayer readily agreed to have Grymbald the Physician arrange it and that he would gladly pay the 1,000 gold coins for the chance to satisfy his desires for the Queen.

The next day, Grymbald the Physician made a batch of itching powder and poured a little bit into the Queen’s brassiere while she was taking a bath. Soon after she dressed, the itching commenced and grew intense.

Upon being summoned to the Royal Chambers to address this incident, Grymbald the Physician informed the King and Queen that only a special saliva, if applied for four hours, would cure this type of itch, and that tests had shown that only the saliva of Nicholas the Dragon Slayer had present the antidote to cure the itch. The King quickly summoned Nicholas the Dragon Slayer.

Grymbald the Physician then slipped Nicholas the Dragon Slayer the antidote for the itching powder, which he quickly put it into his mouth, and for the next four hours, worked passionately on the Queen’s magnificent breasts. The Queen’s itching was eventually relieved, and Nicholas the Dragon Slayer left satisfied and as a hero.

Upon returning to his chamber, Nicholas the Dragon Slayer found Grymbald the Physician demanding his payment of 1,000 gold coins. With his obsession now satisfied, Nicholas the Dragon Slayer couldn’t have cared less, and knowing that Grymbald the Physician could never report this matter to the King – shooed him away with no payment made.

The next day, Grymbald the Physician slipped a massive dose of the same itching powder into The King’s loincloth. The King quickly summoned Nicholas the Dragon Slayer…

Moral of the story – pay your bills!

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 22

Transplant A Success

Transplant A SuccessThe power supply swap went smooth as silk. No more brrraaattttttttttttt. While I had the patient open on the table I went ahead and put the original CPU cooling fan back in. I’d swear that the replacement one Dell sent me was noisier than the 2-1/2 year old original one.

On our way over to the Concord Mills mall on Tuesday afternoon we stopped at the drive-thru convenience store in Albemarle so I could snap a couple of pictures of the Miata on the checkerboard pattern they had painted on the driving lane. I’m guessing this store is no longer in operation because it wasn’t open last Tuesday nor was it open last October when Mark and I visited the parking area next door so I could snap a picture of the giant Rat Fink replica there.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 20

It’s Always Longer Coming Back

What took 4 hours on the way up, with a dinner stop, took 3-1/2 on the way back without.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna change the power supply on this PC. And it beter solve our random ugly noise issue or…I don’t know what.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 19

Red Hot Pepper

Spent another day learning stuff that we’ll never use at GibbsCAM school. It was not a total waste, although we will never be doing exactly what we covered today, we may see something similar in the future. Plus he more we monkey with the program the better we get with the interface and will feel more comfortable using it. And a dull day at training beats a good day at work anytime.

Tonight after school we headed over to the Concord Mills mall area. After a brief shopping excursion into the Bass Pro Shop we headed over to Razzo’s Cajun Cafe for dinner. The food and atmosphere when we visited in October were so great we just had to make a return trip this time. We asked to sit in Madeline (our waitress from last time’s) section, but were told she didn’t work there anymore. Oh well, we were seated in a booth just two away from where we were seated before. The place was pretty quiet tonight compared to last time and our server turned out to be a red hot little number named Pepper. Mark and I would have enjoyed flirting more, if we were into young men. No kidding, the guy’s name was Pepper. He said he was named after a famous baseball player from St. Louis in the 30’s, Pepper Martin.

Even though our plan of getting Madeline to hold up a “I miss you Mark” sign and having her picture taken with us in the booth, to email back to the other Mark who was with us last time, was foiled, we are still planning a trip back to the restaurant in two weeks when we return for our last training session because the food is that good. We just won’t necessarily be asking to sit in Pepper’s section.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 19

Monday In Albemarle

Mark and I are off on another two-day training adventure in Albemarle, NC. We are saying in our usual Holiday Inn Express (Mmmm…Cinnamon Buns.) and this time I won’t be able to complain about the parking lot lights interfering with my beauty sleep. After my complaint at breakfast last trip, Mark cued me into the secret, ask for an odd numbered room. The odd numbers are on the backside of the hotel and face a patch of woods. Very dark.

Another plus about this trip was the drive up, I’m driving the Miata and in an effort to not get stuck in rush hour traffic in Charlotte, I charted a route that got us off I-77 about 30 miles south of the big city. It took us through a couple small towns (and a few really small burgs too) on the back roads. Even though the mileage was a little longer, we got to the hotel at about the same time as the earlier trips. As a bonus we were in Monroe, NC about 5:30 and found a Sagebrush Steakhouse to eat at. instead of having to wait until we got to Albemarle. The food was just as good as the one in Albemarle and the waitress here was a whole heck of a lot better than the one we had back in October.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 17

Sunday On The Outside

Sunday On The OutsideAfter finally dragging our butts out of bed this morning we headed out or a bagel for breakfast. We read the Sunday paper in the bagel place while enjoying our toasted treats. The only black mark on the experience is they didn’t have an OJ to drink.

Right next door was Publix and that is where we went next to do our weekly shopping.

After lunch we went for a hike in Hitchcock Woods. I took a couple more pictures at different locations in my quest for the look I wanted for my next series. We stumbled on a woman on horseback on a trail we were on, her companions, on a parallel trail, saw us first and called out, “People ahead.” So she turned around and headed towards them. After we were out of earshot Donna commented, “Why do they say ‘people’ like that? What the heck do they think they are? Maybe we should wear some alien costumes when we walk in the woods?” Not long after that conversation we encountered a carriage out for a drive. The carriage driver had to constantly reassure the two horses that it was alright as they passed. After all we were ‘people’.

When we got home I stopped short in the driveway and in answer to her quizzical look I replied. “I’m going to wash it.” It wasn’t real dirty, but usually it gets a monthly bath and with no MMC event in January, today seemed like as good a day as any.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 15

Saturday In The House

Quasi-winter has arrived. It is “cold” and windy outside, so we’ve decided that it would be a nice day to stay inside and have for Chili for supper (wonder what is a good wine for accompanying chili?)

Fixed the Galleries, the hard way. Deleted any semblance of the Simple PHP Gallery files and proceeded to try and get Gallery to work. Two attempts at uncompressing the archive file (seems as winzip doesn’t work well with the tarball) and two attempts at uploading the files (seems like WS_FTP doesn’t work well with the files) and I finally got to run the installation script. Reading the support forum I expected troubles, but was disappointed as it worked first time. I created a test directory and uploaded a file. Great. Now to re-upload the 100 or so photos that are already there, cut and paste their captions and descriptions from the text file to each individual image, learn a new layout and templating system, so I can customize the albums to look like the rest of the site. F@%k that. Deleted everything I uploaded and mulled my next move. Hoping, against all odds, that just re-uploading the Simple PHP Gallery files might work, I tried it. It’s a miracle, photos again. The only logical reason I could think as to why it worked is the cache files for the thumbnails was corrupt and regenerating it was the fix. Note to self, delete the cache first next time the galleries mess up.

I also fixed the computers not talking to each other thing, the easy way. I checked this setting once before and thought what I saw was good enough, but it wasn’t. I did two things the other day to get the computers talking, one was disabling the DHCP and the other was disabling the software firewalls. Figuring the IP Address thing was the cause of the no internet access, I left DHCP on and just disabled the firewalls. Viola! Note to self, check both boxes on the Network Neighborhood tab of Sygate Personal Firewall’s option screen.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 13