Well, the site is finally back together. It's been a major pain, surrounded by screw ups. It all started with my site host upgrading their software, and not telling me (probably anyone). Their upgrade resulted in me needing to upgrade my site software. However, I suddenly couldn't put files on my site! I e-mailed the company and asked them what was wrong, because when I tried to connect, it said that my password was wrong. My password worked everywhere else, but not there. I said that the password was right, so it must be something else.

So? They changed my password... and e-mailed me the change. What's wrong with this picture? I could no longer get into my e-mail, because my PASSWORD HAD BEEN CHANGED! I called the company four times on that Friday, the last time was about 7:00 at night, and I icily left a message that I hoped they hadn't left for the weekend without dealing with this (I had called them the first time around 9:00 am). Strangely, I got a call back around 8:00 at night with my new password. Great. I was all ready to start the upgrades... except I disovered that after all that I still couldn't get into the site!

After a couple of days of bouncing e-mails off each other, a solution was found. After the upgrade, there were still probelms. I couldn't spend any more time on it, and contacted the original designer of my site. Joelle at BlogMoxie is booked through the end of this calendar year, but she was kind enough to fix the errors for me. It would have taken me even longer, as I don't know Perl script, so it was a real site saver...

So, hopefully I'll be able to catch up a bit...

Catch up time...

Yes, I have to admit that I have too many gadgets. They are supposed to make life easier, but I find myself struggling to spend the time to make them do their job. My main example involves phones.

I have several phones scattered around the house that are linked to a main unit in the study. They have a wonderful feature (as do most phones now) that allows the user to program in numbers and ease not only the difficulty of remembering numbers (apparently, this is a real hardship in today's society), but also coupled with caller ID can have different rings for different people. Unfortunately, I haven't taken the time to program the system to do this. I have numbers scattered all over: home phones, cellphone, Palm pilot, documents on the computer... I can connect them to the computer and do it that way. Should be easy, right? I can't tell you if it is or not, because I haven't done it. I have a few programmed on the home phone so I can know in particular if certain people are calling. One person who calls frequently has a special ring that tells me that Annie should answer the phone, another has a ring that tells me... well, that I need to be the one to answer the phone. That's two. My cellphone ring is Tom Sawyer by Rush. It takes so much space in memory that that is the only ring I have on there. I downloaded a piece of shareware to break the songs I want into smaller pieces and therefore have several. Have I done it? Nope.

I think I need an intern.

Hello? Who's this?

I'm so ticked I can't speak. This is why my teeth are worn down. I clench my jaw in order to keep from saying something I'll regret later. It doesn't always work, but apparently it has been effective enough to grind off 5 mm of tooth material over the past 30 years. So, in an effort to relieve my frustration, I thought I would write about one of the things that has me on edge. Strangely, I have a lot of good stories in my brain to write about, and haven't over the past couple of weeks because of a deadline that I'm probably not going to make, despite the excessive number of hours and brain cells spent...

Thousands of years ago, in a secluded cave, a drop of water emerged through the rock, and hung delicately from the ceiling. It waited there as more water drops joined it, until it was ready to fall to the floor. Before it fell, it left behind some tiny minerals. The minerals bonded to the ceiling. Over the centuries, more water drops left from that same place, and eventually the minerals became a visible rock structure. A stalactite had begun. As the stalactite grew, more water found this an easy path to drop from, and the drops began to concentrate in this small area. On the floor the drops of water had started to have a similar reaction. Minerals from the drops began to bond to the floor in this one place, and after a few centuries had started to shows signs of growth. A stalagmite had also been born. The cave was prone to frequent flooding, which would erode some of the stalagmite, but it persevered. After eons of patience, it had exceeded a foot in length, and was almost three inches in diameter. The slow growth of its core was almost like crystal, while the faster growth of its sides had taken on a more chalky appearance.

Unfortunately, its size had become a danger for it. It had taken millenia for it's painstaking growth, and its size in this cave was forced to withstand more and more pressure from the torrents that raced through the cave after excessive rain above. One day, it simply couldn't take the impact of the water racing around it, and it let go of the floor. It was rushed into the channel where it fell to the bottom. The water wasn't quite as forceful here, and after a while it settled into the mud. It would probably stay there until the mud turned to rock and incased it for eternity.

