What's a Delmer Look Like?

Posted by delmer at 7:29 PM | Comments (5)

January 26, 2007

Spice up your 2007

Like almost everybody else in the world I do some shopping at Amazon. This past Christmas I bought CDs, DVDs, some iPod cases and other items there. In the past I've bought software and some things for The Mighty Schwinn.

Just the other day I logged into my Amazon account and went to my personalized page which shows things Amazon thinks might be of interest to me. For example:

This makes sense. Over Christmas I purchased three Naruto books for one of the boys so suggesting I might want more is a good guess.

There was also this:

Which also made sense as I'd looked for quad runners and pocket bikes at Amazon.

This was there as well:

Madagascar DVD: I can see it. I've bought DVDs for my kids from Amazon.
Effective Java Programming Language Guide: I've bought programming books from Amazon.
The Ten Foods that Should Never Touch a Woman's Lips: This one is a puzzler. I've bought nutrition books from Amazon, but not involving woman's nutrition.

Inasmuch as I like to try something on before I buy it, I rarely purchase woman's lingerie from Amazon. So this caught me off guard.

I guess it would spice up my 2007.

Posted by delmer at 11:15 AM | Comments (2)

January 25, 2007

PB&J

Are you a dad? Uncle? Maybe you are simply an older brother -- but an older brother with a sibling that is about 15 years younger than you are; I'm not really interested in throwing any age/height charts together here, but that sounds about right.

The key to this whole post -- the things that need to come together to make you understand what I'm talking about -- is that you are a man and there is, or was in your past, a child who was so happy to see you that he or she would run toward you with reckless abandon and, leading with his or her forehead, deliver to you a testicle-crunching hug.

If you are a dad you have likely been lucky enough to have this happen to you almost daily for a year or more. Depending on your height and when growth spurts hit your child or children.

How, you may wonder, can a child deliver, with such accuracy and time and time again, such a dead-on blast? How are boys able to do this each and every time they hug you and yet not be able to hit the toilet even ten percent of the time?

If you are a man, you might suspect that this is Mother Nature's way of keeping the population in check; nothing curbs desire like a daily coco butt or two to the old cookies (except for bad hormones).

If you are a woman ... a woman who has given birth ... you know what's going on.

Spread across the United States there are hundreds of facilities run by women who are tired of popping out children. Having found themselves irresistible to men and that despite their best efforts -- feigning headaches, screaming out the names of men other than the one that typically crawls all over them (and realizing that screaming out the names of women only made him approach sex with more vigor), insisting on post coital cuddling, etc. -- their husband/boyfriend/milkman were constantly suggesting they sneak off together for a quicky. Especially if the husband/boyfriend/milkman had already been fed and the dishes were done. And there was nothing on TV.

Quickies, as women know, (and right now women readers are all saying, "aren't they all pretty quick?") are just as likely to lead to children as the quickies that are just a little bit longer (you know, the ones where the guy is left thinking, "I'm a machine!!" just before he slips into a coma, and the woman is left thinking, "Is there a door open? I thought I felt a draft. Is someone drooling on me?" just before she screams "Dave! Mark! Carol! Get off me?)

Realizing that nothing was going to make her unattractive enough to keep men off her and knowing that this was the leading cause of children and further realizing that, second to his car, the last thing a man wants banged on is his nuts, women banded together and developed a more effective form of birth control.

The Nutter.

Naturally, women can't go around all day blasting men in the balls. Well, a lot of them could but it looks bad in social settings and it's no big secret that it would just make men want them more. So, they decided to enlist the aid of their children.

Just about the time a child is approaching testicle height and so long as their legs are strong enough to propel them forward at a speed great enough to bust balls through denim, the moms will bundle them up and, under the guise of going away to "mothers" for the weekend, spirit the child away to one of the aforementioned facilities. Here the child will be taught the not-so-delicate art for forehead bashing a man's tool set -- sometimes referred to as Papa's Balls & Junk or PB&J -- while appearing to deliver nothing more than a running hug.

After successful completion of the course the child is typically rewarded with a box of Oreo cookies.

So guys, the next time you hear your wife or one of your kids say, "How about a PB&J," don't forget to cover up.

Posted by delmer at 10:19 PM | Comments (5)

January 24, 2007

What's wrong with this picture?

That oval-shaped basket amongst the clothes ... is a clothes basket. It's where dirty clothes are supposed to go.

If you look closely you'll see that someone missed and actually got a sock in the basket.

Posted by delmer at 11:14 PM | Comments (7)

January 23, 2007

Nextel Loves Me

My buddy Roy called the other day. I'd called him over the holidays several times and left messages about getting together and retelling the stories we tell during our almost-annual get-togethers. In the message he left for me, just a few days ago, he apologized for not getting back to me -- but the messages I'd left for him had not made it to his cell phone in a timely fashion. I guess I should have called several more times, I just didn't want to be a bother and wasn't sure he wasn't out of town.

I should have realized that it may have simply been a case of him not getting a voice-mail notification from his cell provider.

I don't know if Roy is a Sprint/Nextel subscriber or if he's with someone else. I do know he seemed to enjoy the voice mail message that greeted him when he called me. I've changed it to let people know that they are more than welcome to leave a message, but that I may not get it in a timely manner. I go on to tell them that there is a pretty good chance that my phone -- which is likely on my hip -- didn't even ring when they called. It's pretty much a rant about my phone problems. Just the other day I added a bit about how pressing '7' will allow them to leave a message immediately.

I was very excited to receive the above ad from Nextel the other day. Excited because it says right on the graphic that in order to take advantage of the offer I have to re-up for a year. I'm sure the similar item I received in the mail said the same thing, it just didn't jump out at me right away.

So, I agree to give them about $720 ... and they agree to give me $36.00 discounted off that amount.

If you're a regular reader, it will come as no surprise to hear I'm going to pass on the offer. For some additional bitching you can read how poor message delivery led to a missed doctor's appointment and kidnapping.

You may press '7' at any time to leave a message.

Posted by delmer at 12:32 PM | Comments (2)

January 22, 2007

Tears for Sears

I have had a Sears card for longer than I can remember. It was one of the first credit cards I ever had so I bet I've had it for close to 30 years.

I probably haven't used it in a couple of years and I probably haven't used it twice in the last 7 years.

And Sears is going to take it away. Take it away and replace it with a new Sears/Mastercard combo that I can use anywhere.

Just like my current Visa card. The Visa card I got to replace the Visa card I had that had a 7.9% interest rate because I thought 7.9% was too high ... even if it came with super-duper airline miles and got me on the plane first and came with some sort of companion ticket thing I never used.

Sears sent me a letter telling me about the new card. IF I DON'T WANT THE NEW CARD, and wish to keep the old card, all I have to do is call them and let them know.

All I have to do to let them know I don't want the new card -- that I want to keep the old card -- is call them. If I want to keep things the same as they are now, I have to give them a call.

