Tonight I updated the blogging software I use here to MovableType 2.21. Why? I dunno. It was working before just fine, but, happily, seems to still be working just fine. 2.2 has a new 'trackback' feature, which is essentially an easy way of creating two-way links between blog entries on different sites.
MovableType has worked really well for me since I started using it. I finally remembered today that I really should send in a donation for it. I'm always glad to pay for software that doesn't suck.
Speaking of sotware that doesn't suck, we finally bought Retrospect Express for Mac yesterday for Meredith's iBook. Having had to restore her hard drive (or try, at least) twice in the last three months, you'd think we'd have done this earlier. The backup took forever last night, but did finally finish. I did run into problems trying to get it to back up to fale (our Linux server). Retrospect can back up to an FTP server, which seemed ideal. Only it didn't work -- I kept getting 'error 225', which it said was caused by either the disk being full or the user not having write permissions. Neither of these was at all true. After poking around online some, I finally found the problem: it seems that Retrospect has a problem with FTP access with multiple active network ports. Meredith uses AirPort at home, but Ethernet at school, so both are checked in her System Preferences. When I unchecked all but one, it suddenly started working. OK, so it's software that mostly doesn't suck. Still more than you can say for a lot of things.
A few days ago, we heard many, many sirens for several minutes at one point in the morning. Later, we found this story about a man that CHP chased from Livermore all the way to Palo Alto. The standoff finally ended when the SWAT team, fearing that the man had doused his car in gasoline, finally broke open the windows and filled the inside of the car with fire-retardant foam. This is why I am glad I am not a SWAT member. I would not be the least bit happy about being told to go approach the car with the nice, seemingly totally insane person inside, who is possibly prepared to set his car on fire with him in it, and has God-only-knows what else hidden in the car — so I can spray some foam. Volunteering to shoot the idiot with a sniper rifle from 300 yards is one thing, but spraying the car full of foam? Not for me. It's an amazing job they do.
Yesterday I stood up in church and spoke for a couple of minutes to explain what the Staff-Parish Relations Committee does. I'm the new chair of the committee, and it's one of the least-understood committees in the church. I was later told that the Bishop (OK, not our active Bishop, but the retired Bishop who used to be senior pastor in our church and now attends every Sunday) "was so impressed he spent the afternoon calling people who weren't there to tell them" about it. Well, if I've impressed a Bishop, I clearly have done well. It's not every day that I impress a Bishop.
I spent this morning at work trying to figure out how to approve expense reports, now that I'm a manager again, and then how to file my own, since I had never had to at Microsoft prior to visiting Colorado a couple of weeks ago. The latter was more difficult, since the system told me that I didn't have direct deposit enabled. Which, when I checked, I did. Umm ... so, off to tech support to ask for help.
I am sitting here in the living room writing this while my wife, about six feet away, writes on her iBook — and sends me the occasional message over MSN Messenger. Ah, technology.
It is hot. Our swamp cooler wasn't working because the fan was grinding against something. I took the thing apart, and discovered that it was rubbing against the fan casing itself. The two look as though they're part of one unit, but obviously not. The solution is that if the back of the cooler is lifted a bit, so that it's leaning forward, it seems to be OK. So now the back wheels are propped up on the door jam. No doubt the wheels will eventually slip, causing the entire thing to back-flip out the back door. That will be exciting.
Meredith informs me that it is time to go read the poetry she has just written...
Posted by Mike at July 8, 2002 10:37 PM