The Search functionality on this site is now back to normal. Strangely, while it was an easy process to combine a search request across two separate weblogs in MT 3.16, it seems to be set up differently in this newer version. So, for now, the search only searches the main weblog. I’ll get the Linkblog straightened out soon, I promise.
I’m digging the new features of this version, though. It’s a nice upgrade from the older model—leather bucket seats, heated mirrors, cruise control, etc. Now, if I could just find something interesting to write about…!
Four wide-angle (10-22mm) lenses for the Nikon reviewed exhaustively. I’m going to shoot panoramics this weekend with a stock 18-55 kit lens, but it would be fun to have a wide-angle zoom to play with.
The site isn’t quite finished yet, but I’m writing here anyway. MT 3.3 is pretty slick. I’m now only two years behind the technology curve instead of four, which will provide things like better spam filtering, a refined editing space, and better plugins. After this exercise is finished, I’m going to take a long hard look at upgrading to 4.1 now that my puzzle-solving synapses have warmed up.
Other than that, things around Idiot Central are pretty quiet. On Saturday I stopped over to the Beerfather’s house to bottle the result of our efforts: two and a half cases of wheat beer, sitting neatly in the basement fermenting on the shelf where I stored the bin full of Scout parts. He and I are hatching plans to go wrenching on the truck this coming weekend, something that leaves me with a bittersweet taste in my mouth: I’m excited for him. His enthusiasm reminds me of myself ten years ago when I had a lot more money and big plans for my new truck, but it will admittedly be hard not to feel like I failed in my efforts to keep it in shape. So I’ll be bringing a box of tissues along with my socket sets on Sunday, and try to keep the blubbering to a minimum.
I’m also signed up for some photography this weekend—the paying kind, and it will have me dusting off the panoramic rig for the tripod I was testing out last spring. I have to buy some cheap spotlights this week, and I’ll have to spring for a copy of Stitcher to process the photos, but I’m excited to finally start working on this for real, and this time it’s all paid for.
My Mom’s new MacBook showed up last Friday, and I’ve played with it only enough to update the software. It’s a really nice little machine—it feels solid, it’s quick, and she’s going to get a kick out of the built-in camera as well as a fresh battery. I got her old Pismo in the mail yesterday, so I’m going to transfer her data over and set her up with a chat account so I can use screen sharing to troubleshoot any problems with her machine. Meanwhile, I’m helping Jen’s father work through problems with his wireless printer. Troubleshooting Vista over the phone has been like doing this year’s taxes while guiding a non-english speaker through a root canal on a CB radio. He will explain what he sees on his screen, and I will frantically Google whatever he can describe to figure out what to do (I don’t own a copy, and am trying to avoid buying one). Adding to the pain is the fact that his patch cords have all vanished, leaving him with no way to directly connect to his printer. Argh!
Guitar lessons have gone reasonably well; I missed last week’s lesson but got back in the groove this Tuesday. It’s to the point now where I miss playing it if I go too long without it, which I’m taking as a good sign. I also broke down and bought an electric tuner after consistently coming in for lessons out of tune.
Add to all of this the fact that it’s half past February and I’ve only done one illustration this year. I need to clone myself.
This is coming from a new install of MT 3.3. Let’s see if it works.
Update 4:12 EST: I done busted the template files, and the new way they (were) doing the comment form is really messy. More work to do…
Update 5:52 EST: Individual entry archives are looking good again. Everything else is still pretty awful, but I’m going to take a break and eat something first.
Update 8:58 EST: Category archives and the main index page are now cleaned up. MT 3.3 was using a tag called MT_TRANS, which was meant to do some kind of translation to other languages, but it was bollixing up the whole thing. So it’s getting cleaned out of the templates, one at a time.
