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GRAFFITI -- February 17 thru February 23, 2003>> Link to the Current Week <<Last Week << Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun >> Next Week Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable. About eMail - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message.. |
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February 17, 2003 - Updates at 0930 EST
Good morning. At the right you can see the final results of my third round of shovelling snow for a middle-of-the-holiday-weekend Sunday. It's a bit contrast enhanced because it was just before dusk when I finished. Yesterday's totals were about 8" in the morning, then about 4-5" each of the next two rounds, between one and two PM, and around 5 PM. Into the evening the snow tapered off to a light sleet mixed with snow. Lovely, an icy coat on everything for this morning. We still didn't retire until about midnight last night, for whatever reason. I did sleep like the dead, however, until I woke sneezing my head off and feeling distinctly nauseous.
The sneezing is no huge surprise, I've spent a rather considerable amount of time out in the cold dry air - more than I have in several years combined. But I figured out the nausea, too. It was the fresh icy eight inches of snow on the ground. 
My first glimpse was out the back door, where it appears that our patio furniture is going to be in hibernation until well into spring. So I decided it was time for a litttle measurement. I threw on some shoes and slogged out to a spot that I know was cleared down to concrete before it started snowing on Saturday night. The snow is higher elsewhere in the backyard, but I wasn't going to wade too far out. It was 22" deep. So far the weather liars may have nailed it for once - we're right around 24 " for the storm so far. So far...
Then I went out to look at what the night had done to all my hard work out front, all day yesterday. Ah, shoot. That's why my stomach aches. It's with the knowledge that I'm going to be moving at least one more major batch of snow. So I geared up, and got started in the backyard first. 
I cleared a path, and a patch in the yard for Sally to do her business. She can hardly cope in 6 to 8 inches of snow - she can't bound about like a puppy. That pleased her immensely and made certain necessary activities possible. Then I went up front and cleared the snow that had drifted into the covered front porch area, and did the front walk all the way down to the driveway, as you can see at right. There was just a little bit of very light sleet coming down. I figured I'd come in, put up this post, and head back out to do part of the driveway. After all, the radar images on the news show this morning showed the activity tapering off somewhat dramatically.
Well, that plan didn't work out. I've just looked out the window, and it's snowing like the devil again. Sheesh. We can't be trapped here - I'm running out of foods that are bad for me. Aaaaargh! I'll admit to not having gotten much else done - between shovelling, and groaning about shovelling, my time has been pretty full. Last night, I did do one of my periodic major systems backups to CDR for putting in the safety deposit box at the bank - we're up to 14 CDR now. I think the day of the DVD+R/+RW is coming to this house sooner than I once suspected. The tool I used is called cdbkup, its homepage is here. It's a handy, easy to use command-line driven tool. Read the manpages and you'll know everything you need to make backups to multiple optical discs.
I think I'll have a spot of food, a double handful of some pain killer, and a quick lie-down. Seems like the right plan, eh? After all, it appears that I'm not going to get to work tomorrow anyway.
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February 18, 2003 - Updates at 0800
I can't believe it. It's still snowing. It's at about an inch or so now, and trailing off at the moment, with one more band showing on the radar ready to sweep through here in about an hour, and last for a couple. That gets us to noon, when they say that the sun is going to break through. Bah. I've heard that one before!
The icy snow left behind from the sleet during the wee hours of Monday morning proved too much for me - I managed to clear much of the driveway, but have the bottom quarter of that yet to do. Then there's the sidewalk and the berm built up by the continued plowing operations. Before I can do that, of course, I'm starting over at the top, with the fresh snow on the car and upper driveway. Repeat after me: Snow blower.
Meantime, I was up, with a still-upset tummy, from about 0345 to 0500. I imagine that it's related mostly to the medications that I'm taking for my ear. I've only got another day or so of that to go, so I can hang. I got some quality time in with my Programming PHP book, online at O'Reilly's Safari service.
