Recently in Various & Sundry Category

The software that runs this blog, Movable Type, has been giving me fits for the past month or so. And ever since I upgraded and lost my old template, I've been thinking of switching to Wordpress. The latest version of Movable Type is very slow to load and publish, and to be honest, it just has too many features than I need. I'm not taking advantage of all the bells and whistles, nor do I even really understand them all, and it might actually be too much of a good thing. Especially since it's acting up. I know some people are getting errors when they try to leave comments. Probably the same errors I'm getting half the time I try to publish.

My host makes it really easy to install Wordpress, so last night I tried to switch. I logged into Movable Type to export my current blog so that I can pull all my entries into a new content management system, but the export didn't work. I thought it was something to do with the software installation itself, so I figured I'd upgrade to their latest version and export again. But before upgrading they recommend that you backup the database, and even that was giving me errors. So maybe it's a blog software issue, and maybe it's a database issue. Either way, I can't upgrade just yet. I've got a ticket in to my host's support people, so I expect to figure things out soon.

All that is a long-winded way of saying that if you see funny things going on around here in the next few days, I'm working on some changes and hope to get everything straightened out soon.

It's official: Jose is a licensed private pilot! He passed his checkride on Friday! I couldn't be happier for him. He didn't finish his checkride until sunset, but fortunately the good weather held out long enough for him to take me up as his first passenger yesterday around lunchtime. We flew around Clear Lake for a half hour before heading back for a nice landing.

Congratulations Jose!

The annual pumpkin carving took place at Jason's this year, and I have to say -- they turned out really well!

Here's a photo of me and Carina that Gavin took last week when we went to visit her. She is moving out of the NICU (appears to have been a big false alarm) and might go home with Gavin and Jen tomorrow! Hooray!

Two questions for the masses:

First, I need an effective and simple and easy piece of software that will automate the process of backing up my hard drive onto an external drive. I've been doing it manually for more than a year, and I'm tired of it. I know there are a zillion different backup software packages, so I'm hoping someone can recommend a good, basic one.

Second, the pair of earrings that Jose gave me for Christmas broke. As in, the wire (10k white gold) that formed half of the clasp broke in half. I can't wear the earrings anymore, which sucks. Now, they weren't super expensive, but I also know that he spent enough money that they shouldn't break within two months. What do I do?

I didn't like having to manually moderate all comments, so I've installed a new little plugin that should fix it for me. Below the comment text box, but above the 'post' button, you should all now see a text box. Above it, it says to enter the word 'hello' in the box below.

Voila -- all you have to do is type hello and your comment will go through and be published immediately.

Let me know if you have any issues...

I just enabled authentication for comments on this blog. Hopefully this means I'll be able to avoid most comment spam (the spammers seem to be re-finding this blog after a brief respite when I upgraded my installation). What this means as far as I can tell is that if you register (see link in the comments section), your comment will be published immediately. Otherwise, it'll be held until I approve it and/or put you on my list of trusted commenters.

If you have any difficulties commenting, let me know.

I finally did a long-overdue update to the latest version of Movable Type, so some things may appear funny on the ol' blog. Most notably, it has somehow entered the first few words of each entry as the title. Odd. Ah well, I'll fix it later.

I also finally incorporated all my old Diaryland entries from 2001-2003 (covering my final co-op tour in Houston, my M.S. grad school experience at Stanford, and my first year of working full-time in Houston). They're available under the monthly archives headings, though the entries do come with a warning: read them at your own risk. Let's just say I was much more angst-ridden as a grad student!! :)

If anyone out there is looking for a used sailboat, let me know. Becca and I have a 2-4 person sailboat that we're trying to sell. It's very used, but also very cheap. $500 or best offer for the boat and trailer.

Here it is: the magic glow skull! Since obtaining it, the Astros are 3-0, and the Cardinals are 0-3.

Dang it Barbara, why doesn't my blog like you??