This blog was supposed to be a place where I could talk about my projects, what I'm doing, this and that --
And for the last couple of years, I haven't had many projects of note (except for the movie), and I really haven't been all that chatty feeling. A lot of what I'm doing these days is school, taiji, and ballroom dancing -- none of which are that thrilling to write about.
Last year I wrote a handful of short stories and started pimping them out; no bites yet, though one feedback. These stories have their flaws, so this year I'm writing using a different approach; more analytical, paying more attention to character and theme. We'll see how that works.
But I also do have a mad science project now! In February, I will be experimenting with the Reuben's Tube, a device to make sound pressure waves visible in fire! Fire!
This will be to provide a display at Flipside, as part of our camp's contribution.
So, I may have exciting news of dangerous conflagrations here soon.
This blog was supposed to be a place where I could talk about my projects, what I'm doing, this and that --
And for the last couple of years, I haven't had many projects of note (except for the movie), and I really haven't been all that chatty feeling. A lot of what I'm doing these days is school, taiji, and ballroom dancing -- none of which are that thrilling to write about.
Last year I wrote a handful of short stories and started pimping them out; no bites yet, though one feedback. These stories have their flaws, so this year I'm writing using a different approach; more analytical, paying more attention to character and theme. We'll see how that works.
But I also do have a mad science project now! In February, I will be experimenting with the Reuben's Tube, a device to make sound pressure waves visible in fire! Fire!
This will be to provide a display at Flipside, as part of our camp's contribution.
So, I may have exciting news of dangerous conflagrations here soon.
This blog was supposed to be a place where I could talk about my projects, what I'm doing, this and that --
And for the last couple of years, I haven't had many projects of note (except for the movie), and I really haven't been all that chatty feeling. A lot of what I'm doing these days is school, taiji, and ballroom dancing -- none of which are that thrilling to write about.
Last year I wrote a handful of short stories and started pimping them out; no bites yet, though one feedback. These stories have their flaws, so this year I'm writing using a different approach; more analytical, paying more attention to character and theme. We'll see how that works.
But I also do have a mad science project now! In February, I will be experimenting with the Reuben's Tube, a device to make sound pressure waves visible in fire! Fire!
This will be to provide a display at Flipside, as part of our camp's contribution.
So, I may have exciting news of dangerous conflagrations here soon.
This blog was supposed to be a place where I could talk about my projects, what I'm doing, this and that --
And for the last couple of years, I haven't had many projects of note (except for the movie), and I really haven't been all that chatty feeling. A lot of what I'm doing these days is school, taiji, and ballroom dancing -- none of which are that thrilling to write about.
Last year I wrote a handful of short stories and started pimping them out; no bites yet, though one feedback. These stories have their flaws, so this year I'm writing using a different approach; more analytical, paying more attention to character and theme. We'll see how that works.
But I also do have a mad science project now! In February, I will be experimenting with the Reuben's Tube, a device to make sound pressure waves visible in fire! Fire!
This will be to provide a display at Flipside, as part of our camp's contribution.
So, I may have exciting news of dangerous conflagrations here soon.
This blog was supposed to be a place where I could talk about my projects, what I'm doing, this and that --
And for the last couple of years, I haven't had many projects of note (except for the movie), and I really haven't been all that chatty feeling. A lot of what I'm doing these days is school, taiji, and ballroom dancing -- none of which are that thrilling to write about.
Last year I wrote a handful of short stories and started pimping them out; no bites yet, though one feedback. These stories have their flaws, so this year I'm writing using a different approach; more analytical, paying more attention to character and theme. We'll see how that works.
But I also do have a mad science project now! In February, I will be experimenting with the Reuben's Tube, a device to make sound pressure waves visible in fire! Fire!
This will be to provide a display at Flipside, as part of our camp's contribution.
So, I may have exciting news of dangerous conflagrations here soon.
A few days ago, we gave up on Sparky, the Spare Cat.
On the 5th of January, when we ran off the raccoon, Sparky ran off too, never to be seen again. After a week of no cat, we gave up, closed the garage, and felt bad about the loss of our spare cat.
Today, it is freezing, sleeting, snowing, growing icecycles, and generally being nasty outside. And who should appear? Sparky! Cold, fat, and insolent as always. So I popped open the door a bit, gave him a good scolding and scritching, and filled up his food bowl.
Stupid cat.
I wonder who else he has been eating with? Someone who lets him inside, but forgot today? Or maybe he's just been living high on the hog off of the rabbits. We'll probably never know.
Oh, and my website is all back up again. Nice!
(I apologize for the repeat rant, but I wanted this archived in my main blog; for those who saw this in my LJ thread, please just ignore it)
I used to host this website on Blue Virtual servers.
I thought this was a good service. I even recommended it to people!
Though, to get a responsive machine, I did have to pay more than, it turns out, than I might otherwise have had to. Their cheap services were way too sluggish for my Wiki-based website.