An unknown amount of time passed before a freshman college student and his friends happened across the cave entrance. Loving the adventure of feeling as if they were the first people to discover something, the friends ventured into the cave armed only with their waterproof flashlights. Flashlights that at times needed a thump on a rock to be reminded that they were supposed to be waterproof. Some of the friends had been here before, but it was custom that people who had not been were given the privilege of discovering the cave's secrets on their own. The freshman of interest in this story, walked with the others towards the back of the cave, and after twenty yards or so, it appeared the cave went nowhere. As he looked around, he noticed that the water that filled the lower two feet of the cave seemed to come mostly out of one wall. Those who knew waited expectantly for the discovery they knew he would soon make: the cave went much further back, but only for the brave. The cave itself was easy to find. It was in a state park, and the trail sign that read "Cave Trail" pretty much told anyone with an IQ above 50 that there was a cave somewhere, and it was probably on the trail. However, this secret part was only available to the fearless. The rock jutted out, and with some dexterity one could tell that there was a hole near the floor of the cave. Again, as one that had not been here before, our freshman was permitted the honor of being first through the hole. He contorted his body, and lay on the floor with water running all around him. The hole only extended a little above the water, and with the bend in the channel an adventurous soul would have to push themselves through on his side. He stretched his long arms through the hole and verified that the wall only seemed to be about two feet thick, and there was definitely an opening beyond. His flashlight clenched tightly in his right hand, he began to scoot his way through the hole. One shoulder was above water, and his face was turned up so he could breathe. His left hand was grabbing rock to help push through, and his flashlight was deep under water. Beyond was complete blackness. At eighteen he still contained that reckless feeling of invincibility that seems to be in all teenagers, but his heart raced and he had to mentally face and suppress the flashes in his mind of all the possible consequences of his actions. His heart pounded, and his blood raced as he slowly inched his way through the hole. His hand would slip at times, and his face would go under water, but he was determined, and finally passed through to the other side. He found plenty of room for his head above water, and waited a few seconds before extracting his flashlight out of the muddy water to feel the absolute darkness on the other side. He finally moved out of the way, and waited for his friends to come through the opening. They followed the channel back until they absolutely could not fit anymore. on the sides of the channel, the cave extended back gradually decreasing in space until it closed into rock. Beautiful structures grew between the floor and the ceiling everywhere one looked away from the channel. They had no idea how far they had travelled back into the rock, but there was no danger of getting lost, as the channel only went one way. At the end, everyone turned out the lights, and experienced the most complete darkness one can. They forced their breathing as slow as possible until the only sounds was the slow trickle of water around them. It was a wonderful experience.

The time had come, however, to begin the trek back to daylight. The troupe returned as they had come, and started back through the hole. The rolls of honor had all been spent, so exodus was handled first come - first served. Knowing what was ahead, and feeling confident, our freshman handed his flashlight to the person in front of him, and started crawling out. As he pushed through the mud, his hand came to rest on something solid and mobile. His hand clenched to the object, and he proceeded out with it tight in his hands. For the first time since its conception countless millenia ago, the fallen stalagmite saw the light of day.

Knowing that he shouldn't, but unable to release his prize, our freshman kept it. For the next eighteen years, he kept it safe and in a place of honor. He moved countless times from one place to another until he found himself living in a small house in the Santa Cruz mountains with his daughter. After rebuilding his study, the stalagmite was placed on top of a wood box that his father had made, and was brought down only to show the worthy, and the story was retold.

Today, he decided to do that again. His daughter's class was learning about rocks and how they were made, and it had been a while since he had gone to talk to the class about science. The teacher told the class that "Mr. Science" was going to talk with them about something (she herself didn't know what it would be - that's trust!). Surprisingly, every student was paying rapt attention to what the once freshman was going to say. He told the story of how cave structures were created, using an eye dropper that very, very slowly allowed a water drop to fall to his hands to demonstrate the amount of time it took for something like this to happen. The kids were enthralled and enthusiastic when the guest of honor was shown. He told them that he was going to leave it on the table for them to look at and touch, but they had to be very, very, very careful with it, because of how special it was to him.

The stalagmite survived the whole day. His daughter decided she should bring it home, because he had not made it clear as he had done with other things that he would pick it up the following day or so. She didn't put it in her backpack where it would be safe, but opted to carry it in hopes that others would see it and want to come talk about it. As she walked across the playground, she dropped it.

It broke in half.

Millenia in the making, eighteen years under careful care, it broke from about a three foot fall onto blacktop.

Very ticked amateur spelunker...

I've been spending virtually all of my waking time, and some of my sleeping time working on this freakin' presentation. What happens yesterday? My notebook takes a nosedive, and I can't breathe any life back into it. Now I'm wasting time trying exploratory transplant surgery to see if I can recover my files... If not, I have to start over on a different computer... Damn it.
Frustrated...