Having to call them to tell them I want to keep things the same is almost as unbelievable to me as the fact that I actually opened the letter they sent. It looked like junk mail -- like one of those pieces I usually throw away after I make sure I don't recognize with of the "Have You Seen Me" pictures.

The way this should have worked is that IF I WANTED THE NEW CARD I should have to call them.

I don't want a new card. Especially one with the SEARS name on it -- they've pissed me off in the past (Have I written about the bad radio-buying experience? The bad auto-repair experiences (I had just one, but know of several) or the battery-buying experience of a couple years ago? I've checked, and no I haven't. However, here's a tire-buying story with a happy ending (No, I was not buying them at an Asian massage parlor)).

I certainly don't want a card with a 24% interest rate; which is what the new one comes with ... and it could go higher (or lower) depending on whatever current rate they've based it on.

I would have probably had a SEARS card forever. I probably would have used it at some point in the future.

Now I have to call them. And since I'm going to have them on the phone I'm canceling the card altogether. Even if the first call is some sort of automated thing and I never get to a real person, I'll make the second call to Sears and cancel the card I have to make sure this doesn't happen again.

After all, as SEARS was so kind to point out, I don't really need a SEARS card. I already have a VISA, and it's good at SEARS and so many other places.

Posted by delmer at 11:16 PM | Comments (2)

January 21, 2007

When the Snow is on the Wellses

Snow came to Columbus, Ohio today and since Hilliard bumps up right next to it, we got some of the overspray. The boys and I hit the slopes right at noon and stayed there until just after 2 p.m. They did some sled riding and snowboarding ... I did some keeping the van warm and reading.

The slopes we hit were at the Hilliard City Park -- the one with the larger pool. We don't have a whole lot of hills around us, but the park is home to a pretty big mound of dirt. I don't know why it's there -- I can only assume so kids can ride sleds in the winter.

After the fun at the park we shot home where we were greeted by two of our neighbor friends. My boys came in just long enough to change into something dry and then went out again to build a snow fort. I stayed in to do laundry.

Post snow-fort building the boys returned home and changed into something else dry. They had a quick bite and then we decided to run an errand. On the way back the boys wanted to show me the fort they'd built so we stopped by. I foolishly though the fort might have some sort of walk-around entrance. It didn't and access could be gained only by climbing up over the top. Sixty-six percent of the boys were snow covered before I could stop them.

Back home, they changed into something dry and then got busy quizzing me about when dinner would be ready.

Haydn, bundled up.

Posted by delmer at 4:52 PM | Comments (2)

January 20, 2007

Cialis and Wine

As you know, I have a couple of tumors on my pituitary gland that sort of screwed up my hormones. One of the side affects was that my libido went to hell. Another was that during those times I was trying to overcome the gone-to-hellness of my libido, the tools didn't work in a manner that suggested a problem with hydraulics.

With an honest-to-God hydraulic problem, thinking about the hydraulic problem doesn't typically make it worse. For example, I was watching a show on the moving of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse -- a project that involved the use of hydraulic jacking equipment, and I'm convinced that having one of the workers simply think, "Whoa, is it starting to droop?," would not have been enough to cause the light house to fall back to its original position.

With the human body, that simple thought is enough to cause any lighthouse-resembling body parts to lose their lighthouse resemblance and become more cooked pasta like (still more Sagne Incannulate than Angel Hair, and Manicotti'd for her pleasure, but noodly nonetheless). And that's the position I found myself in more than once.

Additionally, when moving a lighthouse, the fear that the jacks might fail when lifting the lighthouse is not enough to keep them from actually lifting the lighthouse.

With the human body, fear that the tools might not work is enough to keep them from working. I found myself there too.

And it's the fear we're going to discuss here.

For, even though I had the fear of failure, I was also confident that one day I'd be able to test that fear. And I wanted to be prepared! Up front! I didn't want to find myself years later having to ask for more troops to bail me out of a problem I'd caused as I worried about how I'd be perceived historically. I'm smarter than that. I can say "nuclear."

So, I called my doctor and asked for a Cialis prescription. I was going to be able to pick it up with my Cabergoline.

The grocery store/pharmacy where I get my drugs has a rope we're not supposed to step around until it's our turn to get our drugs. This keeps the busybodies in line behind us from hearing what we're picking up.

When I was next in line the twenty-something female clerk made eye contact, signaled me forward, and asked my name and date of birth. Armed with this information she retrieved my two prescriptions -- one, my Cabergoline, was already bottled and the other was written on a piece of paper. The bit of the writing on the paper I recognized seem to suggest the script was for 27 pills and the total was going to be very close to $300.00. This, in itself, left me with a cooked pasta feeling.

In a split second several things went through my mind: This has got to be wrong! I don't need 27 pills! Just a couple until I feel good about myself! Three hundred dollars!

I'm pretty sure I had a deer-in-the-headlights expression on my face that the clerk mistook for embarrassment because she started speaking in code to me. "This prescription," she said pointing to the Cialis prescription, "Is good for 27 pills."

Why are you speaking in code? Shit. Three hundred dollars.

"You don't have to get them all today, it's good for a year and you can get as many as you think you want now. When you come back, just let us know you want to refill this prescription," and she pointed again.

Why is she speaking in code? And then it hit me. She thought I was embarrassed. I was concerned about dropping almost $300 and she mistook my rats, three hundred dollars face for embarrassment and was trying to to protect my privacy ... which was the last thing I was worried about. Hell, I'd have been more than happy to have every single woman in the store know that with 30 minutes notice and just a little bit of coaxing I was going to be hard as a rock ... and, you know, just in case she got stuck behind someone in the Express Lane that had too many items and it was going to take her longer to get home than she thought, I was going to be good for three days (and experience suggests just a little bit longer than that).

I asked the clerk to quote me five pills.

I'm thinking if I decide to go in for a refill I'll have a bottle of wine with me when I get in line. Just to further demonstrate my level of preparedness.

[I'm pretty sure that fear of failure never really led to any actual failure -- it certainly didn't help, but my hormones were such that the lighthouse wasn't going anywhere anyway.]

Posted by delmer at 11:00 PM | Comments (3)

January 19, 2007

iBalls

I had the eyeballs looked at today.

After the exam the eye doctor asked if I'd ever worn bifocals. I replied "yes" and that my current glasses were, in fact, bifocals. Which I followed up with "Aren't they?"

He took the glasses and looked down at them and I could tell the was looking at the upper part of the lens and then the lower part of the lens.

"No. These aren't bifocals."

Which explains why I could never detect any difference between the top of the lens and the bottom when I did that tilting the glasses back and forth thing.

"Were the glasses I had before these bifocals?" I asked.

He clicked the computer a couple of times and gave me a "No."

Anyway, my new glasses will be bifocals. I told the doc I couldn't buy new frames until I came back with my glasses consultant.

The bifocals, the doctor warned, may take some getting used to. Things toward the bottom of the lens -- like my feet -- will appear closer and larger than they are until I get used to using the new glasses.

"That should make for some pretty exciting times in front of the urinal," I said. "I'll feel like 'Bob' from the Enzyte commercials."

