August 2007 Archives

as listening to someone in the cube next to ( or behind you ) eat their crunchy food, like potato chips or whatever the hell he happens to be eating at this moment. I hate working in a stinking cubicle.

You were expecting . . . a dog maybe? This one doesn't piss on the carpet.
 

This is the kind of news article that has me wondering that very question. As the anniversary of 9/11 grows near certainly there are many people who grow more conscious of the events that took place that day. But I have to wonder several questions?

• First off, are we any safer than we were on September 11th?
• Do we have a better idea of how to protect ourselves in the future?
• If the first two questions are true, then why are people so freaking paranoid?

I could offer several examples that have crossed my radar that clearly demonstrate how ridiculously paranoid people are responding to the fear of terrorism. However, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to waste my time doing it as I have little time to even write this post. In case you haven't the time to read the article however, here's a brief run-down: Two people, a brother and sister, belong to a running club. In preparation for an afternoon run for them and the rest of their club, they marked the trail that the club was to use. On this particular day the trail was intended to wind through the Ikea parking lot. As is often the case, the trail is designed to be challenging often branching into dead-ends and forked trails. They chose, as they have on several occasions, from one end of the US to the other without incident, to use flour to mark the trail. However this time it was different. Someone saw them and called the police. The brother and sister, he an ophthalmologist and his sister a German visitor, were charged with a felony. The charge is first-degree breach of peace. What the hell is breach of peace? I don't know either. Here's the results of a search if you'd like to invest the time. It seems the reason they're being charged is that the authorities treated the whole situation as if this was a suspected terrorist attack. They made everyone leave the store, called the hazmat team and did the whole "root out those terr'ists" bang-up job. More than likely the entire thing was probably a little embarrassing once they'd determined they all assembled for flour.

Perhaps that's why the city is going after them for restitution. A spokesman for the city said,

"You see powder connected by arrows and chalk, you never know," she said. "It could be a terrorist, it could be something more serious. We're thankful it wasn't, but there were a lot of resources that went into figuring that out."

Yes, that's what I always think when I see arrows, chalk and flour. I figure another terrorist attack is eminent, I break out the duct tape and plastic and bury myself and my family until I muster up enough courage to pull my head out of the sand and see if it's all clear. Perhaps I missed the latest intelligence memo? I didn't know that terrorists weren't fond of Ikea furniture. I'll never step foot in another furniture store again without looking over my shoulder and be ever-so-aware for any indication that suggests terrorist activity.

A couple weeks ago one of the guys I work with offered me some free tickets to Heartland Park, a raceway here in Topeka, for the NHRA Lucas Oil Championships. First I had to make sure there were no conflicting events like soccer, bmx or birthday parties. It fit conveniently in so I checked with the kids to see if they were interested - and they were. I just hoped that they'd be able to tolerate the intense sounds. I remember, very vaguely, a trip to a race when I was very, very young. I couldn't handle it. The roar of the engines is much louder than you can imagine unless you experience it first-hand. Here's one of the many pictures I took:
  We didn't stay for long - about two or three hours. As someone who isn't incredibly interested in auto racing, ( especially drag racing ) it got kind of boring watching for two long. I was able to buy some earplugs at concessions for me and the kids so the noise wasn't really that big of an issue. I managed to take a few pictures and a couple videos. Follow the link below to see them.

Today I got a movie in the mail. I know a lot of people use Netflix, but I get my movies from a place called DVD Avenue. But that's not the point . . . The movie I received was Number 23.

In the movie, Jim Carrey playes a character that becomes obsessed with a novel that he believes was written about him. The main character of the novel has this fixation on the number 23 - it seems everything in life can be reduced to the number 23. I received and watched the movie on August 23rd. I posted this on August 23rd. Ooooh . . . spooky.

I found this little guy as I was getting the kids' bikes out and ready to go to their BMX races tonight. He's a pretty brave praying mantis that hammed it up a little for the camera but then decided he'd had enough and kept trying to jump on my camera or crawl up my arm.


I tried to take several pictures, but either my camera wanted to focus on my hand or the bug wanted to take off. So I ended up taking a video instead. He cooperated for quite a while and then I decided to let him go up the tree in our front yard so he could go practice his Praying Mantis Kung Fu or something.