Update 12:26 EST: The linkblog is back up! It looks like I was doing a few things wrong on my end (not configuring the archives to publish correctly, for one) and the site root wasn’t working correctly, but it’s back up and running now. That doesn’t excuse the lousy documentation, though. I’ve made a lot of minor tweaks to the site overall, getting the meat and potatoes working right. The search function, however, is completely fucked up. The Archives page is reorganized, although the thing I want it to do automatically seems to be impossible in MT 3.X. The Linkblog archives are currently hosed. And don’t even look at the houseblog…
Hi folks– if you see strange things around these parts, it’s because I’m doing a long-avoided upgrade to the CMS engine that powers this site. Comments are coming in, but they’re not being posted to the live site yet, and there are several pages that look like poo. Plus, the sideblog is totally busted because the author of the plugin offers the lousiest documentation possible. Stay tuned here while I sort some stuff out.
On a whim, I went to look at a Scout for sale over in Dundalk this afternoon. While it runs, this particular Scout is worse off than the one I just sold, so no deal. But it did have a great steering wheel and a death’s head shift knob. Bonus!
Found on BoingBoing: an interview with one of the original designers of the Lego Space series. While it’s awesome to read about his experience, the sets he designed were a generation or two after the ones I had (the original Space sets from 1978-79). It’s impossible to understate what an effect these toys had on my personal development as a creative individual and as a DIY builder. I was a lucky kid–my parents really loved me. One of the original sets I got for Christmas in ’78 retailed for the current equivalent of $100. (source) I still have a box with all the original build plans from these sets tucked away for safekeeping.
A long time ago, when I moved into my first house house, I found an old Cloverleaf Dairy cooler in the basement, and I considered myself lucky. I love the idea that a guy in a white suit drove a truck around the neighborhood and delivered dairy right to the doorstep.
For a long time, I stored charcoal briquettes in it, because I had noplace else to put them. It sat in my old kitchen for a while, and when we moved into the Estate, it sat out on the front porch, briquettes intact.
Recently, Jen did some research and signed us up with a local organic dairy that delivers to our neighborhood. They offer everything from milk and cheese to bread, poultry, seafood and coffee. Two weeks ago, we ordered some milk, cheese, and butter, and we got the chance to put our dairy cooler out on the front steps.
I’m happy to report the 2% milk is wonderful. It tastes almost as rich as whole milk. The half and half had a small layer of milkfat at the top when I opened it. The sharp cheese is the equivalent of extra sharp, and very tasty, and the butter is good too. And, by coincidence, I bought some bread from their partner bakery this weekend, and it’s delicious as well. We’re definitely continuing with the service—it’s all hormone-free and locally grown, which is something Jen’s gotten more and more interested in this year.
The best part: ordering everything online is just as easy as the sticker on the inside of the cooler says: DON’T FORGET. JUST LEAVE A NOTE.
Update: After a day’s worth of DNS outage, and another day where the database disappeared, I’m back. Lesson learned: the way I was archiving my Movable Type database was wrong, very wrong. I’m not making that mistake again. Now, on with our regularly scheduled fun:
Jen and I ventured out into the freezing Maryland morning to vote yesterday in the Chesapeake Primary, also referred to as the Potomac Primary on CNN. We sat on the bed sipping coffee in the morning and talked a little bit about each of the candidates and how we felt about them, feeling guilty that we’d not done more research before today. I can’t watch too much of the election coverage in the news anymore, because it’s just the same stupid sentences repeated over and over again, like a toddler banging pots together, so I’m not familiar with the media’s version of how the candidates stand on the issues. And really, that’s my bad for not following up on it. I like to think I’m a social liberal and a fiscal conservative—I don’t believe in welfare as the cure for all society’s ills, nor do I believe religion has any place in politics, and I think that the states should make their own choices in many issues the federal government has taken up for itself. As you may imagine, the last eight years has sucked moose balls for people like me. (Remember peace and prosperity? A balanced budget and a federal surplus? The current guy pissed that all away real quick.)
One thing I’m highly confused about is the issue of super delegates. We saw the NBC Nightly News a couple of days ago, and Katie Couric handed the desk over to two morons who decided to explain the idea of super delegates with a cartoon reel, like America is supposed to be a class of second-graders watching Nickelodeon. Their “explanation” of the whole thing was that no matter who wins the popular vote in America, the super delegates have the final say when caucus time comes around, essentially negating the choice of the people, and that super delegates aren’t elected by the people at all. Sounding familiar?
