Category: Jake

Merry Return All Your Presents Day

OK, I said I’d post something on Christmas day, but I lied. Sue me.

Anyway, the weekend’s events were fun, if not a bit crazy. Per our usual family tradition, we spent Christmas Eve with my in-laws, and Christmas Day with my family. We hosted the in-laws at our house, along with the neices and nephews. It was utter chaos with a bunch of kids screaming and yelling about what each kid got, etc… . It was tiring madness, but a whole lot of fun.

We then spent Christmas Day with my family, opening yet more presents, eating more food, getting more exhausted (and my poor wife had a cold, so it was even harder on her). But all in all, it was a bunch of fun. The kids got spoiled rotten with tons of toys for each of them, to the point where we probably need to add an extra room to the house to accomodate it all (OK,that was a slight exhargeration).

The wife and I got a bunch of fun stuff. The wife got a nice set of kitchen knives, a bunch of clothes, some sheet music, some books, and a few other things that escape me off the top of my head. I got a bunch of stuff as well, including clothes, a new coat, some gift certificates, some DVDs, a shower radio/CD player (so I won’t ever leave the shower in the morning). My wife and I also got a Nintendo DS Lite, which we were both stupidly excited about, along with Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart, and Nintendogs for it. Now understand, neither of us have had our own game system since the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) back when we were both in grade school, but I can see this getting played with a bunch. But man, this thing is far fancier than anything I’ve played with (and if anybody has a good place for hacks/tips/whatever on these things, I’m all ears). I can see myself playing a ton of SMB, as I love those classic kinds of games, but I have a feeling I’d be doing a lot better if I had this or this PDF guide (if anybody has a copy I can .. uh … borrow, you know how to get ahold of me).

I hope everbody had a great holiday, and I want to hear about all the toys everybody else got.

December 26, 2006

Happy Holidays To Everyone

I’ll undoubtedly post something on Christmas day, discussing the day’s events (and the day before, as we always have something going on the day before as well). Meanwhile, I’ve got a four day weekend, and I’m going to be spending as much of it as possible with my family. So enjoy your weekend, be safe, and feel free to post here what kinds of toys you all got.

Happy Holidays to everybody!

December 22, 2006

Great Way To Start The Morning

The icy rain we got last night has already caused some chaos, and it’s already bruised me up pretty bad, too.

I woke up this morning and went outside to get some firewood. Our woodstove is our primary source of heat this time of year (our furnace just sucks up too much electricity for how effective it is), so I went outside to get some firewood. I generally load a bunch of wood into a back storage hallway that’s just off our backyard patio into our house. The icy rain made our concrete patio pretty dangerous, so I walked carefully as I went across it to get to our wood pile. I grabbed a few rounds to put in the hallway, and made the attempt to walk gingerly across the patio. I took two steps, with an armload of wood, slipped, and went flying. I flew down forward, onto my knees, with the firewood coming down on top of me. I bruised the living bejeebers out of both knees, scraped up one of them, and bruise my elbow as well.

I couldn’t walk for a few minutes, so as I’m laying there in pain on the patio, my six year old daughter — who’s the only one up with me at this time of the morning — is looking out the window with a look like “Oh my is he dead?” I looked back at her to make sure she knew I was OK, and would come back in the house when I could get up again.

The problem was we still needed firewood as it was dang cold outside, so I had to get some more wood chopped and into the hallway. Needless to say, once I got back on my feet, I didn’t cross the patio unless I had to — I threw the wood into the hallway from a distance. I got the wood inside, got a fire started, and then just plopped down on the floor with some ice on my knees.

I eventually made it to work this morning (and was greeted with four inches of snow) after trying to loosen up my knee. It still hurts like a bugger (not like it did this morning). Once my Advil kicks in I’ll be OK.

In the grand scheme of things, however, I’m just glad I’m not in Colorado right now. My brother’s in Fort Collins right now, and getting beat up as well.

December 21, 2006

Giving Up FeedDemon for Outlook-based RSS Reader

I love Feeddemon. It’s arguably the best stand-alone RSS reader out there. Pretty much everything the program’s author has written has been great (I have copies of Homesite and Topstyle as well, both his creations and both wonderful pieces of software).

FeedDemon just worked away, downloading RSS feeds like it was supposed to, hidden away in my system tray. The problem is that I generally work and schedule my daily life out of Outlook and posted entries to this site based on what was e-mailed to me, and didn’t have time to go through all my RSS feeds. So I wanted to get an RSS reader that integrated into Outlook so I could just check my feeds out of there. The company that now supports FeedDemon also sells NewsGator Inbox, which does exactly what I need to do (and had used before back in the day). It would sync with FeedDemon, assuming I actually ever opened up again. The problem was that I didn’t have $30 to spend on it (if they gave a discount to folks who already own two of their products, I’m all ears).

Some Googling dug up Attensa For Outlook, which, so far, is doing all I need it to do. The best part is it’s free.

Now I just need to catch up on my feeds, as I’m horribly behind. But having it in a place I’m already working on a daily basis will make it far easier.

Update: Since it was asked, why didn’t I use Thunderbird, which has built-in RSS support? My Outlook agenda versus Thunderbird is mostly for a few reasons:

1) Far superior label/filtering/rules/flagging abilities which makes it far easier for me to keep track of the 13 accounts I check.

2) Powerful calendar integration

3) Many powerful 3rd party add-ons because of it’s stupidly powerful API.

4) It totally blew up Thunderbird when it tried to import my accounts, email, and settings out of Outlook.

It actually has nothing to with Windows and syncing, though I do tend to favor it in that regard, too, as I need to be able to support it on the desktops where I work.

I honestly considered moving to Thunderbird and have been playing with it for the last few days. but after dealing with it, playing with it, trying to make it work how I wanted to, I had to go back to Outlook. I’ll certainly consider it in the future if there are significant upgrades in that regard, but there are just some times where open source != better.