"You know, I've been in practice for over six years and nobody's ever said that before," said my eye doctor. "You'd think that would have come up before."

Perhaps I should put a little more thought into the things I say before I open my mouth and just let things spill out.

I also got some new contacts. I never had much luck with the old ones and couldn't bring myself to go back to my eye doctor to have them tweaked. I didn't want to be a bother. It's a Midwestern thing. As a matter of fact, as I struggled to get the first one in today all I could thing was, "Hurry up ... this guy's got other patients."

For what it's worth, my eye doctor never seemed like he was trying to hurry me along. This was all me.

I told the doc about my apprehension over coming back too many times to have my contacts 'adjusted.' He told me not to worry about it -- "that's why we're here."

So, I should have new specs in a couple of weeks -- sometime after I'm able to drag my Eye Wear Consultant into the eye doctor's office.

The demo contacts I have in feel good. I believe I can see well enough with them in and believe they'd be even better if I'd gotten any sleep last night and my eyes felt better.

The Picture from this page is of the Hilliard Skate Area. I think calling it a Skate Park might be going too far though I know my boys enjoy going there. This photo is from one of our warm November days.

Posted by delmer at 11:50 AM | Comments (1)

January 18, 2007

Things I've Learned from My Children

Just recently I've learned:

From Haydn: That I was putting my MP3 player earbuds in incorrectly. I noticed that when he wore his the orientation of the buds were different from how mine were. When I place my earbud in my ear I sort of wedge it in and crank it down -- it wasn't always the most comfortable fit but the way it went in seemed to make the most sense to me in that the wire from the bud would be hanging straight down. The wire from Haydn's buds sort of point forward more toward the front of the lobe. It provides a more comfortable fit.

From Jack: And this I knew, but some adults seem to have trouble with it. "Honesty is the best policy." A week ago I went to school to retrieve an ill Jack. As it happens he had forgotten to do a piece of homework and was going to get a homework slip from his teacher -- however -- since I was picking him up early he could have gotten out of it as the homework wasn't due until later in the day. This wouldn't do. In the interest of fair play to the Catholic school system, Jack ratted on himself to his teacher and let her know he had failed to do the assignment. I know what you're thinking ... admitting your mistakes and taking full responsibility for them seems so un-Catholic and generally un-Christian. Politics are certainly not in his future.

From Sammo: Sam and I were at a hockey game -- The Ohio Junior Blue Jackets -- a few weeks ago. I know very little about hockey and, while I'll see every game Sam wants to go to, was bored out of my mind. It looks like it might be fun to play, but I can't sort out why anybody would sit and watch this. I guess some of the music they played during dead pucks was pretty good. Anyway, toward the end of the game I noticed that the goalie for the opposing team (maybe the Junior Indiana Ice) was gone. I asked Sam -- my eight-year old -- what had happened and the told me they had pulled their goalie. My first thought was, if they win maybe they'll be able to get a young lady to pull their goalies for them. My second thought was, what does that mean? and that's the thought I shared with Sam. He told me that if a team pulls their goalie they can put another player on the ice, and when I looked, I noticed that the Indiana Ice (if that's who they were) did seem to have more guys trying to bang the puck into the Junior Blue Jacket's net.

This is totally unrelated to the above, but, I'm proofing this at work and an announcement was just made that at 11 a.m. pizza and cake were going to be served in the Cafeteria. I love it here.

(Update:This entry was posted at 10:47. At 10:54 the first piece of comment spam hit it. I think this is a record for WADLL.)

Posted by delmer at 10:47 AM | Comments (4)

January 17, 2007

Things you missed during the blog screw-up

Last Monday: I had a temporary crown put on one of my teeth. That afternoon I had chicken that seemed to be a little rare ... which is never a good chicken thing. There was a bit of blood showing and I was torn between being nauseated and hungry. I eventually noticed that my thumb was bleeding and determined the blood on the chicken had come from a cut on my hand. Following another bite I noticed there seemed to be more blood on the chicken that could possibly come from a small cut on a thumb. And then I considered that there was probably just the right amount of blood if, say, I'd bitten the inside of my mouth somewhere.

The cut area is the inside of my lip. It is a nice, long, cut. Last night was the first night the pain from the cut has not caused me to wake up at least once. So, that was seven nights of disturbed sleep.

Last Friday: My oldest had an appointment with his doctor. I'm not going to go into details out of respect for my child's privacy, but, the thing I've worried about most for the past couple of years has been put to rest. All is well and I could not be happier. This is the thing I've prayed the hardest about. (Just because I don't always believe in God doesn't mean my children should suffer ... so I always pray they'll grow up happy, healthy and strong ... and for special things like this. Since Friday I've thanked God for helping us out with this.)

Saturday: Following breakfast at Mel's, I decided to take the Mighty Schwinn out. My new tights (Darth-Vader black) and balaclava had come (along with an extra-large Italian-made cycling jersey that was tight on my 11-year old and had to be sent back. This was not a Tony Soprano extra large) so I suited up and hit the road. It had been raining and the roads were wet so I put my geeky front fender on and then duct taped the back fender to the underside of my rack. I put on my heart-rate-monitor strap but was unable to locate the actual HRM; I'm sure I've put it someplace safe. Just as I started the ride it started to rain again. Fifteen miles later I was home, wet, and thanks to a brief stop at work had sold 14 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies for a friend's daughter.

While I was out riding an e-mail came in from another friend; we went out for burgers that night (and I decided I really need to start eating more red meat ... it is sooo good). Oh, I had two beers.

Sunday: I slept late then had breakfast at Mel's Diner. I did a little bit of side-work consulting for a client. I boiled 10 pounds of chicken and took care of the fish smell in the kitchen.

Monday: Well, I got the blog is up. While putting things back together I noticed that the default templates provided some text at the top of archive pages denoting Category and Month -- my templates never displayed this (though the code was there) so I fixed it.

Tuesday Night: Comments ... which had been broken ... should have started working. The funny thing about this is that each time I thought I had the blog fixed I'd test the Comments as part of the checking-things-out-process. And the Comments were always working. This last time I didn't check -- naturally, the Comments were broken and I hadn't noticed.

Alright. I think that brings us up to date.

Posted by delmer at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 16, 2007

Dreams: Killer Clowns

The other night I had the following dream.

I was watching television and a promo for a new Broadway Musical that was coming out was on the television. The musical was going to be called Killer Clowns and Bette Midler was in it. The promotional piece that showed the Killer Clowns logo and Bette Midler's name also said that all the music performed would be that of Steely Dan.

The taller buy from Hall & Oates was the lead and in the promo he was sitting at a table looking out a window or into a mirror -- you really couldn't tell. He stood up and danced toward the camera and as he did so there was some voice-over stuff going on. The voice said that this was going to be one of the first Broadway shows with really good special effects (but the voice said it in a more professional way) and as the voice ended the sentence another version of the taller guy seemed to materialize behind the first just inside the mirror/window. (I was paying close attention and noticed he didn't really materialize so much as roll in to the scene.)