... just extremely busy. I'm drowning under the work I've got to do, and the deadlines I have to meet. Then there is the periodic requests for something "quick" that needs to be done. I'm not sure how I got myself into this. My laundry list of things to do is growing faster than I can mark things off. Speaking of laundry, I should add that to the list as well...

Need a SCUBA tank...

I've had my new computer up and running for a reasonable amount of time now. It came with the OS from a certain Big Brother like company that shall remain nameless. Every day, it has been asking me if I'd like to download updates, and I've been refusing since I've been rather busy pounding away on the keyboard.

Today, however, I have to work on something that doesn't require me to be on-line as much, so I thought I'd let it do its thing. I clicked on the notice about updating, and prepared to allow it to update a couple of things. I scrolled through the list. I kept on scrolling. And I kept on scrolling. There must have been 30 items listed as "Critical Security Updates".

Call me crazy, but I personally feel that they may need to think about updating their software periodically to cover some of these issues when the OS is freshly installed. This is even more irritating given that most computers don't come with the OS CD anymore, and the vendors just install it, and (hopefully) provide a recovery disk. The OS manufacturer just needs to place updated (and secure?) software packages on a site for the vendors to download. It's not a huge logistics problem involving the recalling and replacing of millions of CDs, or cutting in a product line and scrapping old disks. Then again, I'm not much of a business person...

Critically Insecure?

After busting my keister this week, working late, forcing Annie to entertain herself, and stressing over whether I'd get the necessary document ready by midnight tonight, the deadline got extended two weeks...

Humph...

I've spent the last few days working on creating a graphical representation of a very involved circuit, and then translating it into something I can model using a circuit modeling tool. That is, when I wasn't handling issues that other engineers could have taken care of, but chose not to, given my apparent 'availablity'. Annie went to bed, and I just finished translating all but the last few pieces (another hour or so). Annie fell asleep, and I turned the TV on for background noise. I turned on a movie that I hadn't seen in a very long time: Bye, Bye, Love.

This is a great movie for any single father to watch, however my timing may have been off. If you are a single father who is not someone the media is craving for (i.e. a Deadbeat Dad), you will definitely find something you can relate to. I'm too tired to get into it too much, but Christ on a pogo-stick, there is so much I can relate to, it's scary. Who wrote this crap? I'm not sure what's more frightening, what could/will happen to my daughter and my relationship, or the things that I see in each of the protagonists' lives that are mirrors of my own life. Ok, Matthew Modine's character and I have virtually nothing in common, except a love of our children. That, and, well the endings of the movie regarding the three fathers is not in the cards for me. Not complaining, just clarifying. I'm happy being like the older gentleman working at McDonald's. Probably what I'll be doing some day just to keep busy between infrequent phone calls from Annie telling me about her kids and carreer.

Geez, Randy Quaid's character has a date that makes my last date look like a picnic. It should make me feel better about my half-hearted attempts at dating, but it makes me realize that it could be so much worse, and not worth it. So, I'm really cool with living on my own, and just being a father. Just being a father. Sounds so simple. It's not, but it's the most worthwhile way of spending my time that I could possibly imagine. God, I can't believe how much I have in common with Randy Quaid's character. Paul Reiser's character? Maybe not as much, but if some piece of scheiss ever calls me Annie's 'birth father', as if I was just a sperm donor... well, I grew up in the Ozarks, I have a higher than average I.Q., and I watch CSI. I'm fairly certain I could dispose of a body. Maybe that just exposed a side of me that I didn't want out there, but... lean close to the screen. Watch the letters carefully. Let it sink in. I don't have much left, but I want to be a good father. Maybe, I'm not always a good father. Maybe, I don't always make the right choices. Maybe, I don't always say the right thing. But, I know a few things. When I held my little angel in my arms right after she was born, my eyes opened for the first time, and I saw a whole new world of possibilities and concerns. I devote everything I have in me to being a good father. Whatever my failings are, they do not amount to enough for someone else to think they can be a better father to my Annie. Try if you want, but be ready for disappointment. The other two things, I might share at another time...

Life is good. As it says in one of my favorite Rolling Stones songs:
You can't always get what you want,
But if you try sometimes,
Well, you just might find,
you get what you need....


And I have...

Unfortunately, there is a guy in Capitola that will tomorrow be on the receiving end of scathing phone call. Some time ago, I called my dad and... well, against my nature, whined about how I was supposed to install my new french doors by myself. A couple of hours after that phone call, I received a notice from my parents that they were coming out to help, and I had little to say about it. You know, you can't say no to your folks. Hopefully, Annie will learn that soon. As things go, that is to say... wrong... the doors in question did not show up on time. I was cool with that, though. You see, the salesman that told me that they would be here on time, further told me that they would not arrive like normal pre-hung doors. They would all be in pieces for me to assemble.

