Sorry about the multiple posts of the same thing yesterday. Ever since the upgrade to v3.2 of MT, this site has been acting a little funky. I'm going to have to tear into it one of these days, sooner rather than later, and set it up from scratch. Hopefully everything will come along for the ride properly.
"Ever wanted to be a paintball god? After ten minutes behind the guns of the Razorback, you'll start believing you are.
"Built on the chassis of an Israeli fast-attack vehicle, the Razorback makes paintballers run like the devil himself was coming."
I figured that, since my birthday and Christmas are both coming up, I'd start with a pie-in-the-sky item and work my way down from there.
(apologies to those of you that saw this in its "raw form", I was having trouble with the connection to Flickr and didn't think the picture upload had gone through. (and no, my nickname "Flick" predates Flickr by at least a decade, for those wondering.))
Well I didn't expect my first posting in just over a month to be a picture of the Smurf village being air bombed but hey, that's life on the 'net! Anyone have a link to the actual commercial? Leave me a comment. Sorry, comments don't appear to be working again, I'll have to look at that later. Use "JAFT.Journal overat gmail.com" instead, with the obvious mod to make that work. Anyway, aren't the terrorists wining if now my only mental image of Baby Smurf is him covered in shrapnel? Bah!
Ok, A quick note on where I've been and what I've been up to:
So that's it for now, stay tuned for more random wanderings and musings...
After many many months of having Comments and Trackbacks turned off due to those fucking spammers, I've finally taken steps to bring them back online. Basically my procrastination worked in my favor, as a new, slicker version of Movabletype was released that addressed my issues and had a very very easy upgrade process. So, if you've been wanting to comment on my entries but haven't been able to do so, have at it.
"Residents of this north Peoria neighborhood say it is a nice, quiet place to live. It also is closer to nature than to the city, Peter Raymond said."
I'd forgotten how much I enjoy seeing my name in the paper. Too bad I threw away that day's paper before noticing. sigh.
"In a sickening way, the horrific death toll from the tsunamis last week was an information disaster.
"This is not about the well-documented lack of a tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean. This is about a failure to use the wonders of communication in place right now."
A very valid point. Sad when gossip spreads faster than emergency warnings.
"Ever have the problem of catching a ride with someone whose car doesn't have much of a back seat? At times like these, it is important to know the rules of calling shotgun. Never again will you let someone take advantage of you because you don't know the rules."
This amused me when I ran across it, as my first web site had a page with the Shotgun Rules on it. Hmm, I wonder... Well son of a gun, the site is still there! How amusing, given that I stopped paying for that account in March of 2001. Mental Note, migrate the content to this site.
I know I haven't been as proflic as I used to be, primarly due to my job change. This is a heads up that I'm on vacation next week and one of the things on my list is to try to catch up and post stuff that I've been meaning to post. I'm sending this a day early for you Bloglet readers so that you'll know, as 1> this would be at the bottom if I did it day of and 2> it's going to be a long one, so feel free to skim. Oh, you should probably go bottom to top, in case I'm threading. For you RSS folks, no worries, you'll get it all in order.
Thanks!
So I was going to go and put a razor on my birthday/Christmas list, as my current one is getting old and ineffective, but I've gone and decided to re-grow my beard so it'd be pretty much wasted, at least for the time being. Oh well.
MAGZ - The Magnetic Construction Toy!
Another birthday item.
I've been shooting captions over off and on for a couple of months now, finally at least "placed".
Buy.com - The Complete Far Side : Gary Larson : ISBN 0740721135
Well folks, it's that time of the year again where, as I near my Nov 26th birthday, I start linking to stuff I like in hopes of finding it under the tree this year. Wait, what?
What a great morning for paintball! Temperature in the mid 50’s, a light breeze, ground dry from the rain but not dry enough to kick up dust.
Too bad no one showed.
I arrived about 6:50, expecting to jump right in. No one was there. I thought maybe the meet time was a little later since the temp was down and sunrise is later. Gave up around 7:25 and left.
Like any self respecting addict, rather than going home I went in search of a fix. Went over to the 107th field in hopes of finding a group playing. Pulled up to find a guy in camo setting out a flag. “Hey, you playing paintball?” “Nope. Airsoft.”
Long story short, I spent the rest of the morning playing Milsim games with about 23 people. Very cool stuff. Their guns are true replicas of the actual thing, down to the weight and everything. No hoppers, electronics and springs, BBs that run 5000/$5, it’s a bit different. Oh, and no mess to clean up after getting hit.
Had a good time, will probably be doing it again. I’ll add it to my rotation. ;-)
Oh, and this one I've done, although here in AZ. I've got pictures somewhere, I'll see if I can't find, scan and post them.
