Went wheeling over the weekend in CA. It was a blast.

Well, first I went wheeling here in Silver Springs. Just drove around in the “back yard” a bit. Then about noon I left for Emigrant Gap. I met up with the guys and we drove up to the top of the mountain. It was a nice drive. It was really cool at the top.

After messing around at the top we started our way down. On the way we found some snow! That was fun. Getting all sideways while driving up the hills and stuff was a blast. We also had a snow ball fight.

That night we had dinner at the church and played some glow-in-the-dark miniature golf. That was fun. I was +20 when it was all over.

The next day we drove to Sacramento to drive in the off road park there. Ends up it was closed for a special event. That sucked because we called on Saturday night to get the hours and it said nothing about being closed. If you ever decide to go to Prairie City Offroad Park, call them and make sure you speak to a live person to find out if they are open. They don’t update their web site, nor their phone message.

We ended up going to the Folsom Lake instead. It was fun. More fun than we expected. We did a bit of crawling, mud bogging, and playing. I was able to get a few good video parts. It was cool. I even got stuck in the mud.

So the weekend was a blast even if there was a small set back. I had fun hanging out with everyone and can’t wait for next time.

It’s been a long weekend. Well, actually I took Saturday off to go wheeling. Sunday I finished the roof and that just about killed me. Today we finished up the concrete work on our new garage. Now I have a full cement pad to start building on. Next the wall will start going up. Lot’s of stuff going on around here.

I can’t wait for the garage to be finished. It’s going to be great to get my crawler project in there and working.

Speaking of my crawler project. There is a pile of old concrete down town that looks like it needs a new home. I’m thinking about going over there and asking about it. Maybe they can haul it over to my top truck challenge course in my back yard. Whooo hooo.

Hello, Apple! Please, please fix the Finder. There are too many bugs to list here, but this is one that I keep running into. Your dialog boxes don’t stretch to fit the content, or the buttons don’t trim the text within to fit the dialog box.

At least check the file extension to see if it’s even sane before asking if I want to change it. How am I suppose to click the “Use .wmv” button if it’s clear off the screen.

It wouldn’t be too bad if the keyboard would work to change the buttons. Using TAB to move from one to the other, you know, like in all other operating systems. Even arrow keys would help.

This is rather annoying to have to go to the Terminal to rename files.

The roof is almost half re-roofed. Today my dad and I spend the mid-day roofing. It was nice to hang out and stuff. Even Jane and Sophie spent the day on the roof with us. Jane helped out by handing down shingles and Sophie held the shingles in place so we could nail them in. ;-)

We started the front side at about 11am and finished around 2pm. We just took it easy and didn’t try to go too fast. We still have the very top to finish but we are going to start the other side first. That way the shingles will be off the top when we start the top.

We are also going to make some rake shingles to put on the rake of the roof. That should make it look much better than just having the metal up there.

Boy, I can’t wait for it to be finished. I’m wiped out.

I just watched the latest Apple Keynote that Steve Jobs gave in San Jose today. I’ve got to say that Apple is on top of things lately.

The new iMac is cool. The new iPod is cool. The new iTunes is cool. But downloadable TV shows for a buck ninety-nine is just awesome! Finally someone gets it. It’s still a bit over priced, but just the fact that you can download a TV show, copy it to your iPod, and watch it anywhere is just great! Right now it’s just ABC doing it, but soon….

Another cool thing is that iTunes has Podcasts. Podcasts are awesome. I’m just getting into them. Basically they are pirate radio on the internet. It’s great! Give a whole new level of interest to the internet.

Video Podcasts are next. Think pirate TV! I can’t wait.

I just installed Text Pattern for my journal. I may or may not keep it. It did import all my previous journal entries, but I can’t get the comments to display on the old items.

Anyway, I’m going to just play with this for a while and see how it goes.

I checked the current browser usage stats for the average browser width and it's now 1024 pixels wide. The standard for web sites was to make them 768px wide to fit on 800x600 screens. Looks like about 75% of the users are now using 1024px and bigger screens for browsing.

In light of this new standard I have increased my journal size to 900px wide. All my web sites for now on will be 900-950 px wide.

This should solve the first question I get from my customes, "Why is the screen so small when I maximize the window?"

So yesterday my DB server crashed when I was updating the portupgrade package. So I flip off the power switch, wait a few seconds and flip it back on. Well, I guess my 1500W inverter can't handle the load of a dual Xeon starting up with 5 other servers in the rack. It knocked out all my servers.

I knew my DB server was getting ready to go. It's a very old system. Like about five years old. I also have two other old systems that don't like to be power cycled. One being my development server and the other my email server. The email server just started acting up the last powercycle.

Anyway, I could not get my email server to power up at all. It just sat there with a blank screen. After about 45 minutes of no email server I just pulled the server out of the rack and installed it in a desktop system I have here. I was going to do that anyway so that I can get the email moved over to Speediwifi. It's mostly their accounts anyway.

So late last night I ordered three new IBM eServers for a total of $1300. I sure hope they are good servers. They were really cheap. They are IBM, and nobody was fired for buying blue. ;-)

I hope to get them by next week. Then it's going to be a install marathon. Three servers as fast as I can get them installed. At least I'll have the latest and greatest installed on them.

So I'm sitting here doing my work, no problems, then suddenly... No internet. I check my SBC switch and it's totally dead.

My first though is that the wires came apart at the phone box outside. So I go out to the phone box and check it out. Nope...

So I call Speediwifi and check their T1. Their also offline. So it's more than just me. OK, phone company did something...

I look down the street and see a trencher and a back hoe. Hmm... I'm thinking to myself that they are responsible.

Just about 10-15 minutes later a SBC truck pulls up next to the trencher. They look around a bit... Then 20 minutes later three trucks pull in.

Dave, with Speediwifi, went over there to check it out. The trencher dug up 150 feet of 600 pair line. They are going to have to dig an 800 foot trench to replace the cable. They then will have to splice 2400 wires before all it good again.

ARG! That's going to take all day.

It's been weeks that I've had Jane's birthday present sitting under my desk waiting for her to open it. Last week I wrapped it and put it on her desk so it could tempt her all week long. Today was the day that she could finally open it. Today is Jane's birthday.

It told her that she would never guess what it was. Normally I would buy her a computer, iPod, or other computer related things. But this year I though that I would really surprise her.

She opened it, but could not believe what she was looking at. Diamond earrings and neckless. She was completely blown away.

Lets just say I scored a few points this year... ;-)