07.31.01

It looks as if I will be going to Little Rock for a staff meeting wednesday and thursday, so I have had to postpone my trip to KC until next week.

07.30.01

Finished re-building my desktop machine this morning. I put on a fresh copy of Solaris8 with all the extra stuff Sun now provides (all sorts of GNU stuff!) I do seem to be quite comfortable with the KDE, I think it looks and responds much better than Gnome. I prefer a much cleaner interface, as far as gui’s go. If it’s not going to be sawfish or blackbox, I think KDE will do quite nicely.

07.29.01

Logan and I went floating yesterday and had just about the best time ever! Friday night we drove down to Steelville to camp overnight before floating Saturday morning. As usual, the whole time was filled with little “adventures” First, it rained almost the whole time we were driving- so the campground was mostly mud. We found our campsite and proceeded to survey the area for a prime spot for the tent. Once we decided where to put it, I began unpacking and unfolding the tent, arranging it so that we would have a good view of the fire I would be building next. So I arranged the tent ( one of those dome-style tents with the nine-foot poles that bend parabolically to support the ceiling) and went to grab the support poles when I noticed that they were not in the canvas tent-bag. Hmmm… No poles. Now what? Well, we could rent one of the cabins they have on site. Nope- those were all rented out. We could just sleep in the car. Yech. We wanted to camp. So, a fifteen minute drive back to Sullivan and a quick stop at the local Wal-Mart and viola’ We have a new (albeit tiny) tent! On the way back to the campsite (which was completely devoid of any burnable material) we stopped at a roadside stand and purchased some firewood for the campsite. Once back at the campsite, we proceeded to put the new tent together in the dark. Once the tent was up, the next step was to build a roaring fire! Unfortunately, the wood we bought was completely soaked from the earlier rain. So I spent the majority of the next two hours getting the fire going. By 10:00pm, it was going just enough for us to barbecue some brats and later some marshmallows. Around midnight, we finally gave up on the fire and went to bed. As we lay there, a small glow began to fill the campsite. It kept getting brighter, until finally, I had to get up to see what it was. Our little fire, which took all my energy to just keep a flame or two had decided that now was a good time to burn. And burn, it did! We had a roaring blaze for most of the night- so of course, we missed it. The next morning, it was quite a bit easier to get the fire re-started (I had placed several pieces of wood around the fire in the hopes that the heat would dry them out) After I stoked the fire, I made bacon and eggs (and toast) for breakfast. Boy, that sure beats powdered donuts!

After we packed up camp, we headed out to the pick-up site to be bussed out to “Butt’s Slab” (yes, that really is a place in Missouri- go figure) where we would get our canoe (which is the only way to really experience the ozark riverways!). We were told to arrive at least thirty minutes early, which we did as did most of the other floaters. The driver was about fifteen minutes late, and once we had gotten the old school bus loaded up and left the campgrounds, we had to turn around and pick up another group of people who apparently thought that twenty minutes late was the same as thirty minutes early. Between that and the twenty minute bus ride, we didn’t actually get in our canoe and on the water (we floated the Cortois Creek -a small tributary of the Meremac River- which I didn’t think that I had ever been on before, but the put-in place looked exactly like the place I was at with Charlie and Tracy a couple of years back- Charlie- do you remember? I thought we floated the upper eight of the Meremac- oh well) it was nearly 10:00 am. It rained most of the first two hours, but only lightly. We spent nearly five and a half hours canoeing, and not once did we tip over! Mind you, it got awful close on several occasions, ( I even ended up having to chase an oar downstream twice) but we never tipped! That’s pretty darned good on the Cortois (pronounced “cort-a-way”) which is very twisty-turny and filled with fallen tree type obstacles. Logan took the front of the canoe and managed to do a great job steering us through the obstacles and preventing collisions. He did a great job rowing and was even able to keep up with me paddling most of the way. Towards the end of the float, there were way too many other people on the water. Rafters and a few other canoes had created a traffic jam for the last two miles (of a ten mile total) to the point were we had to back-paddle more than a few times to try and avoid the drunken rowdies that surrounded us. As crowded as it was, everyone seemed to be having a really good time! A mere 50 yards away from the end of the float, I noticed a small brown object hurtling towards me. Someone had thrown a football and it had come up a bit short. At first I thought we would be able to get out from underneath it by paddling a bit faster. Heh, not even close. So as the ball came down, I reached up with my right hand to catch it (it was a football after all, and it was coming in close! I had to try!) and tried to counterbalance with the oar in my left hand. The ball came down in a nice tight spiral as it grazed my fingertips. I knew if I stretched just a bit more, I could get it! so I reached and stretched as far as I could, my fingers closing around the ball- I had it! Not quite. I had stretched too far, and my left hand with the oar had passed the mid-point of balancing. My feet went up, my head went back and in to the water I went. The canoe went one way, the oar went the other, but I had that football! Logan had turned just in time to see my feet go up and over and wondered “Why is dad getting out now? We are almost finished!”. Afterwords, we had a quick shower at the campgrounds and headed home. This trip went by faster than any other event in my life! We had such a great time, I can’t wait until we can go again!