I just finished reading Apocalypse 2012: A Scientific Investigation into Civilization's End. Before you get all, "Oh . . . he's one of those people," on me I'll have you know it's a really good book. I first learned of the book when I was watching some documentary on either The History Channel or Discovery or something like that. The show was presenting the topic of how the Earth could possibly end in a variety of scenarios like asteroids, comets, volcanoes, etc . . . and the book was cited for some reference. As the title suggests, it is a scientific exploration of the concept. It's not meant to scare the hell out of you by merely proclaiming that the world will end without any substance to back it up.

The author, Lawrence E. Joseph, is a scientist and a published author ( besides this book ). He starts out with background on the Mayan prophecy and significance of the 12/12/2012 date. In a nutshell, the Mayan calendar ends on that date and a new age will begin to bring both catastrophe and revelation. While there is plenty of speculation as to why, the author provides all kinds of scenarios that could provide a reason our world would cease to exist or be drastically changed.

For example, there could be a cataclysmic, volcanic eruption that would make our species extinct. Yellowstone is overdue. Solar activity could bombard the earth with deadly rays that literally cook our atmosphere and render it unsuitable for life to exist. Our world could be pummeled by asteroids or comets that cause such widespread destruction that we are essentially thrust backward into the stone age. And, of course, there's always that global warming thing - but thank goodness our current administration has assured us there's nothing to worry about there.

Lawrence consults with a number of highly renowned and respected scientists to explore and discuss the scenarios. He doesn't pull any punches. If there is a likelihood that a certain scenario could unfold by 2012, he makes it known. For example, many scientists believe that Yellowstone is overdue to erupt. According to evidence they have it seems to erupt at fairly regular intervals. However, that time has come and gone ( give or take ) and therefore the probability of an eruption exists in the near future. That doesn't necessarily mean that the eruption will occur exactly on 12/12/2012. But it doesn't guarantee that it won't either. Since there is no actual statement of what will positively happen on 12/12/2012, it's pretty easy to suggest that any possible scenario is likely.

There's no shortage of people who have their own agendas to fill and the Mayan prophecy is a likely scapegoat. For reasons such as this the author cites religious substance that also suggest the 12/12/2012 timeline as accurate. We've all heard of Armageddon. Could that be the prophecy of the Mayan end? It's not difficult to speculate what will ultimately happen - or if anything will happen at all. In reading this book, I didn't expect to finish it and have all the answers.

The author's style of writing the book was very conversational and at times, rather light hearted. It's not one of those, "run for the hills" kinds of books that will send you outside like Chicken Little to proclaim, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!" It's an interesting read that will leave you a lot smarter and better able to decipher the bullshit that a good number of people would be happy to pile on your doorstep.

Since I upgraded to Movable Type 4 on this site last week and had a few issues with modifying my templates to utilize the full benefits of MT4's new tags and approach to modularizing the templates further. I decided that it would probably be a very wise choice to have an implementation to play with here at home. Doing this serves several purposes:

• First: I can make changes to the site without getting egg all over my face.
• Second: I can see how my site will react to the changes I make and experiment with it until I am satisfied with the outcome.
• Third: I can modify the source code or develop plug-ins and test them in an environment that is self-contained

In order to install this "sandbox" there's a few things you will need:

1. A database: MT is compatible with quite a few database engines. I chose to use MySQL. I've used it for years and I've always been very satisfied with its performance.
2. PHP: If you decide to use "dynamic publishing" you will need this. But that is not absolutely required.
3. Perl: MT's engine is based on Perl so you can't get around this.
4. A web server: I use Apache. But you can use IIS if you absolutely have to.

There's numerous sources you can find that will provide great tutorials on installing each of the above, so I'm not going to go into that. However, I advise the following sequence especially if you are using Windows as your OS:

1. Install your database.
2. Install your web server
3. Install PHP using the windows installer. The installer will automatically configure your webserver to use PHP.
4. Install Perl
5. At this point you should probably make sure that Perl came with the necessary libraries to connect to your database. Mine didn't and I did not know this until I tried installing MT. However, the Perl Package Manager made it easy to get and install.
6. Now you're ready to install MT4.