"So what is this Zorb thing - huh? I mean is it something to do with that Greek guy, or is it some sort of new circus act? Perhaps it's a new breed of pygmy-elephant designed to take over from those weird little pigs everyone was into a few years back."
Another one for the list. Also in NZ, also from TAR5. NZ was on my list of places to visit and fun stuff like this is pushing it higher on the list.
"The attraction of Sledging is that YOU are in control. You are equipped with a 5mm padded wetsuit, booties, life jacket, helmet and fins for kicking and steering.
"The Sledges are river purpose designed and may be plastic or foam. Your chest rests on the Sledge and your arms are tucked neatly inside for a good grip and control."
Just saw this on The Amazing Race 5 and I so totally want to do it! Added to "the list!" You know, the list of things you want to do before you die. I should actually write it down and post it somewhere. I've got bits and pieces scattered all around.
Want to see my frustration grow as I try to troubleshoot a software bug? Take a gander at this thread in the Plaxo Support Forums: "Plaxo Community Forums: problem with dates (e.g. birthdays) | sync 2 PCs".
I know I've got a lot of technically oriented readers out there. Tell me, doesn't it seem like I'm gonig in circles with their tech support? I'm amazed I haven't received a pitch to upgrade to their VIP support for "only $20" in order to actually get this resolved! A few other people have popped on the thread to say that they also have the issue, so I'm not alone. Anyway, I'd be interested in anyone's comments. Once this is resolved I'm probably going to write a Lockergnome article on it.
The JAFT Journal: Microsoft's Response to my Money Issue
I posted the fix as a comment to this entry as a public service for those searching the net for a solution. It's nowhere near as painful as I had feared, yet is still secure.
"Dear Peter,
"Thank you for using Web Support. My name is Jenny, and I'll be assisting you with your case today. "
So far so good.
"After viewing the case log, my understanding is that when trying to sign into Money with your Passport, you receive an error message similar to the following: "The sign-in name you entered is not associated with this file. Please enter the correct sign-in name or open another file." If I have misunderstood, please let me know."
That's accurate. One can imagine the panic I felt as I couldn't open my financial file, particularly as it contains historical data back at least five years, if not more. The Money-generated backup wouldn't open either. My rotated backup would, but I'd been lax in that area and it's two months old. Shame on me! I reorganized the computer setup a couple of months ago and eliminated the auto backup routine I had. Been meaning to get to it, but hey, my important things are backed up manually, like my Money file! Argh!
"If this indeed is the situation, I would like to apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused. We have received feedback from other customers reporting a similar behavior. This matter was immediately reported to the corresponding team for investigation."
Yeah, before I decided to go into hyperventilation mode I checked Google and the MSFT newsgroups. There I discovered that I was far from alone. Although still very annoyed, I felt much better after discovering that it was widespread. Not because I wanted to share the pain, but because I knew that meant that a> it wasn't just me and b> MSFT would work on a fix sooner rather than later.
"Based on their recent feedback, what happened is that on Monday afternoon, we updated one of our servers. This affected the authentication process which caused problems for users who attempted to connect to the server on Tuesday morning."
That jibes with what I've read on the net. I'm amazed that they allowed such a thing to happen, though. What a PR nightmare, assuming this gets more visibility than it currently has.
"I would like to reassure you that we are resolving this issue and it is a top priority for our Product Team."
Well I would hope so! In fact, I'm wondering why the hell it's now five days later and there's no fix. Five days, they know what happened and why it broke, what's the issue? Perhaps this is:
" Please be assured that this error will not affect any of your financial data, and none of your personal information has been compromised. In fact, the result of the situation has been that your information is even more secure."
I laughed out loud at this one. Yeah, it's more secure all right, so secure that the proper owner can't get into it! That's not security, that's, that's, um, er, that's inaccessibility. It's locked and the key has been thrown away.
"Considering the current situation, no action is required on the end user side. Once I receive an update from our Product Group, I will send an email to you immediately. Your patience is highly appreciated."
Good, I don't have to search to see when a fix is posted, they'll email me directly. I'm guessing the delay is because they have to somehow crack the security on the file in order to open it up. This should be interesting. As for my patience, well, I'm doing better than the folks screaming that they're going to move to Quicken, but I'm still in the land of annoyed. However, this is the first issue I've had in 5+ years of use, so I'm inclined to let them fix it and take steps (read 'backups') to avoid such a thing in the future. If it's not resolved by Sunday, though, I'll get annoyed again. 1st day of the month and all.
"Again, we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and frustration this has caused.
"Best Regards,
"Jenny Zhou
"Microsoft Customer Support Services "
Good closing, appreciated. They've gotten much better since their canned response days. This probably still is one, but at least they hired an actual writer to edit them.
