the pod bay door

Please forgive the look of the entries at this time. I’m working towards adding code from the Scriptygoddess site that allows for expansion and collapsing comments and additional text. When I input the code and rebuild the index page, it looks like what you are seeing. What’s weird is that I also input the code into my test site, podbaydoor.com/test1, and it seems to work there fine. So the main site will look like this for a little while until this problem is solved.

In Canada, it is Thanksgiving today. Earlier this summer, I read Dennis Prager’s book, Happiness is a Serious Problem. Gratitude is discussed in some detail, and he suggests taking an inventory of the things for which you are grateful, and can give thanks. Here is my list: great family and fantastic friends, food on my table, kindness and smiles from others, a great job with great colleagues, good health, the laughter and love of children, love of music and movies, kind and loving parents, living in a great city in a great country, the opportunity to travel in my job and to meet new and interesting people and see new cities, living in a democratic country, a great boss, freedom to move about without fear, freedom to change and to ask questions without fear of reprisal, the ability to play guitar, having had good teachers, a brother who is kind and a caring friend, a good health care system, neighbours who are decent and responsible, the deep satisfaction felt on my job when I help students with their research, my Mom’s butterscotch pie…

There are so many more entries I can make for such a list. Even having the chance to write about this in my blog is a gift. Someone out there (the Trotts in this case) wrote code that I use to write this – amazing. And to you reading this: Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving to you, and my sincere thanks for reading my entry! 🙂
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It’s a long weekend in Canada, and I’ve moved through today as fast as if I was walking through that proverbial tar. I was up late last night, arriving home after seeing the incredible Ann Vriend perform again in Edmonton. (Aside: it is a great thrill watching Ann, with so much talent, when she performs locally, developing her many talents before your eyes. When her first album appears, watch for more accolades from me).

So where was I? After arriving home, I watched Law & Order: SUV (sic), and then played on the computer before realizing it was 2:00 am – the kiss of sleep death for me. I didn’t really get moving this morning until noon. I did get 30 mins on the Y cross-trainer, then dragged my sorry ass to Red Dragon, which was engaging but a bit long for me. I returned home, and damn it if I didn’t fall back into bed again.

I’ve been attempting to load code from the Scriptygoddess site that allows for expanding and collapsing of entries, but I cannot get it to work, so I’ve raising the white flag on that one. I copy code like the next person, but sometimes I don’t do it well, I guess.

Where have all the flowers gone? How high the moon? How long has this been going on? What shall we do with the drunken sailor? The answers to these questions, and more, are here. Not good enough? Once and again, you could buy different things in vending machines.

And here’s a very cool site if you are interested in music from many decades past. Dismuke’s Virtual Talking Machine “is devoted to vintage music from the early decades of the 20th Century.” Songs from original 78 rpm discs have been transcribed into streaming Real Audio. This is a great resource for listening to music from the first few decades of the 20th century.

I’m running on fumes, or so it seems, so like it feels. Thank God a long weekend is forthcoming.

There are more changes tonight. Check out the Comedy page; what you see is the look I am after, for now anyway. I couldn’t get the code to work, specifically to make the fonts smaller. With my limited knowledge of CSS, I created two more div classes, or something(!), and now it’s working. This involved some cutting and pasting, but I like the page now. All I’m after is some base functionality (as defined by me – don’t ask, OK?)

Also, you are seeing subtle changes that are being implemented after mulling over suggestions from Keith and Geoff. My thanks to them both. Expect further changes, colour for example. Keith is feeding me information that is helping with presentation. Regardless, I’m liking what I see so far. I may make it to bed tonight before 2330 hrs.

If you’re in town and you want to see a great local singer/songwriter, please check out Ann Vriend on Friday night at Bonnie Doon Hall. I’ll be there, and yes, she’s worth it – an amazing talent who can craft great songs and deliver them with a great voice.

Mike sent this apology and retraction from The Daily Evergreen, the student newspaper at Wazoo. What’s interesting is this is another example of cribbing information from a web site without evaluating the site first. Somehow the reporter believed that “Nuestra Senora de Buena Esperanza” translated into English as “The Big Ass Spanish Boat” (it really means “Our Lady of Good Hope”; what, no one speaks Spanish on the editorial staff??)

The web site that published the article from which this was cribbed, PinoyLife.com, has already responded to TDE’s embarrassing error, with a funny, chronological explanation of the gritty details.

Two stories from The Onion recently have been reprinted or reported in daily newspapers, including one in Bejing. If the media can’t distinguish between authentic and bogus web sites, then what can we expect from students? My answer: better than that! There really are simple rules to consider when evaluating a web site.

OK, so sue me for being a baseball fan. Yes, sports. Anyway, what’s cool about the MLB playoffs for me is this: of the eight teams that began the series, the four which I hoped would win their series did. I follow these rules when baseball season hits the playoffs. If any of my three favorite teams are in, I cheer for them first: Minnesota, Toronto or Montreal. After that, I cheer for the Red Sox if they make it. Barring that from happening, I cheer for any team other than Atlanta, or the Yankees (I hate the Braves, I’m tired of the Yankees winning all the time).

The next rule is: cheer for the team(s) which have not won the World Series for the longest time. So, approaching the four playoffs I hoped for: Minnesota to beat Oakland, Anaheim to beat New York Yankees, San Francisco to beat Atlanta, and St Louis to beat Arizona. And I’ll be damned if it didn’t happen.
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