Tag Archives: General

Adsense

Giving it a trial run, it actually doesn’t look that bad on my site. I’m glad they got rid of that ghastly grey. However at the moment Google seems to think “coconut monkey purses” are particularly relevant to visitors of my page. Go figure. Anyway if an ad looks interesting to you check it out.

Update: The ads are starting to appear more relevant. Maybe this’ll work. They really should allow you to style it to match your site.

Collected Links

Sometimes these things just build up, here are a few links worth browsing.

Calling Houstonians

Just in case you are like me and get all your news through non-local online sources, I would like to inform my neighbors that there is a big freakin’ storm heading this way. This has been a public service announcement.

What’s crazy is this isn’t the first time this has happened to me. Let’s take a trip down Photo Matt memory lane to last October, when a category 4 hurricane was heading this way and I found out much in the same manner as this time, through instant messaging. That entry contains a humorous comment from 6 months after the post was written, I guess from some random search engine visitor stumbling by. She’s right. I should update my weather more often. Perhaps I need one of those nifty weather boxes in my sidebar that were all the rage a couple of years ago.

Update: It wasn’t that bad.

In The Last Episode…

A lot has happened since the last time I posted, it’s been a series of very long days.

Tuesday I went into work early to finish up some of the cabling (which is still going on) when mid-afternoon I got a call from John Greiner asking if I could play lead alto with a big band that night. He said they needed another alto too so of course I called Rene and we were all set for that night. I left work a little early to try and get a head start on traffic because I had to pick up my horn and stand from my house (Southwest), pick up Rene (Northeast), and go to the gig (Northwest). It was going to be a squeeze but Sarah offered to give Rene a ride and that made things so much easier.

The gig was a blast! It was the first ever performance of this group, which is basically a rehearsal band of musicians from around town. It had some funny parts (most of us were sight-reading) but it’s a great group and the good news is we’re going to be performing every Tuesday from 7:30–9:30 at the Pasta Co. on Woodway. Come check it out next week!

Yesterday was pretty crazy because the gateway/firewall/mail server here at work crashed pretty badly, to the point where I had spent so much time trying to fix bizarre problems that it became apparent that it would be faster just to set a new machine up. I was also surprised to find out that the machine was only a 166mhz Pentium with a mere 40mb of RAM! Before I saw the box itself I just assumed it was some sort of nice machine because it ran so well. Linux rocks! Anyway we set up a new one with some more modern hardware and I dropped Red Hat on it (something was wrong with our Slackware CDs) and then I spent the rest of the evening becoming intimately familiar with iptables. After that I drove all the way down to Sugarland to help some people out with some computer stuff and setting up a wireless network, and that went very well and it was a pleasant change of pace to have everything work the first time! Since it wasn’t enough having been working or driving for 16 hours that day, Josh called and we went to House of Pies, of course.

Today we’re getting three new T-1s installed!

Upgrade Day

Just finished upgrading the server to address a mod_ssl vulnerability and get PHP 4.3.2. It went swimmingly, which is always nice.

In the process of upgrading about half a dozen sites to WordPress .71 to test it out before the code is released. It’s a good process because the sites need updating (security problem again) and it’s a good way to find any bugs that may have made it through so far.

I’ve always remarked that people tend to write about bad things more than they write about good things. Journals, blogs, diaries, all tend to be one-sided, at least in my experience. As is such though yesterday started quite badly, after I emerged from my migraine-medicine–induced haze I had a pleasant evening with my family.

Today has been great too; been hanging out with Mike and Christine at Kaveh Kanes (where the chai is tasty and the music is grooving) getting Christine set up in email utopia, where spam is like the distant buzzing of a fly you think you heard but you’re sure it’s really just in your head. Back to work! There looks to be some frisbee in the plans this evening…

Update: Mike has a meta moment.

Terrible Headache

My throbbing head from the moment I woke up is telling me to stay away from work, but commitments keep me tied to the computer screen. I don’t remember the last time I had a headache this bad, and my medicine has yet to kick in. Perhaps some time away is in order after all.

Jedi Gets Lawyer

The latest on the Star Wars Kid says that there are lawyers involved now, and they’re not happy with whoever originally put the video on the web. (It doesn’t look like they’re mad at the people who propagated it.) What really sucks is Ghyslain might not accept the money (man, monthly archive permalinks suck) presumably because they think (after lawyer fees) they may get more out of whoever they’re taking action against. A disappointing ending to what has been a pretty fairytale-like story so far. Andy just informed me that they will accept the gifts, which I think is a great thing. Obviously something about the movie or the situation inspired a lot of people to donate, many probably because they related to the situation. Hopefully things will turn out alright after all.

Well That’s Odd

For some reason on my laptop explorer.exe has taken it upon itself to eat as much memory as possible. When I started typing this it was at 268MB, now it’s at 302MB and climbing. I wonder what will happen if I just let it keep going? This should be interesting. Update: It dropped back down to about 8MB, which is normal. I wonder what an earth that could have been. When am I going to stop using Windows permanently? I seem to flirt with other operating systems, but I can never commit.

Adaptation

Adaptation was a really excellent movie, with more twists and turns than I could keep track of. I think there is so much I still don’t get though. For now though, it’s time (finally) for some sleep.

Kin Than Kind

Hamlet was great, it was the opening night though so it ran long. Three and a half hours to be exact. Now if I was sane I would get some much needed sleep now, but Rachel is leaving town tomorrow so I’m going to hang with her and Josh for a bit. I hear he might have Adaptation.

Slow Burn

I feel like Neo in the first Matrix when he looks around everywhere and sees code, because code is all I’ve seen for hours, far too many hours. I’ve basically been working non-stop on getting WordPress out the door. In a bit I’m heading out for a meeting but after that it’s right back to work. This evening should be a nice chance to relax though, as I’m seeing Hamlet at the Alley Theatre. I’ve never seen Hamlet on stage before, so I’m curious to see how they do it.