September 2005 Archives

Payday = discretionary funds = Mint. 'Cause the MO and I wanna know who comes to read us ;-)

I checked the forums on my host, and folks are running Mint there and loving it. I ran the test scripts and all was well. I bought Mint, did the config and loaded it up, and now it can't connect and the test scripts don't complete anymore either. Sigh. So I've posted on both the Mint forums and my host forums, and hopefully will have an answer tomorrow.

It's just amazing to me how specialized the computer world is. Hardware vs. software, of course, and then inside my world of software, my expertise doesn't translate to understanding of "web stuff" at all. Honestly, I know I'm not stupid, but this "web stuff" kicks my @$$ on a regular basis.

Update:

Turns out I was having a fight club moment in that I was kicking my own @$$. Got my passwords mixed up. Duh.... So anyhow, now the MO and I are minty-fresh with pretty new statistics. I'm looking forward to the silly search terms. That's always been my favorite part of site stats...

At the prodding of a fellow WWII veteran's descendant, I purchased "The Sky Men" by Kirk Ross. I received it today and immediately searched for mention of my grandfather, John Deam. Although the book is primarily about F Company, and Grandfather Deam commanded E Company, his actions on the day of his death are indeed included, starting on page 155. The description of the events varies a good bit from what Dick Manning has related to me (Mr. Manning is also included in these pages of the book) but I suppose that is not really surprising.

At any rate, the really surprising thing for me was how viscerally I reacted to seeing quoted words of my grandfather's. They're from the Westover notes, which Mr. Manning has told me are not accurate, but still, we have

Within fifteen minutes, Lieutenant Deam radioed back "that he was on the phase line and the men in enemy fox holes."

and

"Don't worry," replied Deam, "I'll start them off myself." Lieutenant Deam called his Third Platoon commandeer, Lieutenant Manning, and told him to "get his men, fix bayonets, and go on in." As promised, Deam led the attack, but was killed almost immediately by enemy rifle fire. Lieutenant Hall, Manning's assistant was shot in the chest, and another officer, Lieutenant Fagan who had assumed command of E Company, was wounded as well.

This doesn't jive at all with what Mr. Manning has related, especially concerning the circumstances of my grandfather's death, but as I've commented before, I'm amazed that anyone could retain a coherent memory of such a time. For me, it's enough to have another confirmation that he was there, he was doing his job, he was leading his men.

CSS Table Gallery

The CSS Table Gallery is a showcase of how CSS and data tables can work together to create usable and pretty results.

(Cool! Tables aren't evil after all....)
[Found circuitously via 456 Berea Street]

Finally got gas for the BabyCar tonight! Turns out I was less than 10 miles from empty....

On the way home, I noticed Machinery at the Art League. Looks like it's finally time for Inversion to make its way into the annals of Art Projects Past.

And just around the corner, it seems that some neighbors got a little fed up with the notoriously slow drainage in the 'hood.

'Gators, indeed.

Not to be too snarky, but really.... I always ask the Coke guy to drop the cases in the kitchen. New guy this week, so I guess he figured the closer to the machine the better. Maybe he thought I needed the exercise.... Surely he knows that you can't load the machine without opening the door?

Our very own Mad Oilman was quoted (more or less) on CNN! Laurence has the excerpt and a link to the transcript, so you can search for the Famous Quote yourself ;-)

Well, what a relief! I know other places did get pounded by Rita, but it turned out to be a non-event for us. Today has been Hurricane Cleaning Day (like Spring Cleaning but hotter). The house was pretty much torn apart from our preparations, so we just decided to clean all those places that usually don't see the light of day before we put all the furniture back. Man, did I vacuum up a lot of cat hair. We had a couple of power flickers early this morning, but it was not out for more than a minute either time. If we hadn't known that a hurricane had gone through, we'd have thought we just had a nice thunderstorm.

The morning survey yielded one small twig attacking my car and one shingle definitely out of place. There were a couple of hibisus flowers on the ground, and a lot of leaves from the yellow-flower tree out front. The east-side cypress got tangled up in the crepe myrtle. Lots of leaves in the gutters of the road. It was still blustery, although very comfortable temperature-wise, outside this morning, but it's already hot again now.

And that's all there was to Rita here in our corner of Montrose....

Here's the view from our front porch at about 10:30 this evening. The storm has not yet arrived. Every now and then a gust comes by and whips the trees around a bit, but that's it so far.

(Unfortunately that's a streetlight and not the moon.)

We stood out on the porch for about half-an-hour. The MO enjoyed a small cigar and we took pictures and generally enjoyed the cool(er) temperature.

I know it's going to get scary, but for right now, it's actually quite nice.

I wandered through the list of participants in the Dual Disc Debacle and some folks have already received all of their cds! I am so jealous! I don't have any yet :-( I did find another who hasn't received any yet, so I left a sympathetic comment. For now I'm blaming it all on Rita, but I want discs next week, darnit :-)

Believe it or not (based on what they're showing on TV) it is absolutely calm here right now....