The first guy did a spin and danced back toward the new guy, going around him in a way that suggested he didn't see the new guy as he was invisible to the first guy.

I thought, "This is amazing. It's a Broadway show and they've made it appear that a duplicate has appeared on stage." Then, as the second guy danced closer you could see it was really an acting double and not an actual clone.

Odd, eh?

Where did it come from?

Killer Clowns: The night of the dream I'd been reading Blogography and there was a bit about Killer Clowns there. I stole the picture in this posting from there.

Bette Midler: Dave (from Blogography above) asked the drones he exercises mind control over to vote for Cupid to be released on DVD. While casting my vote I saw that Bette! was another show I could vote for and IMDB'd it.

Steely Dan: Your guess is as good as mine. I own several of their albums/CDs.

The Taller of the Hall & Oates Guys: No freakin' idea. They were at Miami of Ohio the year after I graduated and I know their people went out 'recruiting' girls for an after-show party. That memory flitted through my mind a few days ago.

The window/mirror: Years ago, on SNL, Mick Jagger was on and in a sketch. Mike Meyers was playing his reflection and the two had a conversation with each other. Once in a while that sketch will come to mind, especially as Mick is now on Knights of Prosperity.

The whole thing is a puzzle.

Posted by delmer at 10:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Dreams: Carla Gugino

Here's another dream.

Carla Gugino and I were playing snugglebunnies. I won't go into any more detail other than to say that if we were doing what we were doing in a car, we would have been safer with her driving.

There was no car involved.

I've always thought Carla Gugino was a cutie; it was only a matter of time before she slipped into my dreams somehow.

I think this dream was triggered by the Knights of Prosperity episode that aired the night I had the dream. The Knights were trying to romance the woman who held the password needed to bypass Mick Jagger's alarm system and the young, geeky, virgin ended up in her bedroom with her.

This explains the setting Carla and I were in, the sexy-scary look in her eyes, but little else.

The geometry of our bodies can be explained, I think, by a reference I'd recently made that involved ears being used as love handles. (A female friend, upon hearing the crack, had wondered if men were able to actually breathe out of their ears.)

Carla, I'm sure, appears courtesy of the recent viewing of Night in the Museum.

(Though I thought she was great in Spin City, Spy Kids and Karen Sisco.)

Posted by delmer at 12:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 15, 2007

We're up and running

I may finally have the blog back up and running OK.

I've lost some comments and one entry.

Addressing the comments, I'd like to thank Rob for wishing me well with respect to the software upgrade. I'd like to assure Lady Penelope that it is my intention to get the kitchen cleaned this evening. And I'd like to let Dave know that part of the problem I had, I think, was similar to the link problem he had during the Movable Type upgrade he implemented back in April 2006. At least that was part of the problem.

Like I said before, the Linux-distribution part of the server upgrade went very well. And it seemed like the Movable Type portion was, initially, smashingly successful too; easier than I'd expected.

The first problem I noticed was that some internal links quit working. For example, the link Sam's Stool quit working and kicked up an error page. Some research showed that the link pointed to:

http://www.delmer.com/archives/2006/12/we_are_filthy_beasts.php

which is, in fact, the page that should have come up. However, the original link was

http://www.delmer.com/archives/2006/12/we_are_filthy_b.php.

So, during the upgrade, something had gone wrong. I recalled that Dave had had some sort of link problem and took a look at the Blogography Archives.

I could tell by looking at my links what the problem was, but I didn't know how it was caused until the visit to Blogography. The keyword was "basename." Dave described the problem, I remembered seeing a setting and found it on one of the configuration pages. I set the value from 30 to 15, which should have shortened the length of the link from 30 to 15 characters, and then rebuilt the site a couple of times. It didn't change anything.

As it happens, I dropped the MySQL tables this morning and recreated them all. It wasn't until I logged in to Movable Type that I realized I'd reinstalled 3.33 instead of 3.31. What the hell I thought, let's see what happens. I put in the settings I use and changed the basename length before importing my blog entries. All of the links worked. Sweet.

Unfortunately, another problem persisted.

Right now, if you were to click on the January 8 using calendar in the right sidebar you'd see:

Because Sixty-Three is the entry from January 7th and Next Tale of Nextel is the one from January 9th.

So -- you'd get links to Yesterday, Main and Tomorrow

After the install of 3.33 I'd get Yesterday, Main, and The Most Recently Added Blog Entry.

Prior to dropping and recreating the MySQL tables I'd had the above problem. After dropping and recreating and reimporting and using the default templates the problem remained. It may be soooo easy to fix, I don't know, I wasn't interested in that this morning.

Another problem I had, and this came after deciding to downgraded from 3.33 to 3.31 was that when I went to tweak my templates I got this error:

maketext doesn't know how to say: _SYSTEM_TEMPLATE_SEARCH_TEMPLATE as needed at lib/MT.pm line 855

I found that others had had the problem but I didn't find any solutions.

After getting that I did a total blowout of MT and reinstalled from scratch; the problem persisted. It wasn't until I dropped all the MySQL tables and started totally over that it went away.

I'm not bitching about Movable Type here. I didn't take the most scientific approach to my install -- I more or less expected it to work without any problems and applied a past-upgrade approach to the process. So, I didn't do a lot of pre-upgrade reading aside from the notes I've kept from past upgrades.

Also, I did a brand-new install ... not an upgrade. Maybe an upgrade install would have kept the links from breaking.

It had to be me. An incremental upgrade from 3.31 to 3.33 shouldn't be a problem. (The Yesterday, Main, Tomorrow thing is still a puzzler and had that not reared it's ugly head I'd be on 3.33 now.)

Maybe I did something early on, that I've forgotten about, that screwed me later. At some point, you know when you're beat and it's coming upon 4 a.m., you take a scorched-earth approach to your data and throw anything you can think of at it; it isn't really the best way to perform engineering or software upgrading.

Had I not been reconfiguring the server -- I added twice the storage with mirrored drives and upgraded the Linux distro -- I never would have changed my MT.

Problems I encountered outside of MT were:

At one point I forgot which version of MT I'd been using. A trip to Archive.org revealed 3.31 was what I'd had.

The new Linux distribution handles .htaccess differently than the old package and I wasn't prepared for that.

The only version of MT 3.31 I had was a Windows zipped version. When I moved it to the server none of the file permissions I needed were set and I had to do those by hand.

Things I did right:

I have a data dump of the MySQL database.

I have a MoveableType export.

I have copies of all my templates.

Mostly, I just backed everything up pretty well. (I did read up on this before doing anything stupid.)

How Long Did I Piddle Around ...

... trying to sort everything out, getting links to work, upgrading and downgrading? Because I was too stubborn (stupid) to give up and drop some tables?

Hours.

I upgraded Linux Thursday night ... I started the MT on Friday and put in 5 hours on it. Saturday morning a couple of hours and then from ... no, I had dinner with a female friend ... 10:30 p.m. to 4 a.m. was 5.5 hours. Sunday morning a couple of hours ... Sunday night from 7 p.m. until midnight.

