Tech Support
If you have ever called tech support for any reason, you know what I'm about to say.
In my case, my server (orcsports.com) was running slowly. People could do stuff as long as they didn't have to download an image from the server. This is really odd behavior, needless to say. So I went to see if I could figure out what was going on with the server. Why was it so slow? I did my usual checking, even tried rebooting it, downloading the latest patches, all that. No change. I couldn't even reach it from within the network that the server is on!
Well, I couldn't spend the whole day looking at it, so I went back to work. When I got home after work, we did the usual evening stuff. Then, around 9:00, I sat down with the server again. Okay, server, just you and me. Let's figure out why you're so slow. I ran through my usual checks again and got nowhere. So I figure, alright, I can't think of anything else to try, and I know this is probably futile, but I'll try calling tech support.
I get on the phone with operator number such-and-such (spoken so quickly that there's no chance you can write it down in case you need it later). She actually kindof sounds like she knows what she is talking about, or at least knows how to find out what she needs to know. In spite of that, her first recommendation: Reboot. She then runs through a list of half a dozen other things that I already tried, and puts me on hold a couple times to talk to other folks who might know what is going on with the connection. In the end, we were hesitant to make any substantive changes to anything and decided to just "wait and see."
In the morning, everything was working fine. It's been working fine ever since (knock on wood). Who knows who did what, or why it was doing what it was doing. It's one of the great mysteries of the universe. I'll go ahead and credit tech support with the fix for now. I certainly didn't do anything.
... And as I try to post this to my blog, I get an error from blogger.com! It's not my fault, folks!
Labels: orcsports
Mawwiage is what bwings us togewther today
The current institution of marriage "until death" is archaic. Our lifespans are so long now that who could stand to be with just one other person for that whole time? I think marriage until death should be abolished in favor of a simple ten-year contract, kindof like an enlistment. You get together, you decide you want to make a go of a life together, sign here and go through whatever marriage ceremony you find appealing/affordable. At the end of 10 years, you evaluate where you are and either 1) extend the contract by another 10 years or 2) go your separate ways.
This has some distinct benefits: First, the divorce rate will plummet while people just wait until the end of their sentenc^H^H^H^H^H^H^H contract term. If this is your first go-around, maybe you've got kids now, and they're at that age where another 10 years would do everyone some good. Sure, you may be trying to make it work for the sake of the children, but now there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Moods are bound to get happier!
Second, after about 9 years, the idea of courtship re-enters the relationship as you try to sell each other the contract extension. Romance is back and - what the heck - how about another marriage ceremony to celebrate? It's been 10 years. You could use a new toaster.
Does the side of my face look fat with my tongue in my cheek?
Labels: philosophy
I hope that sign didn't cost $1 million
I have TiVO, so I tend to watch TV shows after everyone else has. Truth be told, I watch a lot of television shows. Too often, shows I like ends up getting canceled at the end of their first seasons or before. But that's not why I'm writing.
I watched the America's Got Talent finale', in which they awarded the $1m grand prize to Bianca Ryan, a cute little girl with a HUGE voice. It aired last week. I watched as Regis broke the final ten into two sides of five acts, and then dismissed one of the groups of five. Next, he called down two acts out of the remaining five and told them they were the runners-up, leaving the winner and two acts that didn't win anything. I thought this was about the stupidest way to go about it, and the ending was really, to quote my wife, "anticlimactic." I was fine with who had won, even though I voted for a different act. And they really spent a lot of time and effort making that "$1 Million" sign, don't ya think?
After the prize was awarded, Regis asked Bianca, "How do you feel?" She answered, then he asked a second and a third time, and she answered again. Then that was it! They ended the show right there! They really wasted a lot of time with their approach to building suspense (which with TiVO is mostly wasted anyway).
I still think At Last and All That both have a future doing what they did during the competition.
Labels: television
Queenmaker
On Sunday, I woke up about 15 minutes before my alarm clock went off. Sure, I've done this before, but not when my alarm is set for 4:50 AM. That's what it was set for on Sunday, though, since I had to get up, get dressed, load the car, and drive myself up to Boulder to meet up with my team at Denny's at 6 AM. What kind of team, you ask? Why, it's my
IFGS team, of course! It's not like I participate in any kind of "normal" sport. IFGS is a LARP, or Live Action Role Playing game. The team was going into a game called "Kingmaker."
Breakfast took probably three times as long as you would have expected, since the team members arrived over the span of about 40 minutes. I was the second one to arrive. We did some planning for the game, familiarizing ourselves with our character's abilities, and introduced the characters to each other for those that hadn't met before. Then we all drove up to the Heil Ranch and started getting ready for the game. I was playing Varanus Pakys, my lizard fighter character. I put on my costume and had someone do my face paint. I have a hood, but paint my face to match rather than wear a full-face mask in 90 degree heat. The picture above is me in the costume, though this is from an earlier game and the face paint had already worn off part-way.
