Upgrade Demon Begone!

10.10.2002

I am the worst when it comes to installing things on Linux (ask Jerry). When setting up the Open Bio webserver, it took me 2 weeks to get everything configured correctly. Along the way, I put together 4 pages of cut-n-paste commands on how to duplicate everything I had done.

I've gotten pretty confident about installing new PHP libraries and modules. The latest thing I've been playing with is JP Graph, a cool little graphing utility for PHP that generates the graphs as PNG images. It's neat, it's fun. It required me to load 4 modules to apache. That's where things get hairy for me. After half a day of playing on the development server, I got everything set up. It all worked beautifully. This morning I had to make the same changes to the live server.

I had my cut-n-paste instructions.
I had all the tar files in place.
I had the 4 modules configured, made, and installed.

How would it go? What would happen?

How long can I keep myself in suspense?

8 minutes after shutting down apache, I brought it back up with all the new stuff in place, and working like a charm.In the words of the A-Team, I love it when a plan comes together.

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Things You Never Want To Hear Your Mom Say

10.09.2002

Last night I'm helping Mom put up the valence I designed so meticulously. She had everything needed to mount it to the wall. Angle brackets, screws, drill, stud finder, the works! Being the manly son, I grab the drill and start securing everything. It's going find until, while mounting an angle bracket, the screw goes through some drywall, a little open space, and then finds a stud. Evidently, the screw I was using doesn't like studs, because it wasn't going in. Thinking I had the wrong angle, I put a little more weight behind it (and when I put a little more weight behind something.....), pulled the trigger on the drill and tried again.

At that point mom said "Your screwing now, boy!" which was quickly followed by a quick chill up my spine and a cessation of all drilling.

I hope I never hear her say that again, I really do.

Luckily, the rest of the valence installation went without any more problems. Well, I can't really hangstuff straight, but that's not enough of a problem to mention.

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<strike>Web</strike> Valence Developer

10.08.2002

Last week I ended up helping mom design a valence for the dining room window. She had a book with lots of different examples, but just couldn't find one she liked. Taking a page from the Web Developers Guide, I took two of the designs she kind of liked, smooshed them together, and created a hybrid that would work.

A little graph paper and some measuring later, and she's got herself a valence. Tonight I have to go by and help her mount everything on the wall.

Maybe now I start a new career in interior design? I could call myself "Mr. Russ" and say "Fabulous" a lot.

Or maybe I should just stay right here and keep typing out HTML....

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Weekend Update

10.07.2002

I managed to successfully not talk to Jerry yesterday. No one understands the importance of this except Jerry, which is as it should be.

Saturday I finally met my new step-mother. Granted, I saw her for about 2 minutes before she had to go to work, but at least I now know that she is not a figment of my fathers imagination. Although it is possible that he was someone he hired just to fool me. Or maybe the maid. Maybe it's best that I just not think about it.

Sunday I caught up with Anne and BT out on the river. I hadn't seen them in a while, and it was good to catch up. Mainly it was fun playing with their dogs. I'm such a dog person, I should really get some. If only I had the free time to take care ofthem.

Mom went with me and Gina on our ritualistic Sunday lunch jaunt to McAlisters. It was a fun little lunch, were I mainly behaved and stayed quiet.

I was so busy over the weekend, that I've got to find time to so the things I usually do on the weekend - like laundry. It's only more difficuly because I'm trying to work a little extra so I can take off Friday to go to Da Beach. It's 6:45 in the morning on Monday, and already I feel behind. It's just going to be one of those weeks....

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Jerry: Ptui!

10.06.2002

This is a special Sunday post that will only make since to Jerry, and that is how it should be in this instance.

Today is the National Day Of Ponchonian Mourning. It is traditionally the day I don't speak to Jerry. Long live Adidas running suits!

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