Oh, 19 hours.

Finally: How Long Does It Take ...

... to drop all the tables, recreate them, reinstall 3.31 from old notes and set file permissions manually and reimport the MoveableType data.

Less than an hour.

Posted by delmer at 4:00 PM | Comments (0)

January 14, 2007

Jeez !

We'll be going down again the morning of January 14 to start all over.

The blog will not be bigger and better. It will not jump higher and run faster. It will not be new and improved. It will not be caffeine free.

I can only hope it will be the same.

Now, the underbelly of the blog ... the part you never see ... will be better, and will let me accomplish some work-related things. It will also allow me to read your minds.

If you only knew how many hours it took to get to this level of screwed-up-ness.

I was able to find others who had the same Movable Type upgrading problem I had.

I was able to find others who had the same problem I had downgrading Movable Type.

And these are just people that live on my street.

Well, maybe I had to Google for them. But just a little. It wasn't hard-core Googling. It was more the Cinemax version of Googling.

I didn't find any posted solutions to the problems, and I Googled like Ron Jeremy all full of oysters for those.

I'm going to time the reinstall tomorrow.

I'm reminded of a conversation I once had with someone I provided support for.

The user called and said he had an error message on her screen.

"What's the error say," I asked

"Er ... I don't know," came the reply. And then I remembered: I'd installed the Arabic version of Windows for this user just because I'm a mean bastard and I enjoy conversations like this.

OK, that's obviously not the truth. But do you see why IT people go nuts earlier than most?

"Can you read it to me?" I asked.

And he did. Proving he could.

Some dating stories came to me while I was riding my bike in the rain yesterday. And a blurb about something I learned from my children. I have a mysterious pain in my right butt cheek that wakes me up at night ... maybe I'll drone on about this later this week. Ah ... and I had some dental work done. If you had a twelve-inch male organ growing straight out of your forehead, how much of it could you see? Think for a minute ... None of it: Your testicles would be hanging in your eyes. That joke has been taking up space in my head for about 28 years. I was just curious about whether or not you were paying attention. I went grocery shopping today. I haven't done dishes since Friday. It was also Friday that I dumped the juice from and some small bits of a can of salmon down the disposal; yesterday morning the downstairs smelled like fish ... this morning it smelled even worse ... at noon I decided to run some water down the disposal ... why did it take so long to do that?

Posted by delmer at 11:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 13, 2007

More Testing

Once upon a time there was a post here about how I thought the software upgrade had gone well enough.

There was a bit about how more testing was needed but how I wanted to ride my bike rather than do any testing.

That entry was lost.

And now you have this one ... holding it's place in line. Just in case it ever shows up and wonders why nobody cared enough to recreate it in its entirety.

Posted by delmer at 2:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 12, 2007

We're getting close

Hang on. We're almost there.

Comments are broken and I've lost the last comment that was left. (Sorry Rob, thanks for the well wishes.)

More may be broken as well. Most of the upgrade went well enough -- it was just one or two things that added big chunks of time to the project.

Posted by delmer at 11:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 11, 2007

It's Started People

The upgrade has started.

Posted by delmer at 4:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 10, 2007

If a plane crashed

If a plane crashed on the Ohio / Indiana border, where would the survivors be buried? Nowhere ... you don't bury survivors.

It is for that reason I'm not surprised that the ferry survivors were found alive.

I didn't actually take a look at the link mentioned below, I was afraid it wouldn't measure up to how I felt said officials might look.

The story is about the recent problem NYC had with NJ stinking them up.

Posted by delmer at 1:48 PM | Comments (0)

January 9, 2007

Next Tale of Nextel

As I mentioned yesterday, Samson and I went to Monster Jam accompanied by his buddy Alex.

Alex had spent the prior night and I was to call his father when Monster Jam was over.

As I mentioned last month my cell phone service in provided (and I use the term loosely) by Nextel. Maybe you recall how I bitched about their inability to get my voice messages to me in a timely fashion.

Anyway.

Monster Jam ended around 4 p.m. The boys and I hung around for a bit and then hit the road around 5 p.m. I called Alex's dad and left a message for him.

He never called back. Or so it seemed.

At 7:30 I turned my phone off and on as someone had suggested it might trigger a message delivery if one was waiting. No messages came in so I called Alex's dad again. He answered and we decided to meet at CompUSA "in an hour" which made it 8:30 p.m. (This is only important only as it establishes the time I turned my phone off then back on. The boys and I were out having a good time so we were fine having Alex hang with us.)

Move forward to Sunday.

I was relaxing in a recliner and reading a book. My phone was sitting on the table next to me. Sitting and not ringing. And then at 3:52 p.m. the "you've got a voice message" sound started coming out of it. I looked at the display and found I had two messages.

Message 1: Saturday, 6:57 p.m.
It was Alex's dad calling to arrange pick-up.

I guess it's a good thing I didn't wait to hear from him. He may have charged me with kidnapping.

Message 2: Sunday, 3:51 p.m.
It was The Wife at The Time. She had called a minute before ... the phone never rang.

Posted by delmer at 7:55 AM | Comments (4)

January 8, 2007

Monster Jam 2007

Sam, his friend Alex, and I went to Monster Jam at Nationwide Arena this past Saturday. Sam and I go every year; this is the second trip Alex has made with us.

I purchased tickets on Thursday -- two days before the event -- and was torn over whether or not I should buy the higher-priced tickets or the regular-priced tickets. With a coupon from Advance Auto Parts (I picked it up when I got brake pads) my ticket was $11.00 (instead of $15, I think) and the tickets for the boys were $5.00.

There were some limited seats available at a higher rate (Ticketmaster doesn't have the info available anymore, so I'm sort of typing from memory here). I believe the tickets were called Gold Bowl and that the adult ticket was $20; choosing this also pushed the kids' tickets to $20. The adult ticket may have been $25.00.

So, my choice was $22.00 or $60.00. I went with the $22.00; service charges and facilities fees did all they could to get me to sixty dollars, but fell short just a bit.

In the end we sat three rows back from as close to the front as we possibly could have. I looked around for the special seats but didn't see any that were closer than the area we were in.

Anyway, Nationwide Arena is small enough that it would be hard to be too far away.

Wait, I've jumped too far ahead. The boys and I left home just after 1 p.m. for the 2 o'clock show so we'd have plenty of time. I found $5.00 parking that put us a block away from Nationwide. The boys and I got out of the van and, just as my foot hit the pavement, it hit me that the tickets were on the table at home. Fortunately, I live just under 11 miles from the arena.

We were back at Nationwide, having paid $10 for closer parking, just as the National Anthem started.

The Monster Trucks on hand were: Samson (from Circleville, Ohio ... about 45 minutes away ... and our favorite), Grave Digger (he's been around 25 years), FullBoar (from Michigan ... if you were from Ohio and had the insane-sports-fan gene you'd understand the significance) RapAttack, Predator, and the Safe Auto Minimizer.