We were ready to go pretty much on-time and set out up and down the hills of the Heil. The game centered around determining the next ruler of Setse, a land that had just lost its king to a suspicious disease. The land does not believe in the tradition that the first-born heir should become king, but an heir is okay. Well, there were four heirs, one of which was female. Our task was to travel around and interview each of the heirs, as well as talk with the people of the land, and to come to a decision on who would be the next ruler of the land.
We set off and talked with each of the heirs. During our travels, we fought against some huge oddly-colored bears, talked with a witch, and had to cross an interesting ropes/cargo net course. There were four ropes going across a path in a zig-zag pattern. They were about waist-high. There was a fifth rope that cut across all the others, but it was probably 10 feet off the ground. The idea was to use the fifth rope to balance and walk across the other four. In addition, there was yarn "vines" on the ropes. If you touched them, it hurt. I hit one, but the vine's barb was unable to get through my armor.
In the end, we selected Margurite, the female heir. This, of course, angered the other three, and their representatives and gathered attendants attacked us, claiming that we were somehow biased. A big fight ensued. At one point during the fight, Matt (playing one of the "bad guys") and I were faced off. He pulled a "sacrifice throw," which knocked both of us down a moment. When we got up, I started chasing him. As I recall, we ran into another couple of people who were fighting, and Matt fell in front of me. I half tripped/half rolled over him and lay sprawled on the ground a moment. Once we knew everyone was okay, the fight kept going. In the end, we were victorious, but I was very close to having been taken out of the fight.
After the final fight, I actually had a bit of trouble breathing. I was coughing and wheezing and generally sounding horrible. I'm not sure if it's just because I'm old and out-of-shape or if it was the dust kicked up in the fight, but it took a few hours for me to feel really back to normal again. The other thing that was going wrong throughout the day was the fact that my shorts (which I was wearing under my costume) kept sliding down on me! I had to stop every so often and hike 'em back up again!
It was a long game - 9 hours on paper, and 7 hours for the team to go through - but great fun! I drove home and crashed on the couch. Taking inventory, I found that my feet hurt, my legs were tired, the top of my left leg hurt, my back hurt, my stomach was a little upset (since I think I ate too much when I got home), my lungs were not happy, and I had slightly pulled my left bicep. So basically from the shoulders down I was a mess!
Here it is the next day and I am much happier, with only some small residual pains remaining.
Labels: ifgs
What the truck?
Now that I have had a chance to drive the Tundra around for a few hundred miles, I have noticed a couple really minor things that I think are "wrong" with it. These are really just cosmetic things. None of these in itself would have prevented me from buying the truck, or favoring some other vehicle over the Tundra, so I'm just being nit-picky.
The first thing is the cruise control's... well, control. It's on a little stick that is mounted on the steering wheel. This means that whenever I turn the steering wheel, the little stick has moved to a fun new location. Sure, it's a predictable new location, but I just haven't gotten used to finding yet. Besides going for a ride on the steering wheel, this little stick moves in three different directions (up, down and towards the driver), with an added little button to turn it on. This is not what I would call good design. From just the perspective of using it (assuming you've already found it), this means you have to know if the cruise control is already on or not. Sure, you can look down at the dashboard to see if the little green "Cruise" light is on, but that's an extra step. If it isn't on, you have to push the little button to turn it on, then push the stick down to set the speed. That's two steps where there should be only one. If it is already on and you do this, the first thing you did was turn it off so setting the speed kindly ignores you.
The second problem has to do with the competition between the door handle on the driver's side and the window controls. The way it is positioned, when the door is closed, the handle does its best to block the window controls from the driver's reaching arm. It makes it uncomfortable to open and close windows in the truck. At least the back window is not subject to this, since it's in a
completely different place. But you would think that the truck designers might have tried to open and close the windows while the door was closed at some point and said, "Hey! Dis thingy here gets inda way of doze thingies dere." Gotta love how the car engineers in my head talk.
Finally (for now - give me a break, I'm still getting used to it), there is a little nub on the floor that holds the floor mat in place. This little nub sticks up only a little bit, but it's in the perfect place that I rest my foot on it
every time I drive. I'm wondering how difficult it would be to cut the little nub off, but I'm afraid it might void my warranty, like opening my computer case does.
It's still a nice vehicle, to be sure.
Labels: truck
Vacation, day 4 of 4.