Once you have the database, web server, PHP and Perl installed it's as simple as placing the contents of the respective MT4 files in your cgi folder and and the root of your webserver. ( Note that this is not the most complex setup. I'm not using any virtual hosts or anything like that. It's simply a sandbox that mirrors the general makeup of my actual website. ) One little gotcha that you might run into right as you're all ready to start installing MT4 ( on Windows ) . . . Even if you download the windows .zip containing the MT4 package: Each Perl script contains the following directive in order to tell Apache how to execute the script:

#! /usr/bin/perl

If you install on Windows this directive will not work on a Windows machine. What you will probably receive is the following in your Apache error logs: "The system cannot find the path specified. : couldn't spawn child process: C:/Program Files/Apache Group/Apache2/cgi-bin/mt/mt.cgi" So, what your need to do is go into each of MT's .cgi files and replace that directive with something like this:

#!c:\perl\bin\perl.exe

What you are doing is telling Apache that the appropriate executable that knows how to execute Perl script resides at this place - where this place is the path to your perl.exe. Once that is in place - and your other installations are in place - the MT installation is a snap. Good Luck.

I've been in a shitty mood the majority of the day. I don't know why. Perhaps I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Perhaps I didn't have enough caffeine. I got out of bed much later than I normally do since my wife didn't work this weekend and I didn't go to bed last night until after 1 AM. She's a nurse and one of the dangers of her job is catching whatever her patients have. Unfortunately a cold that was running rampant where she works has turned into bronchitis. So she's home for the weekend. Usually I get out of bed when she gets home in the morning. Since that didn't happen I didn't drag my ass out of bed until after 10:30. I didn't go to bed until after 1 last night because I set up Movable Type 4 at home on my computer. I'll most likely write a post about that tomorrow. Besides writing that post, tomorrow will be a busy day. My son has his first premier soccer league games tomorrow. Yeah, that's games . . . not game. He has to play two games. Most likely we wont be home until after 6 since we have to drive ( roughly ) 150 miles - round trip.

So I upgraded to Movable Type 4 - somewhat painfully. A brief account of what I went through . . . My original theme/style/layout - whatever you like to call it - was working fine, but I wanted to be able to take advantage of the new tags that came with MT4. So I went to MT's documentation to see if I could find the default templates. If you are looking for them, you can find them here. However, funny things happened. One of the most annoying things is MT4's use of this

<__trans

tag. MT4 makes use of modules. For example, your index page may "include" several modules like the header and footer. For some reason, MT does it like this:

<$MTInclude module="<__trans phrase="Header">"$>

The most hilarious ( in a twisted, cruel kind of way ) thing is that even when you have a module ( let's call it "Header" ) and that module exists but is included like in my example above, MT doesn't seen to recognize the fact that it exists. It tells you this in two ways. One way is through the designer. It lists the modules that any particular, other module links to. Another way is when you attempt to re-build your site. It throws an error that tells you that the module cannot be found. You can alleviate this if you go through and take out the

<__trans phrase="

part of the MTInclude tag leaving this:

<$MTInclude module="Header">"$>

It also makes use of trans for the text output on buttons or headings. I have no idea what "__trans" actually does yet. I searched the documentation and I can't find any reference to it. It seems as if ( by virtue of the name ) that some kind of translation may occur. Perhaps for other languages? If you know - I'd really like to find out since it is used extensively throughout the templates. And for some odd reason, it wasn't working at all. Every time the "trans" tag was being used, the code was being output on the site. This made for some pretty ugly stuff.

Frustration set in and I decided to refresh the templates. Basically that means rolling all the templates back to their original or back-up state. And voila . . .everything mysteriously fell into place. Of course, re-styling to get the look and feel I want will be another matter entirely. I think my best bet is to install a version at home so I can mess with it at my leisure without screwing up things on this site. Additionally, I'd really like to be able to explore this new platform and exploit the new features as much as possible.