But you know what really burned my biscuit with Blue Virtual? Why I'm extremely mad at them, why I've cancelled my service and considered LETTING them put my unpaid balance into collections just so they would lose money on it?
Because, at their core, they suck. They don't care about the user, and they don't patrol their resources in any reasonable or expected way.
In even the lowliest most basic account in school, you had disk limits. Every web host has, of course, disk limits and bandwidth limits.
Every webhost will be very interested in patrolling these limits; monitoring them. Blue Virtual is no different. They know exactly what you are using on any given day.
So they noticed when someone found a writable directory in Wiki (an icon directory, buried deep in the tree; these people have too much time on their hands) and wrote about five gigs of movies into it, putting me way over my limit.
Did Blue Virtual enforce their disk limit, preventing this explosion in my website? Did they send me e-mail telling me that my limit was being approached? No, they did not. And paying them $50 a month for their service, I expected... service. Wouldn't you?
Instead of enforcing the limit, or notifying me, or basically doing ANYTHING USEFUL AT ALL, they billed me $275 for the disk overage.
That's bogus. That's Bullshit.
I called around. Other services warn you, and cap you. They don't charge you unless you agree to go over and to be charged. They don't steal money from you without asking.
Blue Virtual is different. Apparently a lack of proper system administration is a profit center for them.
Now I am at a decent web host, that does what it's supposed to. It monitors, e-mails, and enforces a cap.
Like most web hosts do.
Except Blue Virtual.
I apologize if I ever recommended Blue Virtual to you -- and I suggest you leave them soon if you are with the now, before their lazy policy bites you in the ass, too.
Right now I'm at 8bucksamonth.com, which is not a name that inspired much confidence, and moving over from TWiki to MediaWiki. I've had dreamhost.com recommended to me, and they look very promising.
I just moved my entire website, and I am doing this evil test post to make sure the RSS works still!
I'll have a big post soon, never fear. Ummm. If this works.
Welcome to the new year everyone! Just spent a short (four day) week at work doing, I dunno, paperwork and research and stuff. Not a bad entry for the next 51 weeks.
I haven't decided yet if I'm going to be diligient about blog posts or not this year. I'm going to spend this weekend plotting my priorities, projects, and progress for this coming year. I've got fiction to (finally) finish editing; a novel I want to write (well, three or four, but I'll pick one); a ballroom dance guide to help create; ballroom dance to learn (this is a year to study and get good), and Taiji to learn (also will be a priority, since I go for my second degree black in December).
For the first time in... ever! Marla and I went on a real vacation this Christmas! It was keen! It was laid back but also nifty, and now we are going to have to do more recreational travelling.
On Saturday the 23rd we made the pilgrimage to Lafayette LA to spend Christmas proper with Marla's parents. And they bought crazy amounts of stuff for everyone, and it was all kind of relaxed and fun. I brought schoolwork with me and did two classes that Saturday.
On the 25th we drove home, because on the 26th we drove to Carlsbad New Mexico! Yayy! And, a side note, thank the deities for books on CD. Harry Potter Book 5 is 23 hours long and we heard the entire thing that week... and had to buy book 6 in Carlsbad to be sure to have listening fare on the way home too. These things make the drive so fast and simple and easy; far more distracting than music.
In Carlsbad, of course, we went into the Caverns! Duh! 750 feet under ground, enormous beautiful caverns. We walked all of the trail that could be walked without a guide, and had three more tours on top of that.
The Left Hand Tunnel tour was a jaunt through an unimproved (and in fact, rather beat up through use) side tunnel using nothing but candle lanterns. A nifty experience, and a nice warm up to the experience of the caves.
Then we did the Lower Cavern tour, which had us rapelling (hah! scrabbling, more like) down a 10' hill with a rope, and then climbing another 50' (or so, they didn't say) down these three slippery stainless steel ladders, into a beautiful and intimate unimproved (e.g. no path or railing) lower run of caverns. We even got to crawl a bit!
The last day we toured the Kings Palace, which is marvelously decorated, but had to be closed to unguided tours because the damned monkeys with poor impulse control (e.g. tourists) were destroying it, breaking off its bits. Something like 22,000 broken bits... and worsening.
And now of course, we have to do weekend trips to all of the many caves around Austin, and I expect we'll plan future long vacations to other interesting caves. It's a theme... a neat theme!
Oh, and for the surprise promised in the headline?
Drove home tonight just a bit ago, petted the spare cat (he's a good kitty; want a cat?) and then toodled into the garage to top off his food.
Coming through the laundry room I see him scamper in after me under the garage door. My mind is wandering, lalalala, dum-te-dumm, heyyy!
There's a HUGE GRAY FAT BLOB sitting on the stool, hunched over the catfood dish! Dang! Not another cat! Nope.
Raccoon.
Big, fat fat fat, raccoon.
The poor things legs could barely touch the ground after he launched himself over the trash can and splatted on the floor, scrabbling to escape.
Maybe it's time to make a skinny cat door in the garage... something he might have trouble squeezing through. It doesn't help, though, that Sparky himself is 13 lbs big.