As is typical, Quad Wars was part of the show. The last time we were at Monster Jam (at least I think it was the last time) Team Ohio was up against Team Michigan which, I thought, was pretty coincidental given Ohio State's arch rival is Michigan (Michigan University or Michigan State -- I'm not sure which. Neither school is my arch rival and, as I've said many times before, I lack the insane-sports-fan gene.)

This past Saturday's Quad Wars battle was between Team Ohio and Team Florida. This struck me as odd since Florida is such a long way away and I wondered how they'd come up in the pairings. As the quads raced around the track I switched my wondering to how I was supposed to tell Team Ohio from Team Florida; the announcer had said something about "colors" but it wasn't like each team had its own color quad. Finally, in the third heat I realized that some of the riders were wearing the same shirts I'd bought and sent to my brother and his family celebrating OSU's trip to whatever bowl it is they're in tonight. I, then, quickly noticed that the Florida guys were all wearing blue shirts with the same picture on them.

Just after I noticed the shirt color one of the Team Ohio guys seemed to have a bit of quad trouble. He had enough trouble that it made me wonder if it wasn't a setup for something. Toward the end of that wonderment one of the Florida guys ran into his rear wheel. Team Florida went on to win the heat.

As happened with the other two races, the captain of the winning team went to the winners circle for some post-race chatter with the announcer. When this race ended the Team Ohio captain rolled into the winner's area as Florida captain was bragging about his guys. Some words were exchanged between the two captains -- something about how the Team Florida guy had crashed into him AND something more about how Team Ohio would come out victorious just as the OSU Buckeyes would during whatever bowl game it is against the Florida Marlins.

And then it made some sense. Team Florida?! Of course! OSU Football sneaks into everything in this city. I will bet you that Team Ohio and Team Florida are all a bunch of local guys that get rounded up whenever something like Monster Jam comes to town or and I think this is less likely, they are a bunch of guys who travel with Monster Jam. I'll also bet that at least one or two of you want to scream Tostitos BCS National Championship Bowl and Florida Gators.

There were also some little kids racing small quads and a couple of fire-breathing machines that made an appearance and had a galactic battle.

It was a pretty full day.

Some Movie Clips and Photos (click to enlarge):

Safe Auto goes over the van : 729kb

Safe Auto Wheelie Competition : 1.6 meg

Samson Freestyle : 3.5 meg

Grave Digger Freestyle : 4.6 meg

Samson ... our favorite

You'll notice we sat behind David Crosby. Later in the show he shared his popcorn with us. In the foreground you see, Full Boar, Rap Attack and Safe Auto.

There are more photos in the extended entry.

This is how things looked about 10 minutes after David Crosby shared his popcorn. It was sooo gooovy maaaan. That's one of the fire-breathing vehicles, all the lights were our, I had to set the shutter to stay open a long time ... I didn't have a tripod I could use. In public.

The Safe Auto Minimizer ... 1-800-Safe-Auto ... pick up the phone, the call is free

Samson

Rap Attack

Rap Attack

FullBoar gets towed. He has a busted knuckle.

Quad Wars. Can you spot Team Ohio and Team Florida?

Little Kids on Quads

Just in case you forget where you are.

Predator got hauled moments after we took our seats.

Quad Wars

Posted by delmer at 7:01 PM | Comments (4)

January 7, 2007

Sixty-three

There are certain things I like to keep track of for reasons that escape me. Other things I track for very good reasons.

I track my blood work. Because I think the data may help someone else. I'd hoped to be able to draw some sort of conclusion that showed when my prolactin dropped x % that my testosterone rose y %. But that didn't happen; sometimes the more modest dips in prolactin led to the largest gains in testosterone levels. A blood draw is simply a snapshot in time and there may be other things, aside from the prolactin, that affects testosterone levels.

I track my weight. I know it has dropped steadily since my hormones have come around to a better way of thinking.

I don't track my cholesterol. It's always been good. I'm genetically blessed.

I track the amount of miles I put on The Mighty Schwinn. Last year, between May and December I rode over 1,400 miles. My riding dropped significantly in October, almost to nothing in November (due to surgery) and to not a big gob in December. I will do nothing with this info until next January when I look back and compare what I do this year to last year.

I track each ride. I download them into Topofusion and the Garmin software. I watch the little line form across the map of Central Ohio as my route is traced and I think to myself, "I remember that ... I remember that turn ... that's where the old lady almost hit me ... that's where I got lost" and then I never look at the data again. At least nothing except the total mileage. Maybe this summer I'll look back on the older rides and see if I'm doing any better time wise; now that I've got the new bottom bracket.

When I was doing my Enzyte experimentation I'd keep weekly records of my progress using a ruler I kept on my dresser. The ruler was sort of hard to explain to my kids and why I never wanted them to touch it was even harder. Two months into the trial I discovered that explaining the need for two rulers was even more difficult. Finally, when I found myself at Home Depot pricing yard sticks and calipers I decided I'd just start recording almost there.

I track lifting workouts. Mostly because I can't remember what I lift from day to day. I take this as a good sign as, if you've know any, all of your really big muscle-head types seem to be really stupid. I like to think their stupidity started with simple things like wondering what they lifted last time they were in the gym. (I don't know that the two go hand-in-hand, but the really big guys appear to be stupid and have balance problems; they seem to always be in a perpetual state of leaning forward into your personal space, almost like they're just a half-second away from toppling over onto you.)

Haydn has started working out and to encourage him to keep lifting I ordered us each a workout journal. I may check my old data at some point down the road and I know we'll refer to his as a means of encouragement.

I track how far and how often I run. These days, not far and not often. When I ran farther and daily I tracked every run. Aside from comparing races I never consulted the historical data.

Most days I track everything I eat using a program I have on my PDA. This is how I know I'm not getting all of the protein I need. Lately I've upped the amount of whey protein I take; the increase of noxious gaseous discharge suggests I am, indeed, getting more protein. The PDA still says I've got a short way to go before I get every gram I need. I never look back on this data past one day. I don't care what I ate two Mondays ago. I check the summary info each week and each month to see if the PDA and scale agree with respect to weight loss/gain. (They never agree totally, but I don't expect them to.)

This past year I read 63 books. Sixty-three that I've recorded anyway. I can't imagine I'll ever need to know that again.

I keep track of the women I've slept with. Just a list, it isn't like I spend a little time each month stalking each and every one. [There aren't enough days in the month to make the rounds (Ha ha ha! I kill me sometimes)]. The list used to pop up every once in a while and surprise me by still existing (much like Mickey Rooney did the other day in Night at the Museum). I think I finally got rid of the paper list and made an electronic copy. I also don't think I ever added The Wife at the Time to the list ... so I can nudge it up one. I review this historical data probably more often than any other thing I've tracked.

Sometimes twice a day if I'm feeling spunky and was going to be in the shower anyway.