For anyone who happens to be interested, I'm planning on trying to include my findings, trials and tribulations as much as possible in the future not only as implemented here, but also as content for this blog. I haven't installed any additional plug-ins yet, but I plan to after I've modified the theme. I'm going to stick with the default template for now - at least until I've had a chance to muck around with this at home. So if you choose to slam me because I don't have an About page or a Contact page - feel free. Better yet, if you're really that curious you can read about me here.

The new template system in MT 4 is giving me some troubles. Not sure exactly what the problem is, but I'll track it down pretty soon. Besides some styling issues, things appear to be functionally ok. UPDATE I think things are fairly stabilized now. It still kind of looks like crap. The sidebar isn't doing what it's supposed to and that means I'm incredibly dissatisfied with the way the style thing works. So it looks like a re-design is in order. I was planning on this anyway. Either way - it's something to do and I've been looking at some stuff to use as far as re-styling this blog. Perhaps by later tonight I'll be able to unleash it.

It didn't take long for my web host to get MT upgraded to MT 4. They are great at responding to requests for support. However, because the current templates are styled ( theme in wordpress lingo ) for version 3.35 I'm going to have to refresh my templates to the default style in order for things to accurately reflect the changes in MT 4. I'm ok with this. I get bored with my style after a while anyway. I guess it's time for a change. Furthermore, one of the plug-ins I was using for "Related Entries" is not compatible with MT 4. When I tried to rebuild my site, I received an error about that plug-in. So for the time being I won't be able to include related entries until I either find another plug-in or develop my own. Hopefully things won't blow up when I refresh my templates. More to come later if everything works out.

I've used Movable Type for quite some time for this blog, as well as other common blog software packages. While each one of those software packages has their own ups and downs, I've come to appreciate MovableType. My host regularly upgrades the MovableType installation and I have asked that they upgrade my install to MovableType 4. I'm currently on 3.33. I just fired off the request a few minutes ago so we'll see how everything works out. I have high expectations as it boasts a large number of new features. If everything works out ok, perhaps I'll be able to find a way to work some of those new features into the the content of this blog. We'll see what happens. If you're curious about MovableType, by all means, check it out. Better yet, if you have questions I'd be more than happy to answer them either by email ( fortywhat AT gmail DOT com ) or by simply commenting here on my blog.

Not much to say today. I finished my wifes theme after my son's soccer practice and got it all uploaded to her site. Might be a few things to get worked out - but I'm sure she'll find little things that need to be done. I never said I was a designer. I had pointed her to someone who does some fairly nice work, but they asked a little too much. So, I found a theme and tweaked it as she requested with graphics she had. Now I'm tired but I want to stay up and watch a movie.

I didn't really have much on my mind today so my post tonight is yet another random photo. This one was taken on highway 30 somewhere between Grand Island, NE and North Platte, NE. The wind was blowing so hard that day ( gusts of 60 - 70 mph ) and I was pretty much convinced that driving on the interstate was asking for trouble. The stuff you see, like some kind of cloudy goop or fog, is dust being blown across the highway. It made for interesting driving.

A while back I said that I was going to start my own thing - a web business. I said was going to spawn something that utilized Web 2.0 concepts like social networking. That plan is still moving forward - a little slowly, and there have been changes - but it's still going.

For example, at first I wanted to learn something new while I made this happen. Computer programmers are always faced with learning how to use new programming languages. After seeing the momentum behind Ruby on Rails growing I planned to use it as the framework upon which the project was built. While I initially faltered and decided I would stick with Java - I changed my mind back to Ruby on Rails. Although I wanted to build this fairly quickly, ( which is why I switched to Java at first ) I decided it was more important to stick with the goals I had originally set.

The original idea I started out with has changed a bit as time has progressed. It now is based on an entirely different niche than I planned. I have a pretty good idea who my largest competition is and several ideas for the best way to compete with them. One of the biggest advantages I have right now is the fact that I am just starting to build - so I can build in the advantages that will compete with the competitor's deficiencies. I really do have to give some of the credit where it is due. If my wife had never mentioned something she was trying to do and my biggest competitor's flaw in allowing her to do it my idea would never have morphed into what it is now.