My wife, daughter (16), son (15) and I took a short 4-day vacation to the western slope of Colorado, from Friday to Monday. I thought I would share a couple stories from that trip.
On Monday, we drove back to Denver... indirectly. We stopped in Palisade for some peaches and tomatoes, then, realizing we were going to get back to Denver kindof early, decided to take one of the scenic byways off I-70. This particular scenic byway, though, was not very well marked. At one point, for no apparent (to me) reason, everyone in the line of cars EXCEPT US turned left at the light in the middle of some small town. There was no sign, no indication that we should turn, but it seems that everyone but us just knew to turn there. So after a short tour of the small town and finding the extent of their paved roads, we turned around and headed in the same direction as the rest of the cars had gone. Yep, this is the right way to go.
At one point, there is road construction on the scenic route, and we found ourselves behind a camper trailer. This gave us enough time to notice that the name of the trailer was PlayMor, but also that the license plate was a U.S. Government tag! And really, hasn't the government played enough lately?
A little while later, there’s a sign saying “pavement ends.” Another mile or two later, the pavement finally did end. We think they’re working on their road and just forgot to move their sign to tell you when they quit working on the road. So now we’re driving along this dirt and gravel road through the countryside. It’s pretty nice, but there’s still that problem of lack of signs to tell you you’re not heading off into Deliverance country. At one point, we get to a T-intersection. The left is the way that it seems most people go, based on the wear and look of the road. So we head left a little ways and the road turns, starting to head us back towards the last little town we just finished driving through! So we turn around and go the other way. Yep, this is the right way to go. I love driving with the Force. (Stretch out with your feelings!)
So we’re winding through the hills on this dirt road, and we’re noticing that some of the dirt looks like it was recently stirred up, like someone has done some work on the road recently. We go around the corner of a hill to see a road grader coming up the hill at us! At least we see each other and I am able to get past him without too much difficulty. This was actually the wide part of the road.
We continue on our way without too much difficulty after that, finally reaching I-70 again. We begin heading east on I-70 when traffic starts to back up and we see construction signs telling us that the highway gets reduced to one lane. My wife pulls out the map and tells me that we can take the next scenic byway. I get off the exit and we drive up to Leadville. If you’ve seen a map of Colorado, you know that Leadville is not what you would call “on” I-70. In fact, driving to it and back from I-70 is about equivalent to driving up one side of a mountain and down the other. But we got there and opted to take in some of the local color by having dinner... at Pizza Hut. When we got back to I-70, apparently the construction crews had gone home for the day since all lanes were open the rest of the way down. We got home, unpacked, started some laundry, and found that the TiVO was full, so watched several things to make some room. Vacation was nice, but it was good to sleep in my own bed again!
During the trip, we found about 5 or 6 different times when we thought it would be nice to have the truck rather than the van. On the other hand, we found a few ways in which the van was really the best choice, like when it rained, or when we only had to fill up the tank twice.
Labels: vacation
Vacation, day 3 of 4.
My wife, daughter (16), son (15) and I took a short 4-day vacation to the western slope of Colorado, from Friday to Monday. I thought I would share a couple stories from that trip.
On Sunday, we rolled out of bed bright and early - around 10 - and made our way down to the Black Canyon near Montrose. This is the national monument that was recently expanded in area by President Clinton. On the way down, we saw a car on the northbound lane that was overheated and spewing steam. Before we could call it in, a state policeman was already moving in to help them out.
We drove up the access road, making stops along the way to look at the canyon. It's so deep so suddenly! It's gorgeous (no pun intended)! It's amazing to me that the Empire State Building puts up so many things to keep people from jumping to their death, but you come to the Black Canyon and there are a couple small pieces of wood separating you from a 2,500-foot drop straight down.
We made it to the end of the northbound road and had a quick bite to eat from what we brought with us: elk sausage, dried fruits, some nuts and water. With my daughter not feeling well, three of us took an hour and hiked the ~1.5 mile trail at the end, reading through the guide booklet as we went. Towards the end of the trail was a bird in a tree, making quite a lot of noise as if to say, "hey tourist - take my picture!" So I did.
(Anybody know what kind of bird this is? It looks like a gull, but sounds nothing like one.) Right as I put the camera down, the bird took off from its tree perch and flew RIGHT AT ME. It buzzed past me on my left and flew out over the canyon.
It was starting to get late, so we got back in the van and drove down to the highway, then made our way back towards Grand Junction. We stopped for dinner and returned to the hotel. The kids and I went swimming in the hotel pool while my wife relaxed and showered in the room. The pool water felt warm until I went and sat in the hot tub for a few minutes. Then suddenly the pool lost all its appeal, so I showered off and went back up to the room.
