JohnA lifeBlog

Greetings from Pensacola! Right now I am typing thing via my incredibly crummy and unreliable Sprint PCS “vision” connection, so who knows if I will actually be able to post this before I get disconnected.

The flights were pretty uneventful. I had to leave at around 8:30, and I rode BART into town, which happened to coincide with the Oakland A’s game, so the train was completely filled with drunken A’s fans. It was an interesting ride to say the least.

I flew Continental Airlines for the first time in years, and they are SOOO much better than Delta. I enjoyed the service better, they have a MUCH better frequent flyer program, and they were actually helpful as opposed to Delta’s staff. Combine that with Delta’s eagerness to profile their passengers for the federal government, it’s a no brainer.

I’m going to the beach tomorrow, and will be sure to take lots o’ pictures. E-mail or call if you want to chat! I love taking advantage of my free time!

Uncategorized

Okay, that was officially the most difficult thing I have ever had to do.

First, Chloe is a delightfully sheltered cat, and absolutely hates the outdoors. She freaks out whenever you bring her outside. So, that was the first fun thing. Next, I loaded her in the truck for the 10 minute drive up to the vet. She of course isn’t a huge fan of this idea, so she climbs under the drivers seat. When I finally get to the vet, I have to lift Jonathan’s CD Changer out from under the seat to extract her.

Next, into the waiting room for 15 minutes. During this time, she is perched on my shoulders, shaking, and every few minutes giving a tiny “This Sucks” meow. Finally, we see the doctor. Shot 1, fine. Shot two, she jumps, and the doctor sticks one of her blood vessels, so now she’s pissed and bleeding on the exam table. Shot 3, she hisses at the doctor (which she has been trained not to do… that’s a big no-no in my book).

Okay, shots are done. So we check out, schedule our followup appointment, and then it’s across the street to the kennel.

She is in a cage. Granted, it’s about a 10 foot by 6 foot cage with a blanket, toys and litter box, but it’s still a cage. At this point she is horribly confused, upset, and just unhappy. So is her owner. I leave before I get too angry to drive home.

So, I get to spend $175 I don’t have to get her vaccinated and to keep her caged up for 10 days. Lovely.

This sucks.

Uncategorized

What is wrong with people? Or, more specifically, what is wrong with people who think that a plush doll of a just plain weird Anne Geddes photo subject is worth spending $25 on. I’m SO in the wrong business…

Uncategorized

Kitty update: I found a place a few miles north of town that will board Chloe for $8/day, so I am going to board her while I’m in Pensacola. The only thing is that she has to be vaccinated before they will take her, so I have to have that done today as well. Poor girl… first she’s going to get shots, and then be in a kennel for 10 days. I just wish I could have found someone to take care of her while I was gone. Oh well. At least she doesn’t have to endure a 6 hour flight in the cargo hold of an airplane.

Uncategorized

Have you seen Johnny Cash’s video for the song Hurt? A couple of people in my men’s group were talking about it, so I decided to check it out when I got home.

Wow… I was dumbfounded. It is such a lament… it really drove home something I am starting to realize. I want to make sure that my life makes an impact that improves the world in which I live. I don’t want to be looking back on a lifetime and realize what I struggled to achieve was an “empire of dirt.”

I can’t stop watching this video… it is simply one of the most powerful acknowledgements of the importance of the roles we play in this world. It’s also interesting to note that the video was nominated for 6 MTV Video Music Awards, though it didn’t win any. The “Best Male Performer” award went to someone obviously more deserving than the legendary man in black… the “musician” Justin Timberlake.

I just guess his label outbid Cash’s…

Uncategorized

I never thought one kitten could cause so much turmoil.

Here’s the sitch: I adopted a kitten a while back, and it was wonderful. She fell in love with me, I with her. And life was good. Until the evil witch next door decided to start complaining non-stop to the office that we had a cat. Finally, they apparently got tired of listening to her, so they gave me 3 days to get rid of the cat or be evicted. We agreed to get rid of the cat, then immediately gave them notice that we are moving out.

Basically, I am trying to find someone to take care of the cat until Sept. 26. I am also trying to find a room for rent where I can keep the cat. If I am unsuccessful at finding a place, I am planning to move back to New Orleans or Pensacola on the 26th. I just can’t get rid of Chloe. She has been a very necessary source of stability in my life, and I don’t want to get rid of her for any reason.

