Rants

I deactivated the Page Link Manager plugin last night and when I reactivated it, it didn’t function properly. I have a ton of pages on the blog (as you can see by the long ol’ list that is in the inner sidebar right now) and the plugin allowed me to seperate the pages into groups in multiple widgets. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, but nothing would let me have more than one widget. I even tried a couple of other similar plugins and they wouldn’t allow me multiple widgets either. I suspect it is a database issue because when I reinstalled the original plugin and then one of a similar nature they both allowed one instance of the widget and both were prepopulated with the pages of the previously working multiple widgets.

So, the way I see it, I have two options; find a workaround or back up all the post information, delete the existing database and install WordPress from scratch. If I choose the second option things might be a little wonky around here over the weekend.

*UPDATE: I did the workaround. The OEM pages plugin allows multiple instances, I just had to type in every page number (out of 73) I wanted excluded in each widget.

After leaving Indian Springs State Park on Saturday we angled our way back northeast to I-20 for the blast back home. When we got to Exit 130 it was time for dinner and there were several chain places to choose from. We picked Zaxby’s as the lesser of 6 evils, but when we got inside and perused the menu board we both knew it was an uninspired choice. There was nothing that either of us really wanted, so we surprised the girl behind the counter by turning on our heels and heading for the door.

While walking back to the car we noticed a large billboard that advertised two downtown restaurants just 3 miles north. This sounded more like it. A downtown eatery that would have something besides a variation on fried chicken parts. The Yesterday Cafe was definitely the place to be on Saturday night in Greensboro as it was hopping. We were greeted promptly by the hostess and offered a booth. We scanned the menu and there were enough options that we each picked something. Several minutes passed and we changed our minds to a different entree. Several more minutes passed and we had yet to get so much as a nod from a wait-person. No water offered. No I’ll be with you in a minute. No nothing. Too make matters worse, from where I was sitting I could see the hostess station and there were two young ladies, dressed in waitress type attire standing there, chatting away with the hostess, where they had been since we entered. Finally the conversation broke up and the waitresses peeled off one by one like B-17’s over their German targets and flew right by us. Needless to say we stood up and left.

Well, I guess we’ll head back 3 miles south to the Interstate. Donna suggested Waffle House next. She said, “I can have their soup” and I said, “I may just get a pecan waffle.” We picked a booth and a waitress came right over and took our drink order. She returned promptly with a coke for me and water for Donna. When Donna asked what the day’s soup was and our waitress had to go ask. She returned and said, “We are out of soup.” We both said, “We’re sorry,” as we stood up and headed for the door.

Right across the street was a Wendy’s. I said out loud, “Spicy Chicken sandwich.” Donna replied with, “Baked potato.” If you already have figured it out with the way the story is going so far, they were out of potatoes.

We still had a couple snacks and half a ham & cheese sandwich in the cooler in the trunk to tide us over for a while. Worse case scenario was the Cracker Barrel in Augusta 64 miles away. It would be closer to 7:00 PM before we ate, but we were pretty sure they would still have both potatoes and soup when we got there.

We didn’t hold out that long though, 40 miles later we were sucked into a Taco Bell in Thompson. Three tacos for me and a chicken flat bread sandwich for her, water to drink, in and out for under 5 bucks.

We bought the local paper this morning and Donna pointed out this little bit in the paper’s Talkback section:

Dog Park
The dog park is great, although some safety concerns should be addressed. The metal posts should be wrapped to protect puppies from colliding into them. The sides of the pool are extremely rough and can harm dogs that try to exit the pool from the sides.

At first I thought it might be some sort of joke, but then I remembered just how deeply involved people can get with their pets. But I just couldn’t resist making light of the matter. I hit the reply link which popped up an email window and I wrote:

RE: Dog Park Safety Concerns
Perhaps dogs using the park should be required to wear helmets and protective padding like the folks who use the Skate Park behind the Odell Weeks Center.

About 30 minutes later I got an undeliverable email back. Figuring maybe the paper has something against gmail addresses when I got home I tried again. A short time later:

Failed to deliver to ‘talkback@aikenstandard.com’
SMTP module(domain @10.10.10.57|aikenstandard.com) reports:
host mail.global.frontbridge.com says:
550 5.4.1 talkback@aikenstandard.com: Recipient address rejected: Access Denied

Nice, you can’t talk back to Talkback…

Last Monday on our way home from work were got stuck behind a shiny silver RAM Heavy Duty Dually. It was 3-1/2 tons of 4×4 manliness. There was testosterone condensate dripping from the 5″ diameter tailpipe that was connected to a 6.7 litter diesel with 650 ft/lbs of torque giving it towing capacity to move small Caribbean islands. The 8′ bed would hold a Miata and it had the load capacity large enough that it could carry two in there with no sweat.

As we traveled down Powderhouse Rd behind this behemoth, it seemed to be having trouble staying in the lane (to be fair, the truck was so wide it didn’t have far to go) and we figured it was because of the usual reason, talking on a cell phone. After watching several of these quick zig-zags there came a particularly harsh swerve that took the outside right tire off the road into the dirt we realized what was going on. The driver of this super truck was dodging the 1/4 to 3/4 inch drops associated with manholes covers on resurfaced roads.