What? You mean you’re a blogger who hasn’t signed up for the Dead Pool 2005? Well heck, hurry up and pick your fifteen names! You’ve only got a week left, after all.
Oh, and when you sign up, tell ‘em GreyDuck sent you.
(This message couldn’t possibly be brought to you by the fact that there’s a referral contest going on. Nope. No way. Nothing doing. This message is, however, brought to you by alert reader Charles Fisher. Thanks, Charles!)
If you’re still seeing the border around the center column, and there’s no pretty picture above the new logo, make sure to refresh your browser window. Holding down ‘Ctrl’ and tapping the ‘R’ on your keyboard usually does the trick. If it doesn’t, then you’ll need to clear your cache somehow.
I only mention it because I’ve been taking all sorts of queries in the last two days from people who tell me “it looks all messed up,” or some variant thereof.
I’ve been moderately discontent with the website design here for well over a year. One thing I believed the site needed was some actual imagery, and yesterday I came across some nifty PHP code that allowed me to display a randomly selected image.
My first attempt involved just tucking a rectangular image in the upper left corner, and adjusting a few things around it to make it fit. It was a fine bit of geek-fu, but Dawn pointed out what it looked like: an ugly, geeky hack. The layout was completely destroyed by this monstrosity I’d perched on its corner.
After considerable discussion and tinkering and websurfing, I set upon the path to what you see now. I removed the border around the center content. (Internet Exploder never rendered it correctly anyway, showing a thick black border where a grooved grey border should have been.) I extended the center column upward. I added a relatively subtle tiled background to the sides. I created a logo. And then, I put the image rotator code back into service as the background for the page element in which the logo lives. Other bits of tinkering included moving the random tagline and rearranging the navigation columns.
What I have now… ain’t half bad. In fact, I’m quite pleased. A heartfelt “Thank You!” to Dawn for helping me realize this new design!
Lil’ did it, so of course like the geeky fanboy I am, I had to do it…
1. What did you do in 2004 that you’d never done before?
Moved to a home that didn’t have my children in it.
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Yes, I kept my desktops at 1280×1024 all year. Next year I might try for 1600×1200. (That there’s geek humor, folks.)
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No, but just you wait ‘til next year…
4. Did anyone close to you die?
My father-in-law passed on at the start of the year. He’d lived several years past when all the experts expected him to, and enjoyed what he could of it. That’s all anyone can do, I think.
5. What countries did you visit?
A jet-setting world traveller I am not.
6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?
Bookshelves and other similar furniture. No, really. I’m still living out of my packing boxes, for the most part.
7. What dates from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Hah! Clearly you have no idea how lousy my memory really is…
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
It’s a toss-up: Learning to handle life on my own -or- recognizing that a new relationship wasn’t going to work out, no matter how enjoyable it might have been until it eventually imploded, and backing away from it as gracefully as possible.
9. What was your biggest failure?
(I’m so glad I didn’t do this meme in 2003…) I don’t think I had any truly big failures this year. Instead I failed in myriad small ways. Note that I didn’t say “inconsequential,” because several of those small failures caused major problems. If I have to put one thing down here, I’d say that I’ve failed to improve my communication and scheduling skills the way I set out to do.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Thankfully, no major physical suffering took place this year.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
My Neuros. No doubt about it.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
All of my friends and loved ones should be celebrated, but without a doubt the very top prize goes to my children, Alex and Erica. They weathered a monumental life change, not without some stress and calamity, but definitely with open minds and compassion… in addition to huge amounts of loving support for both of their parents. I have, without a doubt, the very best children any parent could ever hope for.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Besides my own, you mean? There have been a couple of incidents through the year, but I’m not going to air them here. I don’t see the point in showing off other people’s dirty laundry, do you?
14. Where did most of your money go?
Living expenses, a bit of travel expenses and the occasional bits of geeky goodness.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Something that turned into a near-total disaster, actually. I don’t think I’ve been “really, really, really excited” since.
16. What song will always remind you of 2004?
Any number of anime theme songs, and possibly Duran Duran’s “Sunrise.” And probably a bunch of others, when you get right down to it.
17. Compared to this time last year, you are:
All kinds of happier and less stressed. Last fall/winter was not a very good time.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
I’m such a naughty boy, I’m going to say that it’s not so much “what” as “who,” but I’m not going to name names…
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Hiding. Looking away. Keeping quiet. Giving in to inertia.
20. How will you be spending Christmas?
With my family, opening presents and watching shows and eating and all that fun stuff.