07.20.01

I helped Mark install a couple of php forums that tie into a mysql database. I actually like the package that I installed over there so much, that I may use it here! (and if I am going to be adding forums and such, well, you know what that means! Yep, another chance to re-design my site!!)

Forgot to mention that last weekend our main television set (that we have had since the beginning of the previous decade) finally gave up the ghost and needed replacement. I can only claim temporary insanity at what we have purchased. An Hitachi 53 inch HDTV capable, rear projection behemoth. The downstairs has been almost completely transformed into a mini-theater! I must say that we have been enjoying it almost non-stop (dvd quality is simply amazing!) Of course, now I need to upgrade my receiver so that we can take advantage of Dolby Digital (my current receiver does Pro Logic which, while nice, is a far cry short of Dolby Digital!)

07.19.01

Yes, I am still here- This has probably been one of the longest stretches without an update I’ve had in a long while. I’ll try to keep it breif and just hit some of the highlights.

The relative that was attacked is doing much better. She currently does not have the use of her hands (due to reconstructive surgery). The doctors expect a full recovery in one hand, but it looks as if she may lose the use of one finger on the other.

Congratulations to Dave and Christine! (Christine is my cousin on my mother’s side) Not only are the expecting, they are expecting… ::insert dramatic pause here:: TWINS! Heh, when it rains, brother it pours! They deserve all the love and happiness this will bring!

Meanwhile, back at the front: I have been toying with other window managers/desktop experiences on both my FreeBSD laptop and my Solaris box at the office. Sawfish has reached version 1.0 , but only due to the developer leaving it to pursue interests at Apple. So I figure the time is right to re-investigate some other options. KDE was the first replacement. Except for a few minor issues, I really like the clean look of the desktop. Of course I was drawn to the KDE because of my adoption of Konqueror for default web browser. Next up, however will be Gnome. After all, it is slated to be the default desktop for Solaris anyway, might as well get a head start on it. I have been thinking of creating a “window managers for solaris” page that would include my sawfish page as well as my experiences with the various other window managers I’ve messed with.

07.10.01

Horrible news today- a relative was attacked by an ex-boyfriend and stabbed seventeen times. She is hospitalized and will recover. He has been caught and imprisoned- charged with attempted murder.

07.09.01

Woke up early today to catch a 7:00am flight to Dallas. I met with the other two network webmasters and our supervisors to orchestrate the design of our future intranet. Actually, it was a quite productive day, ending with an uneventful flight arriving back home at 6:00pm

Picked up a copy of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” to read during the flights to Dallas and back. I am about fifty or so pages into it and yes, it is quite good.

Met up with Faith, Logan, Connie, Devin and Jake at Olive Garden for dinner. Several kids at a table next to us decided to see just how annoying they could be by making their glasses “sing” by wetting their fingertips and running them along the rim of the glass. I put up with it as long as I could, but finally I had to go over and request that they stop. The manager was standing near and overheard what I had said and ended up discounting our meal by 25%

07.08.01

Woke up around 1:00am and helped Faith feed the twins. She had complained that her back was hurting and by the time we finished with the boys, it had locked up completely. Fortunately, I had a bout of insomnia and couldn’t sleep if I had to, so I stayed up the rest of the night and took care of the twins so she could rest. By eight a.m., her back wasn’t better and I was beginning to tire so I adjusted her back in tiny amounts, just enough to alleviate the pain. We both were able to get some much needed sleep before noon.

07.07.01

Woke up early this morning and headed over to my mom and dad’s house to re-blacktop the driveway. It only took two buckets worth, so it really didn’t take long at all.

I returned home to mow the lawn before it got too hot. I mowed the front and both sides, then Logan came out and helped a great deal by mowing a large portion of the backyard. It was his first time, so I walked along with him for a bit until he got the hang of it, and then let him go until he’d had enough. (I had to tell him when he had had enough, he didn’t want to quit, but the sweat on his forehead said he was done for the day!)

After Logan and I finished up the lawn, we headed over to the pool for a couple of hours where I managed to acquire quite a sunburn even though I spent most of the time sitting in the shade.

Finished reading “Goblet of Fire” yesterday. Looking forward to book number five (”The Order of the Phoenix”)

07.05.01

Back at work today, trying to get back into the swing of things after a five day weekend! Just realized that I have passed a milestone! June 20th marked the one year anniversary of my journal! Hmmm… Let’s see if it lasts another year!