I think we all went to sleep pretty early that night.
Labels: vacation
Vacation, day 2 of 4.
My wife, daughter (16), son (15) and I took a short 4-day vacation to the western slope of Colorado, from Friday to Monday. I thought I would share a couple stories from that trip.
Saturday morning, we once again hit the Village Inn. It was too early for pie this time, so we had normal breakfast-type food. We then took a quick drive to Aspen,
just to say that we were there. We did a quick lap through downtown, and were pretty lucky in avoiding the stupid pedestrians and the stupid drivers trying to pull out in front of you. Oh, yeah, and the stupid girl on a bike who was standing motionless for a while, then started to cross the road right after my light turned green and my foot was on the gas.
We returned to Glenwood Springs in plenty of time to meet up with our whitewater rafting guide. After a few minutes of formalities (sign here, put this on), we got into the raft and headed down the Colorado River. This was the first time for my kids and me in a raft. I think my wife has done some rafting before in a previous life.
As we're alternating between floating lazily down the river and getting soaked as we bounced up and down on the churning water, the rafting guide is telling us various amusing stories, including some of the places he has visited. "The worst reason for going some place," he tells us, "
is just to say you were there." So true. The rafting trip lasted around two hours and covered about 8 miles of the river. It's a pretty trip, but would have been better had it not been for the power lines, railroad tracks and highway that parallel the river. We'll have to look into a more secluded trip next time.
After rafting, we headed south a ways to a BBQ/steak place we noticed on our Aspen trip. My wife and I shared a really good piece of dead cow. The kids got sandwiches. After dinner, we headed to Grand Junction. We had reservations at the Holiday Inn Express. While I don't feel any smarter, it was a good place to stay. Apart from having a view of the junkyard -- I mean, automobile recycling center -- the hotel is reasonably new, and the beds were pretty nice, with two pillows per person. That should be a standard measure of a hotel - pillows per person, or PPP. I think something like that should need to be disclosed in any advertisement for a hotel, just like I think the size of the screen should need to be disclosed in any advertisement for a movie theater. Several times now, I have walked into a movie theater and immediately felt cheated because of the size of the screen. Anyway, where was I...
Oh, yeah... So I still didn't have anything to use as pajamas, so we left and went to the Target near the hotel. My son and I (both of whom forgot pajamas) got what we needed, and we wandered the attached mall. Hey, look - they have a Dairy Queen! 9,000 calories later, we left the mall with our new pajamas and a couple other essentials, like a Cat-a-pult - a hand-held device that tosses little plastic kitties.
Labels: vacation
Vacation, day 1 of 4.
My wife, daughter (16), son (15) and I took a short 4-day vacation to the western slope of Colorado, from Friday to Monday. That would be why I didn't post anything here during that time. I thought I would share a couple stories from that trip.
Our first night was spent in Glenwood Springs. We made reservations at the Affordable Inn, not knowing that "affordable" in this case was really just "an excuse to not try very hard." The first thing I noticed upon walking into the lobby was the smell of stale cigarette smoke. Being a pretty strong (not-quite-militant) anti-smoker, this means I'll just never stay here again. The smell of "fresh" cigarette smoke was wafting in from the courtyard where someone was smoking next to the hot tub. Okay, I won't be using that, either. The beds were terrible, and the one pillow per person was just not enough to compensate. While bringing our stuff into the room, I noticed that the area inside the other entrance smelled of stale cigarette smoke, too. The room didn't smell of smoke, but the air conditioner contributed its own odor to the room. We opened the window for a while, but the second-floor room turns out to be on the ground level on the other side of the building.
We had a quick dinner at a restaurant located in the Denver Hotel. I don't remember the name of it, but they had an 8-beer sampler that allowed us to try some different beers without getting totally blotto. This is a good thing when traveling with the kids. For the record, I think my favorite was the light honey ale whose logo they sell on t-shirts.
After that, we headed up to the Glenwood Caverns. $18 per person gets you a ride up the gondola, which gives you a pretty good view of the valley that Glenwood Springs is located in, and a one-hour tour of the caves. They also have an alpine slide that we rode after the cave tour, for an extra $25. I rode down with my wife, which was fun. It was dark, which made it even more fun. A quick stop for pie at Village Inn and we were back at the dreaded room. It is at this time that I realize I didn't pack anything that would serve as pajamas. Since we only had one room for all of us, I decided to use my swimsuit.
I haven't downloaded the pictures out of the camera yet, but when I do, I'll see if I can figure out how to post one here. [I figured it out, I think. The picture above is of Glenwood Springs as seen from the gondola.]