Posted by delmer at 12:37 AM | Comments (5)

January 6, 2007

Before the Holiday Gets Away From Us

For as long as I can remember my mother has baked Fruit Cakes during the Christmas Holiday. If we assume my Fruit Cake awareness started when I was five that gives me 41 years of Fruit Cake memories.

I would almost bet that if you took all the nibbles of Fruit Cake I've had in all those years they wouldn't add up to a full piece. Certainly not a very big piece. Years and years go by without any nibbling at all -- primarily due to the fact that since I've turned 21 I've refused to eat any Fruit Cake during non-copulation years.

Not really. It's primarily due to the fact that I don't care for it. Fruit Cake, that is.

And I know for a fact that my mother makes some of the best Fruit Cake around as people, for years, have been asking her to make them this holiday classic.

Last weekend I was visiting the folks and mom asked if I'd like some Fruit Cake. I said 'yes' just because I was curious to see if I liked it as little as I remembered.

I had a nibble ... I still don't like it. And this is surprising. I asked mom what was in Fruit Cake she said nuts, dates, and (I think) raisins (can you imagine what this would do to Sam's stool). These are all things I like, and the stuff that holds it all together, the cake part, is pretty good -- it's no white cake with white icing, but it isn't bad. AND, the whole thing is doused in wine.

Fruit Cake should be a delight. I know anytime I've been doused in wine I've been a delight.

There's also candied fruit in there and this it the ingredient I have issue with. One bad ingredient spoils the whole cake.

Two years ago one of the Brits at work brought in something that was, I think, in a can or tin. He seemed pretty happy with it and shared it around. I had just enough of it (a nibble) to realize I didn't care for it. I swear, it tasted like Fruit Cake.

I thought it was amazing that the British and Americans could put together two different holiday desserts that tasted so much alike (to me, anyway).

The British dessert is Christmas Pudding. The ingredients all look pretty good though I take issue with 3/4 cup suet as I think this is something Americans hang from trees and feed to birds (all year long, not just at Christmas).

I also have a problem with 2 to 4 tablespoons of Brandy.

[I knew a girl named Brandy once. She was a fine girl. What a good wife she'd be. But, my life, my lover, my lady, was the sea (dooda-dit-dooda, dit-dooda-dit-dooda). I really do have a story about a girl named Brandy, but it's sort of short and may not be all that interesting. Not like the newspaper box thing from earlier this week. (You still have a chill about that one, don't you?) Did you know that on the Looking Glass Christmas Album (1973 Capital Records) there is a cut titled, Fruit Cake for the President; in the British release of this album this cut has been replaced with Christmas Pudding for the Queen.]

The problem I have with the 2 to 4 tablespoons of Brandy is that this seems to be an Americanized, sissied-up version of Christmas Pudding. The way it's been described to me, by more than one British person, is that a lot of Brandy is poured over Christmas Pudding. I don't know if this is an Imperial a lot or a US a lot but I'm certain either is more than 2 to 4 tablespoons.

You know, there's a chance that, were I to read the recipe I've linked to, I'd find the 2 to 4 tablespoons goes into the mix. Okay, I did and it does. But I've already made the Imperial / US a lot joke, so the above stays.

And, in any case, there is no way two to four tablespoons could lead to the Towering Inferno I've heard Christmas Pudding described as.

Oh wait. The recipe says Christmas Pudding is best served with a Hard Sauce. The recipe for Hard Sauce calls for three tablespoons of Brandy, rum or liquor. Which brings us up to seven tablespoons tops.

This isn't enough to make a hard girl saucy, let alone make a dessert flame. This isn't enough to make Liberace glow, let alone a dessert, flame.

I can't say I really care for either. I really need to start working on these things earlier in the evening.

Oh, before I forget, I want to point out that I've had a piece of Fruit Cake in the freezer for a week and it still has not frozen. I don't think it will. The alcohol content is too high.

One of the Brit's I work with -- probably both -- has had the pleasure of eating both Christmas Pudding and Fruit Cake ... quite possibly this Christmas season. I asked if he thought the two desserts tasted alike and he said they were certainly different, but a little similar (he may have thrown that in just to humour me). [He also said he had a houseful of Brits over the holidays -- I think we call this a 'sleeper cell' -- and they played some sort of drinking game in which cards were blown off something. I can only assume they play a game this odd sounding as British money is too heavy to bounce so a 'quarters' -type game is out of the question.]

The only Christmas pudding I'd seen, until this last Christmas, came out of a can from a local shop that caters to international folks (foreigners). This year I was lucky enough to receive a picture of a flaming Christmas Pudding from Lady Penelope.

My first thought, well, second after the A flaming dessert in the middle of the house on Christmas day! How cool! was that it looked a whole lot like Fruit Cake. Size-wise, at least.

Posted by delmer at 12:05 AM | Comments (4)

January 5, 2007

Cabergoline (Dostinex) and heart valve problems

As you know I take cabergoline (the generic form of Dostinex) twice a week. I take 1 mg on Tuesday and 1 mg on Sunday for a total of 2 mg; I used to take 1.5 mg on both days for a total of 3 mg per week. The high-end of the protocol recommends the 2 mg per week dose. So, at one point, I was taking 50% more than the high-end dose and I'm currently at the high-end dose.

Yesterday I stumbled across a story that stated Parkinson's drugs may lead to heart-valve problems. Cabergoline was mentioned as one of the problem drugs.

I read a bunch of the news articles Google offered up kept coming across this:

"In the first study, Italian researchers from the Istituti Clinici di Perfezionamento in Milan conducted an echocardiographic study of the prevalence of valvular abnormalities among 155 patients taking anti-Parkinson’s drugs and compared them to 90 control subjects. They report that the rate of serious valve regurgitation (irregular leaking of blood through faulty heart valves) was much higher in pergolide users (23 percent) and cabergoline users (29 percent) than in users of other Parkinson’s drugs (0 percent) or those not using any medication (6 percent)."

I read this a dozen times or more and was pretty sure it suggested I had a 29% chance of developing heart valve problems. Then I'd add that to the 23% for the other drug and come up with 52% of the people being treated problems for Parkinson's developing problems and I was sure if that was the case it would have raised a flag earlier.

So I'd look at it another way ... and reread it ... and decide it meant 23% and 29% *higher* than ... what? 0 + 6? ... then my head would ache and I'd get a pain in my chest that I was sure was a valve problem, except it was too much like the stress knot I used to get before I mellowed in my old age. Finally, I realized I was a far better Googler than interpreter and I shot off to Michael J Fox's site, which had an article from October 19, 2006

The article points out that there is a problem and reiterated what I'd read elsewhere -- that the problem is more likely to appear at higher doses and when the drugs are used for an extended period of time. You'll recall from above that I'm currently at the high end of the medicine-ingestion protocol. At least for hormone problems. I've been taking cabergoline for four years. From Mike's site I found:

The investigators point out that the mean daily dose was higher for cabergoline (3.8 mg) than for pergolide (1.4 mg) or pramipexole (1.7 mg).