Well, on NPR this morning I heard a different story from a correspondent who claimed that the super delegates only carry 40% of the final say in the party’s choice, not the final say. The example given, of Gary Hart vs. Walter Mondale in the 1984 elections, is sobering. While I don’t pretend to believe anyone, Republican or Democrat, would have beaten Reagan in ’84, the super delegates’ choice in that race was, obviously, a poor one.
Wikipedia has a pretty decent article up about the issue, although it’s Wikipedia, so the usual caveat emptor applies. They claim that super delegates only make up 20% of the total number of delegates. Their article on brokered conventions is also worth a look, because from all I’m able to gather, it’s looking that’s the future for us registered Democrats.
So here’s the crux of my confusion: which is it? Do the primaries really even matter (I don’t buy the “super delegates take the primary results into consideration before voting” line of crap) or did I freeze my ass off just to piss in the wind?
Speaking of pissing in the wind, we saw several lawn signs for Ron Paul on our way to the polls. What is it with that guy? Looking at his campaign platform, he’s all over the damn place. For every thing I see that I like, there’s another five things where I think, Damn, you’re crazy, dude.
The other thing that has me thinking: I heard a woman on NPR this afternoon, interviewed in Wisconsin, who was looking at her choices for the Republican primary, and she sort of laughed and said that she didn’t think he had a chance of winning, but that she was going to vote for Huckabee because she didn’t think McCain had enough Christian values.
I stand before you, puzzled, and ask this question honestly. What exactly are Christian values?
I’m looking at some basic facts about the two Republicans, and as I’ve always said, with a few differences of opinion, I like McCain. He lost his way during the Bush years, but he’s the best Republican I’ve seen in my lifetime, and I’d really like to like a Republican for a change. I don’t agree with his hawkish stance on the war, and I don’t like the fact that he’s changed his position on a lot of things (Roe v. Wade, marriage, and taxes), but I like a good portion of his other opinions. I get the feeling he would do whatever the fuck he thought was right once he got into office, within reason.
Huckabee I can’t get behind due to a lot of his public statements about gays, marriage, creationism, and taxes. And I have strong feelings about religion mixed with politics, as stated above. I don’t want fundamentalists anywhere near the Constitution or the big red button in the current social and global climate, and I get the feeling he’s just waiting to write whole volumes of amendments.
So what exactly does a candidate have to do to have “good Christian values”? If I remember correctly, the current guy got elected on a platform of “good Christian values”, and look where that’s got us.
Saturday I took advantage of the freakishly warm weather (before the arctic cold blew in Sunday morning) and finished sanding the cabinet I’d started several months ago. After having spent a total of about 12 hours in a mask over the course of this project, I’m going to say this will probably be the last furniture heatgunning project I take on. Everything will get dipped from this point forward, and my fingers will thank me now that I have no skin left on them.
I have to buy a pair of new shelves and cut them to fit, a big piece of luann for the backing board, and have three new panes of glass cut. Finally, the original brass hardware is soaking in citrus stripper, and should be clean in another day or so. We’re thinking a medium colored stain, nothing too dark, and this will make a fantastic bookcase.
Update: I found a picture I took of the cabinet before it got stripped:
With the cold air in town, we also tested out the insulating job I’d finished on the window last week, and the verdict is success, mostly: I didn’t get each pocket entirely filled filled with insulation. I have to pull each spring out, stick some sort of wire down the hole, and break up the empty space at the bottom of each space, then stuff some more insulation in there. But the part that is insulated is toasty warm compared to the other windows in the house, and that’s worth it to me.
In other news: I had no idea Bill Clinton was going to be in Catonsville yesterday. If I’d known that, I would have gone to see him, elbowing the retirees out of the way to shake his hand. Crap.
Trivia corner: Am I the only one who didn’t know that the largest denomination the U.S. Treasury prints is the $100 bill?
And finally, a New Favorite Drink: The Lychee Martini, introduced by good friends at a dinner party on Saturday evening over a table of Korean food. Who knew that radish kimchi was so good? (Now, the problem: Identify radish kimchi from the hundreds of different varieties on the shelf at the Korean grocery.)