December 12, 2006

Comment Spammers Are Evil Bastards

OK, let me rephrase that: Comment spammers are evil, but the folks who let their systems be infected by malware that turns their systems into zombies are just as bad.

On a nightly basis, the server running this site is set to do usual middle-of-the-night maintenance chores: update cPanel and various other software packages I have installed (including the great ConfigServer products), check the logs, run AWStats, etc… . Obviously, it pushes a bit of load, but I tried to spread it around the night a bit so Apache is still responsive to the few requests that will come in. Last night, this server was attacked hard by comment spammers, with my comment script on this site getting hit by zombied computers at a rate of about 100 per second. My various MT Plugins were fighting off a lot of it, but the load was still up to 30 in top at many points through the evening (according to my log reports I read in the morning). Web pages were still getting served, but just not as quick as they could’ve been.

Renaming my comment script, and installing this plugin hasn’t put my load above .5 all day. There are still tons of requests coming in for my old comment script, but they’re just getting 404s or sand trap redirects, which Apache can serve up without issues or load.

What that does mean is that if you’re visiting this site with Javascript disabled, you will not be able to comment. I was trying to avoid that, as I know some folks insist on turning Javascript off in their browser, but the reality is that zombie spamming bots can read straight form tags far easier than broken up Javascript that actually gives the proper form action target. I’ve tested it in a few places, and it appears to work OK, but if you’re noticing that you can’t comment, e-mail me using the form to the right, tell me what browser you’re using, and I’ll see what can be done.

December 7, 2006

Turkey Day, Black Friday, Civil War Wrap Up

I won’t waste a bunch of time with this, as I’m still recovering from yesterday and I’m sure the bulk majority of my usual readers (all six of you) are probably not around anyway, so here are the bullet points:

  • One perk/problem/bonus about having both my wife’s and my family locally is that we usually end up eating dinner with both folks. Her parents usually eat earlier (noon-ish), my parents in the evening, so it works out. One thing I wasn’t aware of until a couple days before Thanksgiving, however, was that we were hosting the in-laws. While we weren’t doing any cooking (or much, at least) it did make for a packed house and a crazy day in general.
  • No, I did not get up at the crack of dawn this morning to hit the various sales. I have better things to do with my time, thank you. Like sleep in on my day off. If you got some cool deals or experiences to share, feel free to comment here.
  • I think both of Oregon’s kickers will be lucky of their houses back in Eugene aren’t burned down after tanking as bad as they did in today’s game. I’m sure one local blogger is happy as a clam that the Beavers won, and it was at least an entertaining game. But if I were those two place kickers, I’d sleep lightly as there are some crazies in Eugene.

Hopefully all of you are enjoying your weekend, and I’ll be back online again on Sunday when I’ll be back at work. If you have any stories to share, you’ve got a comment form below.

November 24, 2006

I Hate This Time Of Year

If you didn’t know already, this area is getting pummeled with nasty weather, and while I don’t mind the Winter that much (if I did, I would’ve moved a long time ago), I do have the first major Winter storm as nobody (including me) is ready for it. The tarp covering our firewood wasn’t secured well enough, so it ended up in the neighbor’s yard (and I know my neighbors read this, so if you guys notice foot prints in your yard along the fence, those were mine from tonight). The roads are a total mess, and people are driving like idiots.

I commute to Sunriver to work Sunday-Thursday and it’s this time of year I really wish I worked in Bend. Not only does Sunriver typically get nastier weather than Bend, but the stretch of highway between the two cities is arguably one of the most dangerous in the State. Every year I witness at least one accident, usually more. People, commonly tourists or folks new to the area, think they can drive that stretch of highway at normal speed, despite the fact that the road is coated with ice and snow. Those are the people I’m genuinely scared of: the out-of-towners driving their SUVs that fly around with their four-wheel-drive summer tires on, thinking they’re invincible because they have four-wheel drive. Nevermind that having four-wheel-drive really doesn’t help you in this weather — it just makes it so you lose control and slip with all four wheels instead of two. I don’t have a problem driving in the nasty weather, taking my sweet time, if it wasn’t for nut-jobs like those people.

Unfortunately I don’t work at home like I used to (or like Dave, who lives out in that area, does currently), but boy I sure wish I did. Wish me luck tomorrow …

November 12, 2006

Heading To Eugene For The Game

I always make the trip to Eugene every year to watch the Homecoming game, and that would be this weekend when Oregon takes on Washington. So my dad and I are heading over the pass in the morning.

If anybody is going to be at the game, I plan on hitting the Emerald/J-school alumni tent for a few minutes so come by and hunt me down.

November 3, 2006

Cascade Winds Symphonic Band In Concert This Weekend

It’s that time again for my every few month cheap plug for the upcoming Cascade Winds Symphonic Band Concerts. They are this weekend, Sunday, November 5th, at 2PM and Monday, November 6th, at 7:30PM. Like before (and from here on out) the concerts are going to be at the Tower Theatre in Downtown Bend. You can read more information about the concert, including the pieces we’re playing, at the Cascade Winds website, where you can also download black and white and color flyers for the event.

The event is free, and tickets are available from the Tower box office, or by calling Band Manager Yoleen at 389-2035.

I hope to see some of you there! Come up and say “hi” during intermission.

</cheap plug>

November 1, 2006

Ideas For Halloween

If you’re looking for something to decorate your house with, make yourself some Halloween Hobgoblins with some tampons. If you want to scare your pants off.

Meanwhile, I plan on spending tomorrow like I have the last two years by making sure that anybody who shows up at my door who’s far too old to be trick or treating gets a canned vegetable with these stickers on them that I made last year.

October 30, 2006