That's the bumper sticker I saw on a car this morning on the way into work. I chuckled over the mental image that it provided and wished that some of the parties I'd been to in my college days had had women present that subscribed to such a policy. ;-) Then, as I pulled around the car and glanced in, expecting to see someone of college age, I almost smashed into the curb as I realized it was a gray-haired woman in her late 60's or so! I spent the rest of the drive trying to get *that* mental image out of my head. Yikes!
"On the east coast of the Dominican Republic, enjoy heavenly beaches accompanied by the Caribbean climate."
So I get back from vacation only to find 400+ comment spam entries made to the JAFT Journal. Such a jolting return to the real world.
Too tired to take care of it tonight, but I will tomorrow. Might turn off comments altogether, although I hate to do so. At least the steps I took last time worked a little, as the site wasn't overpowered and turned off by the host. 'Course, if the steps worked as advertised this crap wouldn't be here!
We´re about to enter the Dolphin Discovery here at Puerto Adventuras in east Mexico. We´re going to swim with Dolphins, way cool!
And at a per minute charge, that´s all you´re getting out of me! Hasta!
"Cancun is the ideal place to enjoy sun and beach, and offers extensive shopping opportunities and a world famous nightlife. Cancun also is the optimal start point for you to explore tropical coral reefs and jungles and archaeological sites of the old Mayan world."
I'm off for a seven day vacation. If I can find an Internet cafe I'll post a quick note; otherwise, see you all when I get back!
As I mentioned last week, I've posted the pictures of the APS Substation Fire. Here's a sample (click to enlarge):
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I uploaded all of them to Ofoto for your viewing pleasure. I do have some more that I took after dark but I haven't finished that roll off yet. When I do I'll post the remainder of the pictures, if they turned out, and let everyone know.
As a result of this fire, Phoenix is on "rolling blackout" notice. If electricity usage gets to be too much over the next few month they'll start cutting people off for 20 minutes at a time. Seems this substation provided 30% of the electricity to the Valley of the Sun and, at 40,000lbs, it's going to take awhile to get a replacement.
My apologies to anyone that tried to access my site over the weekend. Friday afternoon some spammer did a "comment attack" on The JAFT Journal, as well as several other blogs hosted by the same hosting company. They hit us so hard that the hosting service shut off our accounts to keep them from pulling down other sites hosted on the same server. I had to wade through 100's of spam comments and make some scripting changes before my web host would re-enable my account. I also had to deal with holiday hours over the weekend, so the service wasn't restored until early the 5th.
That's also the reason that the Bloglet readers didn't get anything for a few days, as Bloglet found a 404 error when it tried to access the RSS page and turned itself off as a result. I reset that on Tuesday, which is why this morning everyone received the backlog. Sorry about that.
The ironic thing is that I have the comments set to not be crawled by the search engines, so putting these links in doesn't raise their search engine placement in the slightest!
"Four of the transformers are burning and a fifth is in danger of catching fire, authorities said Monday morning. The structures are cooled with a mineral oil, and that same oil is fueling the fires and spreading black smoke from the northwest part of the Valley, they said."
And now, 36 hours later, it's still burning. Crazy. This is of interest because it's relatively near to my home.
In fact, we almost missed fireworks Sunday night because we, along with several hundred other people, drove out to see it. We didn't know what it was, we just looked out the window and saw a huge plume of black smoke rising into the sky. We grabbed a couple of cameras and went to take a look. We followed the smoke (and the traffic) out to where it was and got close enough to see flames leaping 200' or so into the air. We stayed and watched for awhile, as emergency crews from various departments came and went. Once we saw fireworks off in the distance we hopped back in the truck and went off to see one of the local displays.
Quite an eventful evening. The picture in the linked article, although pretty cool, doesn't quite capture the fire that we saw. We used my pocket digital camera, which didn't turn out very well at all (hey, is that little spot the fire?) and also a 35MM with a nice telephoto lens. When I have those developed later this week I'll post any that came out particularly well.
Hmm, I wonder what's playing over at Harkins Arrowhead. Wow, that's a lot of Spiderman showings! Hmm, wonder if I could leave work a little early and beat the rush...
Ever notice things happen in bunches? My wife just told me that there's a coyote cub hanging around outside her office window. They think that its mother may have been hit by a car. Poor thing. Looks something like this:
For those curious, here is a picture of the dog I found in the desert, as mentioned in the last post:
Turns out he’s a Queensland Heeler, aka an Australian Cattle Dog. He’s quite the bundle of energy and his mission in life is to fetch the ball and return it, over and over and over, and complain when you don’t respond fast enough. More pictures here.
My wife and I are actively seeking his owners, as he must have been lost. There's no way someone could have dumped this guy out in the desert, he's just too sweet!