Meanwhile, I'm setting up my old domain to be the face of what will become my business. Since it isn't the most pressing issue, that's happening in baby steps. I still have many things to do before I need it ( besides the working web application ) like all the stuff needed to start a business as more than just a hobby. And, as usual there are the distractions that so often accompany progress. My wife wants her website to receive a facelift along with a blog and a customized theme, my son needs help troubleshooting bugs in his blog's theme, sleep, soccer practice, my damn JOB, bmx practice, eating, flute lessons, tv, the Internet and soon to be on the agenda . . . gymnastics. I'll admit, the last one was my idea. I didn't sign my daughter up for soccer since her team kind of dissolved because of a few players migrating to a more competitive league. That means an entirely new coach and new players. The girls were doing so well with what they had. It's really kind of a shame. However, I think my daughter will do well trying out a new sport. More to come as progress is made . . .

This is what I felt like when I walked out to my car after work yesterday.



In other words . . . It's hot in Topeka. But . . . it's better expressed in this video. Use the link if it doesn't show up for your browser. It's been around for about a year, but it's still funny.

I just finished reading, Nation of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life by Ted Gup. I imagine it's quite possible that I've already been branded un-American if I'm reading something like that. That's not the case. I assure you. The other distinct possibility is that this book is just one more of those "Bush bashing books" that have been on the market. It's not necessarily one of those either. However, it does point out that over the last six years our habit of hiding and classifying information has increased dramatically.

Nation of Secrets does an excellent job of painting a portrait of how our society is being shrouded in secrecy. This doesn't just occur at the highest levels of government - it is becoming an everyday occurrence in many other institutions. From academia to law enforcement to everyday business there are secrets everywhere. While some of these secrets, and the process by which they are kept under tight control may be necessary, the end result of maintaining the confidentiality of the information is a disservice to the American public.

For example, consider the case of product recalls that are kept secret in closed-door legal scenarios in which the plaintiff signs a confidentiality agreement for a settlement offer over a faulty product that caused serious injury or death. Should that be a secret? better yet, consider the sexual assault on a college campus handled in a closed-door session. No information reaches the public. The assailant gets a slap on the wrist. All records are sealed. No one ever finds out that this is happening so the college doesn't have to report that sexual assaults are on the rise on their campus.

And what of the people who try to bring these secrets to the public? While there are laws to protect whistle-blowers it's a uphill battle for even the highly connected. This book further explores the emergence of new types of classifications of levels of secrecy that are quickly becoming innumerable. It's as if "classified", "top secret" and "secret" weren't enough. To make matters worse, there are even people who are assigned a task of going over publicly available and re-classifying it as top secret. Ted Gup's collection of several case studies explains how obsessive our nation has become in keeping secrets, the long-lasting effects of confidentiality and the negative effect it is having on our nation.

It's been quite a while since I've taken any pictures worth posting, however my good friend Aleah sent me one this morning worth showing off.

According to the story:

Police broke in to Mark Voegel's apartment to find spider Bettina along with 200 others, several snakes, a gecko lizard called Helmut . . .

Evidently, his pet Black Widow spider ( I assume he named Bettina ) caused his death by biting him. Then, all his other "pets" decided to feast on his body. Ugh! Apparently the guy was some kind of nut who thought that keeping poisonous spiders, snakes, and a variety of reptiles and amphibians including poisonous frogs, was cool. My son wanted to keep a snake at one time. I don't think I could do that. I did have a pet lizard when I was a kid. My grandfather caught it when we lived in Arizona. It lived for quite a while until one morning I found the lizard sticking out of the mouth of a frog that he shared a terrarium with. I don't know who was trying to eat who.

I didn't do as well as I thought I would! Now it's up to you. Fake boobs vs real boobs. How many of these can you tell apart?

I recently mentioned that my son celebrated his 12th birthday. We had quite a bit of fun at the go-cart track. He and I got to take a ride together in the two-person carts. I would have let my son drive, but you have to be 18 to drive the two-person carts. But he got to drive plenty of the one-person carts - so don't get the impression that he didn't enjoy himself or that I denied him any amount of fun. While I drove I let him shoot a short video. It's pretty short and kind of bouncy, but here it is