Labels: vacation
You're selling *me*?!?
Our last car loan on our Honda Odyssey was paid off earlier this year,so a couple weeks ago, my wife and I decided to start looking for a replacement for our 16-year-old Accord. We decided that it would be useful to have a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and that it should probably be a truck of some sort.
Among other places, we stopped in at a local Nissan dealer to look at the Titan, Xterra and Pathfinder. When we neared the front door, the salesman appeared from behind a pillar and greeted us. He told us he just got back from his lunch break (it was 7 PM), and fumbled with his name tag as he put it back on his shirt. We told him what we were looking for, and we headed into the dealer parking lot.
Our first stop was the Pathfinder. My wife asked, "where is the spare on this?" as we were standing to the side of it. The salesman explained that the "Etcetera spare is underneath in the back." My wife glanced up at the roofrack where four-inch-tall white letters proudly proclaimed the name of the vehicle and asked, "so how about this Pathfinder here?" We were both wondering when Nissan came out with the Etcetera.
We looked at and pretty quickly dismissed the Xterra. No matter how you pronounce it, it wasn't right for our needs. So we moved on to the Titan. One of the first things we noticed was that someone had used the bed for a trash can. You'd think a dealer might spend a little time cleaning this up in the morning, but it could've gotten dirty since then. Checking the features, it seemed like a good choice to drive. We picked out one that matched our color and equipment preferences from among the ones available and began to look it over. The one we selected also had trash in the back. Hm... maybe this is"standard equipment!"
We asked if we could drive it, or at the very least get a look at the inside (since their vehicles were all locked up). The salesman started to walk away. We called him back to let him know he'd need a license to allow us to drive the vehicle. He took it and went for the key.
10 minutes later, he returns with key and license in hand. He opens the truck and gets in. My wife was standing on the passenger side. He tries to unlock the door, but it doesn't work - the battery is dead. He walks back to the garage to get the mechanic who would jump-start the truck. They brought a battery-on-hand-truck device specifically designed for jump-starting. A few moments later, it's started.
We all get in and drive towards the lot exit. On the way there, the salesman notices that the truck is nearly out of gas. He pulls into a space at the front of the lot and turns off the truck while he runs in for whatever he needs to get gas. While my wife and I are sitting there, the truck begins to click and the speedometer needle jumps as the battery goes through its death throes again.
The salesman returns and we inform him that he needs to jump-start the truck again. He goes back to the garage while my wife and I step away from the truck and let them do what they're going to do. We watch as the salesman wheels the jump-start unit around to the front of the truck and struggles with matching red to red and black to black. Five minutes later, he gets the truck started again. He slowly disconnects the jump-starter and coils up the wires on the hand truck. He closes the hood of the truck and turns to wheel the jump-starter back to the garage, running it right into the lamp post that he parked next to. He was genuinely surprised that the lamp post was there!
So we go back over to the truck, now that it's running, and the salesguy tells us that we need to go "up the road" to get gas. I open my door and tell him to have a good time with that, but keep in mind when you get gas, you should turn the truck engine off. I, for one, don't want to have to walk back from there. My wife came to the same conclusion nearly as quickly as I did and was doing the same thing.
We left the dealer at about 8:10 to grab some dinner. This whole process took longer than an hour, but at least showed us that we didn't want the Titan. Beyond the sales experience, there was enough that we didn't like about it to disqualify it. Needless to say, the salesman didn't get my phone number from me. :-)
Labels: truck
Opening kickoff!
This is probably going to sound a lot like every other first-time blogger's first-time post, and for that I apologize in advance. I actually have no idea what I intend to write about in here, except that it is a good idea to write something, or keep a diary, or something. One of the voices in my head suggested that it might keep me sane.
I guess I can start with why I chose "mountain clam" as the name of the place. It reminds me of the urban legend about the scuba diver that was found in the middle of a forest (see
http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/scuba.asp). Scooped up from the water and dropped miles away sounds like me. I grew up on the east coast, in New Jersey, where I spent a lot of time on the beach or playing in the ocean. From there, add 22 years, mix well with life, and voila': living in Colorado near mountains. The things I miss most about the east coast would have to be family and the ocean. Both are really important to me, and neither gets a visit from me often enough. The ocean doesn't even call any more. It's not like it doesn't have my number.
But now I'm "settled down." I'm married, I have a mortgage, car payment, 2.5 kids (let's just round off to three, shall we?), and a steady job. "I'm in debt up to my eyeballs" but I don't have the spiffy ride-on mower that the guy in the commercial had.
So raise your glass! A toast to the beginning of something that will hopefully go as far as a mountain clam. At least it's not a Rocky Mountain oyster!