I was totally cool with that. I'd configure and build the jam. I'd mount the doors, and make sure that everything was plumb and square. No problem.

The door folks called me last Friday. The conversation didn't start out well, but I attributed it to the moron that they assigned to call people that day regarding product availability. Yes, he was a total loss at where I lived, and how I would pay for the doors. I informed him that all of this information should have been available given that they had delivered windows a couple of weeks earlier (when the doors were due as well). As if he were doing me a favor, he informed me that he would try to find my credit card information and bill them the same way (I was in my PJs and didn't have my credit card on me - not to mention, I was pissed that the doors were late). He arranged for the doors to be delivered today.

Now, when the salesman and I had talked, I told him that I was concerned about moving a six foot+ set of pre-hung doors by myself. He laughed and assured me that these doors did not come this way. I would have to closely follow the directions to make sure that I built the jam correctly and set everything right for the appropriate fit. Cool. I can follow directions. And, I can move smaller objects by myself.

Annie and I pulled into the driveway today to see a number of boxes in the driveway. I could almost not get out of the truck. One of the boxes looked frighteningly as if it had a set of french doors mounted in a pre-hung set of jams. It did. The box weighed in over 200 pounds, and spanned an area of about 6.5" x 7.5'. Print on the outside of the box said that it shouldn't be left in an area prone to moisture. Daughter of a Boar... I live in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and it's winter - or as good as. I had no where to put these damned things.

Annie was wonderfully supportive, and entertained herself while I started ripping out the wall. These doors were intended for a place that currently held a 4'x8' picture window from twenty years ago. I carefully hauled each glass pane to the truck. Fortunately for me, they were so poorly installed that each pane came out easily. I hauled the first one up the stairs with no problem. I slipped on my crappy deck stairs with the second one, and had visions of slicing my body up. I recovered and added a few choice words that I will share with the salesperson tomorrow. I continued working on a place to work the doors through. But, who was I going to get to help me?

After I sliced through the wall, and got it all clear for entry, I went to my next door neighbors. They are so wonderful. Tim had a stroke some time ago that has left his right struggling to feel anything, and, well, Connie is a lion heart, but exhibits this from a stature of less than five feet. I interupted them cooking dinner, but they came over, and we moved the damned' doors inside. I am so grateful. This is another example of why I'm so pleased to live where I do. I put a layer of plastic over the opening and screwed plywood over it to seal the opening.

I was thinking that I could install the doors without much pain. Stupid me. I checked the floor for level. It drops almost two inches across the area of concern. Nothing ever goes as easy as it should. This is part of God thinking that my life is the stuff of a very humorous play. Fortunately, I called my dad, and he had some great ideas about how to fix it. God's humor forgets that there are those of us who know that things normally go crappy, but there are ways of fixing it.

Deal Your worst, I can fix it...

I just can't get ahead of projects around the house. As I complete the hall bathroom remodel (or rebuilding...), I was feeling good about the upgrades, and have started turning my thoughts to fixing the master bath and bedroom. I had stored Annie's crib/day-bed in the master bedroom, and decided to get off my butt and move it to the barn for storage. I hadn't been to the barn in quite a while, and wish I hadn't for a bit longer. I'd always been able to confidently say that the barn was in good shape. Until today. There are some very large fir trees around the barn, and only a few redwoods. While the biggest fir, with a trunk diameter of around six feet seems to be fairly healthy, firs around here have a bad habit of getting large, and then slowly dying over the course of a century or so. One of the trees is showing this sort of slow death. It's base is probably between three and four feet in diameter, so you can guess how big around some of the branches are. Well, with all the rain and wind we had this past winter, some branches fell and whacked the barn. "Branches" is probably not the right word to give the visual picture. They are or were the size of small trees, about a foot in diameter.

While I didn't see any actual holes in the roof (I didn't look very hard... ignorance is bliss), chunks are missing from some of the roof along the edges. The tree is too large for me to try to bring down, and is leaning towards the barn. I'm good, but I'm afraid I'm not good enough for that. If it fell on the barn with me holding a chainsaw, insurance would just laugh at me. They'd probably offer the names of some care facilities that serve the chronically stupid. So, I'm going to have to add to my list to find someone who can come out and clean out the dead wood, and maybe drop that dying tree. Well, it isn't going to happen soon... Not to mention the roof repairs. Thank goodness there weren't any horses in there. They would have freaked.
Freakin' giant trees...