Anyway, so I am trying to find a room to rent in Merced that allows me to keep Chloe, and I am also trying to find someone to take care or her until I move out of my current apartment on Sept. 26. Interested? Contact me via one of the methods listed on the sidebar.

All because the stupid neighbor wanted her son to live in this apartment instead of his current location, the apartment one away from this one.

Uncategorized

OMG! I didn’t know my brother had a website… That means you can now visit my entire family online. I have such a hip technically-saavy family. Now if my mom would just get DSL… everything would be golden.

Looking through my referer logs, I found another site of interest. Colin is an old friend from high school, and as one of my brother’s best friends. I found his website linked from Ian’s homepage. Anyway, it’s cool to see that a lot of the people from my past are doing so well. See… all of that computer nerdiness from high school paid off!

Uncategorized

WE HAVE A WINNER!

Ugh. I have spent every free moment available in the last week trying out a whole variety of content mangement systems. Here is what I have learned:

1. 99.9% of the CMSes available are far too complex
2. MySQL is such a tremendous PitA on Windows
3. RedHat is screwed.

Okay, so maybe it’s not that bad. But I have selected the new CMS for RainbowKids: CoFax!

CoFax was originally developed by Knight-Ridder for all of their newspaper properties. It’s modular design, clean interface, and delightfully straightforward source structure make it a perfect fit for what RainbowKids needs.

On a side note, I am planning on writing an open letter to RedHat informing them of how bad they have messed up ArsDigita’s ACS product, now known as Redhat CMS. The product has pathetic support, a ghost town of a community, and one of the most arcane and illogical development environments I have ever used. I wasted 5 days of my life trying to get the product to just install (I never did succeed, BTW). Compare that to 2 hours for OpenCMS and 30 minutes for CoFax. And I develop Java-based software for a living! I can’t imagine what some poor sysadmin has to do to get it to run.

Anyway, it has been a REALLLLY long week (and weekend), so I am heading to bed for some seriously needed rest.

Uncategorized

Okay, I’m looking at CoFax and OpenCMS as potential candidates for RainbowKids CMS Search 2003?. The both show a lot of promise. CoFax is actually what Knight-Ridder uses on their newspaper sites, so it looks like it is a natural fit.

The only downside so far is that both run only on MySQL. I prefer PostgreSQL, but beggars can’t be choosers. But since both products are Java-based, it shouldn’t be too difficult to implement PostgreSQL support. Nothing against MySQL, I just feel more comfortable with PostgreSQL. (Let the religious wars start)

AHH, but there is a tremendous benefit. I don’t have to use RedHat! Yay! I’m actually creating a new Gentoo VM to play with… VMWare is such an amazing piece of software.

I finished watching Matilda, and am now watching Gross Pointe Blank. It’s such a great movie… Joan & John Cusack do such a great job, and Minnie Driver is elegant as always. This movie should have had the best soundtrack CD ever, but they totally messed it up by NOT including the actual songs used in the movie. Such greats like Under Pressure, Let My Love Open the Door and 99 Luftballoons were ignored in favor of some crummy glam rock. Still a great movie, though.

Uncategorized

Ugh. RedHat CMS is absolutely beating me up. The only versions available to people who cannot spend $24,000/year on it are the old, Oracle-only 5.0 version, and nightly builds of their development 6.1 version. For three days I have been trying to get it to work on my RedHat 9 VM with no luck. I am seriously at my wits end, as it shouldn’t be this difficult.

Can ANYONE recommend an open-sourced CMS system? I’ve looked at RedHat CMS and Zope so far. Zope is pretty cool, but it’s written in Python (a language I’ve never used), so I’m a bit concerned about putting a huge site like RainbowKids on it.

Anyway, on another note, I was talking to a friend last night, and we were discussing how so many so called “family-films” are anything but, targeting only the youngest members of the family. As we talked, I remembered one of my favorite movies of all time that happens to fall into this category. Matilda is a over-the-top retelling of the Roald Dahl story of the same name. Amazing performances by Danny DeVito, Mara Wilson, and Rhea Perlman make this one of the most lighthearted and enjoyable family films I have ever seen. Plus, as director, Mr. DeVito makes some very clever shot and scene choices that add to the atmosphere. When watching, take a close look at the camera angles he uses as the family watches TV.

Well, back to RHCMS… I seriously am starting to hate RedHat. I use Gentoo whenever possible, but since RHCMS is RPM based, I really have little choice.

Uncategorized