Year: 2006

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

If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Another

None of the galleries of my pictures is working. I wonder how long that has been? I have been using a program called Simple PHP Gallery. A while back I went to the home page of the author to check for updates, but discovered that the web page was unavailable. There was a little note from the hosting company asking if I was the owner and would I like to renew my agreement…The script was still working so I just ignored that.

Something must have changed on my host to alter the way the script works, but I’ll be danged if I know what that might be. Might have happened in the recent spam attack or some upgrade of a pearl module or whatever. Guess I’ll be hunting up a new picture gallery method.

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

Now What? Part Deaux

Regular readers will know that I’m struggling with my fledgling home network. Setting up the Linksys WRT54G wireless router was no snap, but I did manage to get both to wired desktop and wireless laptop to share an internet connection in short order. Sharing files and printers has been another story.

Last night after reading on the Linksysinfo.org forums and thanks to this one post with a nice little checklist, I finally managed to get the 2 PCs to talk to each other. I had most of the items taken care of already, but the thing I did that turned the tide was turn off DHCP and give the two computers there own IP address. After rebooting everything I was in business, woohoo.

One small problem, neither PC could access the internet!

To quote my favorite British Prime Minister:

Margaret Thatcher: “It’s a funny old world.”

Now What?

Last night while listening to my new favorite internet radio station, it began to do random, but frequent dropping out. Tonight when I cranked up RadioIO Eclectic it was still doing it. Dang.

Tried RadioParadise and for the last 309:20 it has been rock solid.

To quote my favorite pirate:

Jack Sparrow: Funny ol’ world, innit?

False Spring

It was supposed to get into the middle 70s today. Tomorrow rain and the weekend cold, so Donna convinced me to take the afternoon off and enjoy the day.

We headed over to Sportsman BBQ and got a plate and a sandwich to go. And go we did. We went up to a small park next to Clark’s Hill Lake. We had a little picnic at one of the tables overlooking the lake and the dam. After eating we spread out a blanket and lounged in the sun to read some. A fairly short time after we got settled, another car showed up. A minivan with a young family. They proceeded to unload a huge amount of stuff, strollers, bikes, coolers, fishing poles, etc. Mom and young daughter were in constant communication, “Stay here.” “Alright,” as she wanders off. “Don’t go far. ” “I won’t,” as she keeps on walking. “Come over here.” “Mom?”

We packed our books and blanket in the trunk and went for a walk around exploring every nook and cranny of the small park. After about a half an hour we got back in the car and went for a nice drive in the country before coming home.

Really nice day for a convertible. But somehow I feel we are going to have to pay for it with a couple inches of snow in February…

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 12