So today is going to be shovelling, and I think I'll puzzle out a setup of Movable Type for a client site on Rocket, too. Should be interesting, see you around.
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February 19, 2003 - Updates at 0700
I promise, soon, that I'll stop talking about snow. But not today. Good morning, more or less. I'm in a state that somewhat resembles my normal upright position. A sad, crumpled parody of that position, but it's the best I can do. I started digging again mid-morning yesterday, and by mid-afternoon, I was done. Through. Finished. Kaput! One of the local ordinances requires that sidewalks be cleared within 24 hours of a snowfall, to make things safe for kids walking to school, postal employees, etc. Now the District and Mongomery County both waived that for the time being.
I imagine that Prince George's did too. But I was warmed up, in the groove, and I knew, deep in my bones, that once I stopped, there wasn't going to be any more shoveling for a while, due to crippling pain. So I continued, and cut through the snow all along our frontage. None of the neighbors did, but then, I wasn't going to touch that shovel again. At least for a while.
Right. During the night, our lovely county plow fairies paid us ... several visits, to judge by the height, density, and rock-ice hardness of the berm that's been built at the base of our driveway. I'm either dreading this, or about to give up on today, as well. By that I mean that if I venture out there, and it's too hard to break through, then I'll wait and do it in the afternoon sun, when it's got some melt going. I can't really stand to lose the income, but there's no use killing myself - and I am really, really sore today.
OK, enough whining. I did successfully install Movable Type on a site yesterday, working before and after the day's exercise. There was a bit of go-round as I added support for it to MySQL with the help of Mr. Lincoln. Then I started testing, breaking things, testing again, fixing other bits... It took longer than it should have, but then we run with suEXEC support in Apache. This makes running CGI scripts much, much safer. But the downside is that setup can be a real bear, because the directory and file permission changes that suEXEC requires can challenge the configuration and setup of a complex program like Movable Type. (Or like Mailman, which has security built into it by it's design, directly conflicting with the requirements of suEXEC. It's solvable though. Search this site for the answer to that one.)
So, how do I feel about Movable Type? I dunno yet. I could definitely work with it. It might be considerably easier than maintaining this setup, in some ways. No more having to throttle links. It's pretty configurable, and there are advantages. But I don't know it, and this works... I'll think about it. The advantage to the current method for me is that it's MINE. The way it works, the way it looks, it's mine. If you go back to previous months, and years, you can see how the design of this place has evolved. With MT, if I change the look, then the look changes for all previous posts. I'm not sure I like that. I like change, sometimes, but I definitely appreciate the history, too. Maybe I should offer the same material in both formats... That'd be easy enough. I'd do this post, publish it, pick it up out of the browser, drop it into an MT entry and repost there. The only MAJOR work would be if I did pictures - a LOT of pictures. Ah, but then I could link back into here. We'll see. Your feedback, as always, is appreciated.
Now to see if I'm up to slaying the plow berm dragon. Have a lovelier day than I seem to be having. Later, dudes.
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February 20, 2003 - Updates at 0730
Good morning. It appears that the possibility of snow last night didn't materialize. That's good thing number one. Number two is that I'm feeling much more like reasonable facsimile of a human today. There's not much to report today as yet, because I did very, very little yesterday. The one important thing I ran across is a vulnerability in PHP 4.3.0 and earlier - go read this - then update your systems if that's appropriate.
I broke through the ice/slush berm and cleared a new path from our driveway to the road yesterday morning. Then Marcia and I went to the store and restocked, as well as picking up a couple of prescriptions. By early afternoon, I was trying to read some on PHP in one of my books on the Safari site. The problem is that taken individually, re-read over and over again, the words just didn't make any sense. So I took a nap, about four hours worth, for perhaps the third time in the last five years. I'm really generally not a napping type, so when I do, I really need it, neh?
On to work today to rebuild a Red Hat box, and install DB2 / WebSphere on it. Hope your day goes well, too - I'll close with some good news from Holden...