I found this at the New Hope Cattle Dogs website, whilst my wife and I were researching what to do with a dog we found lost out in the desert, and I thought it was worth sharing: (full text on website, for those reading via RSS or Bloglets)
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Average Pet Owner:
Thank you for contacting us animal rescuers, shelter volunteers, and foster homes about your inability to keep your pet. We receive an extremely high volume of inquiries and requests to accept surrendered animals (and none of us is getting paid, OK?). To help us expedite your problem as quickly as possible, please observe the following guidelines:
Continue reading "An Open Letter to Mr. and Mrs. Average Pet Owner" »
Well, with my birthday (November 26th), my wedding anniversary (December 13th) and Christmas (Dec 25th) coming up, people are starting to ask me.... ok, wait, let me rephrase that: For a few weeks now people have been asking me what I want for my birthday. I've procrastinated on getting back to them and now here it is, two days away. I've had my wishlist on the site for a couple of years now, but haven't been actively updating it like I should. I've also had a deep seated belief that anyone who spends any time with me would know what I want just by the things I talk about, write about, clip ads/coupons for or drool over. However, I guess I have to realize that not everyone sees me as often as my family and co-workers and, thus, don't have the foggiest notion what I would like to receive on special occasions like my Birthday, Christmas, Groundhog Day, the second Thursday of the month, the new Lunar cycle, etc etc. ;-)
So, I've updated my Wishlist. The "generic" Wishlist is here, and the Amazon Wishlist is here. The term "generic" just means that I'm using a system that allows me to point to anything on the web, without being tied to any particular company. The Amazon Wishlist is the opposite, as it is tied specifically to Amazon.com.
Why two? Well, I recognize that some folks enjoy the convenience of Amazon, in that you can just click and go and Amazon will handle everything, whereas others like to scout out the best deals and spend some time, as well as pick something up that's not sold by Amazon. There's also those regular readers of The JAFT Journal that might want to send a little "thank you" for doing what I do and don't know what I'd like or where to send it. This way both bases are covered.
Make sense?
Sorry I haven't been as prolific as I normally am. I've been traveling on business for a couple of weeks now, finally returning home Tuesday the 9th. I'll get back up to speed shortly after.
For the longest time I've been debating whether or not to transfer my phone service from Qwest to Cox. At first Cox didn't offer everything I wanted and was pretty basic, with outage issues. Nowadays, however, they seem to be a viable contender. However, there are two features that I greatly enjoy with Qwest that I don't see offered by Cox. Convinced that they either do offer them but don't have them listed, or are about to offer them, I sent Cox Customer Service this email:
Well, it only took 9 months and 441 posts, but I've finally put up this blog's description:
"one man's random wanderings around the net ... with the occasional musing/rant/commentary thrown in for good measure"
"A favorite coffeehouse concoction is the inspiration for new Café Mocha Frappé ice cream. A wonderful treat for any coffee lover." - This stuff ROCKS! I've loved coffee (Jamoca/mocha/whatever) ice cream for years and have always enjoyed mixing it with chocolate. Now Häagen-Dazs has saved me that step and made it even more enjoyable.
The funny thing? I hate coffee the drink!
So I get out of my truck in the drizzling rain this evening, only to see a little bitty frog, about 3" long, hop across my sidewalk. I took a quick picture of him (click to see it large enough to make him out); anyone have any idea what kind of frog it is?
Well it's done, the yearly Christmas letter has been written and is posted here. I always stress over it and never feel like I put down everything that I wanted to. This year I decided to put it online, so that if I want to go back and add to it I can. Then again, how many people will visit it twice? Oh well, best to just leave it as is and continue to work on the rest of the site.
Just in time for my birthday, too. ;-) (It's the 26th of November, for those who don't recall.)
FYI, in Seattle on business for a few days and have limited access to the web. Will update when I get back.
Cornfield mazes crop up around the Valley
It's harvest season, and corn mazes are popping up everywhere. The shapes, designs and themes range from Halloween to sports-related.
TV Guide Online - [In The News 10.29.02]
THEY'RE BACK!: MTV confirms that the second season of The Osbournes will kick off Nov. 26 at 10:30 pm/ET. "We are excited to invite the world into our home for another dose of Osbourne insanity," says family matriarch Sharon Osbourne, who allowed the network to chronicle her ongoing cancer fight for the show. "This season, the show takes on a whole new meaning as we share the highs and the lows of the last six months with our viewers."
Well I've finally gone and registered a website for the family. Now the big question is how should I design and maintain it?
I think the best way to ensure that the site is updated often is to use blogging software to keep the site updated. Now I just have to figure out which blogging software is the easiest to use, not only for me but for my wife, who will be maintaining some of the content on the site.
This blog is using Movabletype, so that's the standard I'll be comparing the rest to. Stay tuned.