Well, our house looks pretty weird by now. The walls are bare--that's something we haven't seen since we painted before we moved in! As we were wrapping and packing art, I commented to the MO, "We really do have a lot of art, don't we?" And he said, "That's why we're not rich." He was kidding, but that didn't stop me from thinking that the art itself qualifies as riches. We have beautiful pieces that we've picked out together, things like we like individually, stuff that came with each of us from "before".... And it all is part of who we are. I mean, if the roof blows off and the house falls down and we lose it all, we will get new art, and some of it will be from the same artists, even, and it will be just as wonderful, but I'd miss these pieces that contribute to how we are right now.

The living room is full of plants from the front porch. The office has been denuded of desktop clutter (well, the clutter has been relocated, at least) and all the bookcases are taped up with garbage bags. (Two bookcases are next to windows, there's not really anywhere to move them, and we figure this is the room most likely to leak even if a window doesn't break. Old house. Original windows. Not exactly hermetically sealed.) The game shelf (the window seat in the dining room) is nekkid, all its contents wrapped up in plastic bags and distributed on various flat surfaces around the house. The dresser-tops in my bathroom, the only place in the house where knick-knacks are allowed, are swept clean. Before long we'll move the dressers away from the windows up against the interior wall. The tub is full (nearly overfull--I almost forgot about it!) because I refuse to not be able to at last sponge-bathe. I even bought some of that water-less shampoo, so if we're without water for more than a day we'll see if that stuff really works.

But meanwhile, we wait. There has been lots of waiting. Which really is better than just suddenly having a catastrophe dropped on your head, I understand that, but it is a little odd.

The MO is your source for personal updates during Rita. He's going to "disaster-blog" as long as we have power and internet connectivity. For a list of local bloggers, see Laurence Simon's This Blog is Full of Crap. (And don't miss his explanation of hurricane categories!)

This morning we bagged art. I already packed my duffel bag with desperation essentials so now I am just following the MO's instructions. He is much more organized than I am. I am operating on a cup of coffee in one hand (those of you who know realize how odd that is) and a cream soda in the other. This way I can use either hand to swill sudafed as necessary to dry up the snot that is being generated in copious quantities by all the dust we're stirring up. I guess as soon as I have a beer, I'll have all the major food groups represented in my bloodstream.

In all seriousness, the MO is in charge and taking care of things.

I've posted some more of Auntie Marge's letters, and also fiddled with the settings (on the new server) so that the dates show up correctly. For now I've ditched the calendar view and archives. If I (eventually) figure out how to get them to show the right dates, I'll add them back. The last entry is formatted oddly, so I guess there is a hidden character in there somewhere, but I haven't found it yet. Sigh.

Beryl = Aquamarine = Heliodor = Emerald = droooooooool

Turns out the Houston Museum of Natural Science has quite an impressive gem and mineral exhibit. Quite impressive. Oh yes. Oh yesssssss.....

If you're purporting to teach youngsters how to write, it seems like the least you could do in your own writing is master the use of "I" versus "me". C'mon, now. "So-and-so and I went in there, and they gave so-and-so and me the boot." IT'S JUST NOT THAT HARD, PEOPLE.

If you happen to have one of those ubiquitous rubber wristbands (a la livestrong) lying around, it turns out they make great jar openers.

My cds for the Dual Disc Debacle are ready to ship! I forgot to stop at the office supply store for disc mailers, so the actual packing and addressing will have to wait one more day. I have three international swappees, so I want to get them out soon since they'll take a while to arrive. As a teaser, here are the covers:

I'm pretty happy with the playlist. It took some doing to get the whole alphabet represented (had to take liberties with x), and it is certainly an ... eclectic ... mix of music, but they're all good songs and it was a fun challenge. I'm quite curious to see what I receive :-)

The Oktoberfest is bubbling away....

When the New Orleans-Carolina game has come down to less than two minutes and you're really hoping it will go into overtime because Jake Delhomme is the only fantasy player on your team that's been worth a damn so far this morning and you'd really like to give him a chance to rack up some more points for you in the Texas Deathmatch IV league, you do NOT, I repeat, do NOT want to switch over to the stupid Dallas game just because you happen to live in Houston!!! Really now, that should be SO obvious.

Earlier this week I noticed a single green stalk in the bare patch of yard next the driveway. I figured it was a little weedling tree but on closer inspection, it had a thick lily-like stalk, so I let it be. And sure enough, today it bloomed.

It only cost me four mosquito bites to get pictures of it this morning. I reaaaaally hate mosquitoes! In other surprise yard news, the MO noticed that the banana tree we've never quite got around to chopping down is sprouting bananas. They're pretty small yet, but they're there!

Pretty cool, huh? Happy botanical day :-)

This morning we have the first hint that summer might not be a permanent condition:

It is absolutely glorious outside right now. I can't wait for fall--it's my favorite time of year.

The Boards of Canada can reduce the most eloquent man to barely comprehensible sentences: "I might need to borrow your music stick thing for when my hot manipulator works on me."

Translation: "It would be really cool to listen to the Boards of Canada on your iPod Shuffle while I'm at physical therapy being poked and prodded by that attractive blue-eyed yet entirely too scrawny chickee who is hopefully going to un-impinge my shoulder so I don't have to have surgery again."

Cats in Sinks

What is Cats in Sinks? It's obvious. It's about cats. And kittens.Who like sinks. And basins. And that's it.

(there's not really much to add to that...)