Which is 13.3 times the amount I take weekly. (And, it must cost a fortune ... based on what I pay, the generic would run over $9,000 a month, assuming it is priced the same for Parkinson's as it is hormone problems).

I was starting to feel a little less depressed.

I did some more reading and found a couple of articles suggesting there is just the smallest chance of Parkinson's patience developing heart valve problems while taking any of the mentioned meds. So, there's a 29% chance or almost no chance of developing a problem.

The last thing I read, before shutting down the PC and turning to NewsRadio reruns was from the New York Times:

"The two new reports involve only Parkinson’s. The results should not be applied to patients who take Dostinex for the hormone disorder because they take far smaller doses of the drug than do patients with Parkinson’s, said Dr. David L. Kleinberg, a professor of medicine and director of the neuroendocrine unit at New York University’s medical school.

The hormone disorder affects tens of thousands of people in the United States, mostly women, said Dr. Shlomo Melmed, an endocrinologist and a senior vice president of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Men can develop the disorder, and some need higher doses of Dostinex than do women, Dr. Melmed said, so those men should be monitored for heart valve problems. "

This was very exciting right up to the last line, which dropped it to 'pretty exciting.'

Prior to the late-evening research I'd made some calls to the medical professionals in my family -- calling my General Practitioner was out of the question as she relocated to Florida at the beginning of the year (I can only assume the thought of checking my prostate later this month was more than she could bear) -- to find out what it would take to detect a heart valve problem. It would seem that when the doc has got the stethoscope on you, that's one of the things he's listening for (that and Cool Jazz). I had my chest listened to in November (the heart sounded fine and the nurse said she was able to detect a bit of Miles Davis).

This morning at Red Herring I found the dumbed-down version of the first article I read:

One study found that 23 percent of the 64 patients taking pergolide and 29 percent of the 49 patients taking cabergoline had moderate to severe heart valve regurgitation, as compared to cidences of valve damage on a different Parkinson’s medication.

Red Herring has The Business of Technology as their tag-line, which made me wonder what something like this was doing on their site. Then I figured that since their target audience is technology-type guys ... IT people for one ... they'd be fully aware that we're not the smartest lot when it comes to non-computer things. As a public service to the IT community [Did you know that in some states IT people are not allowed to marry IT people -- typically only if both people are either (A) men or (B) women] they went the extra mile and put the once-confusing paragraph into something IT folk could understand.

I can't wait to see what MacWorld has to say about this.

Posted by delmer at 7:34 AM | Comments (1)

January 4, 2007

Sleepovers

Over the holidays the boys spent a few days with Granny and Big D. During the retrieval visit Haydn got on the phone and called a buddy. This led to the Can Bob and I have a sleepover tonight question to which I replied "No."

It was a 90-minute drive down and another 90 back. It was going to be late by the time we got home.

"Sometimes I'm just not in the mood for sleepovers," I told my mother and father.

"I know what you mean," said Mom, "I think that when bedtime rolls around boys should be in their own homes in their own beds."

"Carol," I started, referring to a woman friend my parents know and who has two boys of her own, "doesn't care for sleepovers either."

My parents both started talking at the same time ...

Mom, with a very serious look on her face said, "She likes to have her kids at home in their beds?"

Dad, not looking as serious said, "No matter what you say you can't get her to spend the night?"

Which is where I was headed with the comment.

Posted by delmer at 8:08 PM | Comments (4)

January 3, 2007

The Boston Globe

Just about 20 years ago I lived in Lowell, Massachusetts. Right across the street from the Montessori School that pops up in Jack Kerouac's book. I lived on Wanalancit Street. One of my roommates, Jeff, was a guy I'd known since college.

About 10 years ago Jeff visited me in Ohio. As we sat around talking about nothing in particular he made a throwaway comment something akin to, "That is, if I can get the Boston Globe to give me a paper box."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Jeff went on to explain that he'd been trying to get one of those newspaper boxes that you sometimes see attached to mailbox poles. He'd contacted the Globe several times and had been assured, more than once, that they'd get him a box.

"Wait," I said. "I've got a couple in the garage."

Another friend, another Jeff (Jeff Dodge, to be exact) had given me a couple of boxes when I had dinner with him and his wife one night, many years before. Pack rat that I am, I had carried them 1/4 way across the country and from one home to another.

I gave Jeff one of the boxes.

What are friends for?

I still have this one.

Posted by delmer at 11:21 AM | Comments (6)

January 2, 2007

December 06 Search Results

It's that time of the month; time for the early-in-the-month search-engine results. The time I take a snapshot of search key phrases to see what accidentally brings people to What's a Delmer Look Like.

As regular readers know, Granny Gallery usually leads the list as men come here expecting to find porn featuring mature women; teenagers may come here looking for scantily-clad thirty-year old babes. Lesbians may come here looking for Hot Mature Woman on Mature Woman Action (isn't that sort of how the SPAM reads?)

This month, at least early on, Gyno Granny is in the lead; I've no idea what it could mean. I do know that in the time that has passed since I took the snapshot, Gyno Granny has dropped to the #2 position having been passed by Granny Gallery. If my search results were a NASCAR event, the Gyno Granny driver could simply announce, "Here I come," shift into a gear he didn't realize he had just seconds before, pass the Granny Gallery car, and lap the field.

Klee Irwin Dual Action Cleanse Saved My Life. What can I say. You go Klee. I'm guessing the searcher went to this page, as did the person searching for Boston Blackie.

Dostinex Recall, Androgel Doesn't Work for Me, and the Gyno part of Gyno Granny are entries that make me feel like I might actually be helping someone. FWIW, the Dostinex recall seems to be related to the packaging of the pills, not the quality of the pills in the packaging -- I've been taking the generic form of Dostinex (Cabergoline) for four months now, and it is doing the job just as well as Dostinex (click the Hormones category for more on this.)

Androgel didn't do much for me either. If you doc has suggested you go on Androgel, or another hormone replacement therapy without doing some blood work (and I mean more than just Testosterone) you need to do some more research into whatever problem you might have that led to your going on Androgel; it would have never worked for me. Use of some HRTs can lead to the aromatization of the extra testosterone -- it's converted to estrogen -- which can leave you feeling worse than you did before and can lead to gyno (You really need more info than you are going to get in this short paragraph. The Usenet group Alt.Support.Impotence, available via Google Groups, is a good place to start. This will take you to posts about Androgel)

Gyno surgery. I had mine in November. My insurance, surprisingly, paid for a bit of it. All is well and, had I not had other work done at the same time, I could have gone back to work the next day. There was never any nipple pain.

Ticket Cost at Gate Monster Jam at Nationwide Arena. Tickets are $19.00 (adult) and $8.00 (kids 12 and under). The boys and I will be going sometime this coming weekend.

How to Make a Tub of Jello, is another search that makes me feel like a helper. And I'm glad to see the dream is still alive.

Floor to ceiling bike rack diy. More helping ... which, again, is what What's a Delmer Look Like is all about.