22. Did you fall in love in 2004?
Yes. See #8, part two…
23. How many one-night stands?
None, actually.
24. What was your favorite TV program?
Fullmetal Alchemist. The subtitled version, not the dubbed version airing on Cartoon Network, though if you can’t find one you must see the other. It is without a doubt the best anime series of the new millenium. I’m not kidding. It also holds up against 99% of non-animated fare. Seriously.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Hate takes way too much energy… and requires maintaining negativity that I just don’t need in my psyche.
26. What was the best book you read?
In terms of new books, I’d say it’s “Talon of the Silver Hawk,” by Raymond E. Feist. Yes, I know I didn’t review it here. I suck. Anyway, it’s the start of a new series set some time after the Serpentwar books, and I liked it quite a lot.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I’m now addicted to Asian pop music. Well, not all of it. Some artists and songs annoy me to no end, but others I can’t get enough of. I’m that way with most genres, really… I don’t get into a style or sound, but if I find an artist I like I’ll tend to enjoy almost everything by that artist.
28. What did you want and get?
Have I mentioned my Neuros? Yes? Good. I also got a very nice stereo receiver, a big television (mostly to watch movies, CSI and anime on), and a new video card for my computer. And my new geekphone! I almost forgot about that!
29. What did you want and not get?
Bookshelves. A decent raise and/or Christmas bonus. And, er, other things I won’t go into here…
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
The Incredibles. Wow, what a movie.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Why don’t I just give you the link, eh? This is a journal, after all.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I don’t know. When you get right down to it, I don’t think pondering or dwelling on this would be a healthy use of my mental resources, do you?
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
I’ve always joked that I’m “fashion mute,” which is a play on the idea that people can make a “fashion statement.”
34. What kept you sane?
The usual suspects… music, my children, my friends and beloveds. Not necessarily in that order, of course.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Define “fancy.” Because, you know, if you mean what I think you mean… I didn’t.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Without getting too political here, I’ll say that I’m appalled at the direction our country’s going and also at the fact that my chosen home state elected to write discrimination into its Constitution.
37. Who did you miss?
Oddly enough, I miss my paternal grandparents. I don’t think I could explain exactly why, though.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
I haven’t actually met very many new people. Bah. Mark that down as a goal for 2005, eh?
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004:
Oh, no. I haven’t learned anything big, new and profound. I’ve been trying to implement what I’ve learned previously, though… albeit with mixed results.
It was with a hint of dread and a large dollop of hope that I trekked down to the office this afternoon. You see, the main office fileserver lost a hard drive last week. This would normally be the sort of thing one would stay all night overnight to repair ASAP, but considering the drive failed without my even knowing it until I just happened to look at the drive array and noticed the amber indicator, I wasn’t all that worried. The server could jolly well tick along for another couple of days, I figured.
Oddly enough, I figured correctly.
The server’s an HP ProLiant DL380 G3, which in non-geek terms loosely translates to “expensive server, designed to be mounted in an equipment rack, that features (for the sake of this entry) hard drives you can take out and replace while the machine’s still running.” My experiences with “hot-swap” hard drive technology has been mixed, to say the least. The good old Dell PowerEdge 2300? Never a problem. Ben and I popped drives in and out of that thing on a weekly basis for a while there, at the downtown KKSN-FM office. Some of the other hot-swap equipment, however, sort of soured me on the concept. (Longtime readers will remember some episodes of fun and frolic involving the Enco server…)
Today, though, was something of a revelation. It went something like this:
All told, this was about a five minute job, and that’s counting all time spent in the building. I’m not kidding. Sure, the drive’s going to be rebuilding for a few hours yet… but I don’t need to watch over it. If the whole thing fails, I’ll get a message on my phone about it. In my experience, though, if it was going to fail it would already have done so.
Awesome. Ye gods, I want more of those servers!
When it’s the Saturday before Christmas, one should probably avoid going to the mall. You’d think that most people would be cognizant of this sort of thing, but then you’d also have to remember that I’m not “most people.”
I did find one of the things I was looking for, mind you. Yes, because my Treo 600 geekphone can utilize SD memory, it now has some SD memory. My first great experiment will be something along the lines of, “What Sort Of Audio Ringtones I Can Come Up With.” I’m thinking musical cues, random movie and TV show quotes, you name it…
Yes. I’m a geek. You all knew this.
Anyway, next year at this time I’ll try to remember not to risk the massive crowds. It got so bad that I went back to the cold outdoors for a while just to have some personal space. Bleh.
