the pod bay door

:: September 11th is almost over in this time zone, and as a day of reflection it felt more subdued than in 2002. The NYTimes editorial reflects of what has happened since that time (ID and PW: podbay). There were various specials and documentaries on television tonight, most notably on PBS. A two-part UK-produced feature, called 9/11: A Tale of Two Towers, chronicled the experiences of the employees of two offices located in the towers during the attacks. It was compelling viewing, but at times very difficult to watch, as well as to listen to the descriptions of what these survivors saw as they left the towers and escaped with their lives.

:: The stereotypical image of my profession has been reinforced with the debut of a doll wearing sensible shoes, a long, dull dress, and a cardigan sweater, and a moveable arm that “shushes” you. In July, Nancy Pearl, the librarian after whom the doll is based, advised the rest of us in the profession that how we would react to it would be based on how secure we are in our own work:

Pearl predicts that the shushing motion, triggered by a button on the doll’s back, will determine “which librarians have a sense of humor.” She likes to believe that today’s librarians are secure enough in their work that they won’t take offense at the old cliché.

Well, there ya’ be! Count me as one of those lib’arians who thinks the doll is, well, stoopid. I guess after 25 years of shushing, I’m still insecure. I want my mommy! Perhaps the most annoying thing is the idea that if you don’t think the doll is funny, or, as Pearl puts it, “…a lovely idea and a lovely tribute to my chosen profession“, then as a librarian, you don’t have a sense of humour. What a crock of hooey.

A better model might have been the Librarian Avenger. Look it up, baby!
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:: Well, that didn’t take 72 or even 48 hours. Heck, not even 24. Like, overnight, baby. My domain name transferred quietly overnight from Edmonton to somewhere in Jacksonville FL. Blogomania is their name, web hosting, their game. Why the switch? The local host company wasn’t that reliable, and they wouldn’t support programs like Gallery, of which I am looking forward to loading onto my server. I did some homework in that Geoff switched to Blogomania last year, and still sings their praises. I can report that each in a series of questions I sent to their helpdesk have been answered with, as Monty would say, “With all speed.”

:: It’s been a stressful week on a number of levels, I’ll write more about this shortly. Today I put a stainless steel U of A mug with coffee in it into a microwave to warm up the coffee. The microwave melted a small part of the plastic handle on the mug – which was a gift, btw. I had to clean the microwave afterwards, wiping away the sootlike black crud that adorned the its innards after the meltdown. This, plus missing a meeting, and struggling for hours, literally, trying to get a document to the CNS Plotter. Suffice it to say that by 4:30 pm, I was 1) in virtual tears, and 2) ready to put my fist through my work computer screen. Good night.

:: A note to advise everyone that my site, http://www.podbaydoor.com, will be offline shortly, for a period of 24-28 hours. It might happen later this week. This will include my e-mail address, randy at podbaydoor dot com. I will be transferring my domain name to a new name server, and when I initiate that procedure, the site will be non-functional until the name is resolved on the new server. Kind of like an Apollo spacecraft orbiting the far side of the moon – no contact until it emerges on the other side.

Anyway, stay tuned, I’ll probably put up another warning just before I make the switch. Thank you.

:: I took another baby step tonight, preparing for the move to another host. Yesterday I successfully loaded Moveable Type 2.64 onto the new server. Today, with a dose of patience, I was able to initialize the system so that I can reach the MT prompt on the new host. Patience was important: I encountered two errors while working, and was pleased that I was able to determine their source, and correct them. One was a typo (I had typed DBI:mysql instead of DBI::mysql – damn extra colon!), and the other was an incorrect URL I had loaded into the mt.cfg file. Whatever. Details, details.

This is too much detail, but forgive me the indulgence: this blog, the one you are reading, is running on as a Berkeley db (whatever that means). The new one will run as a MySQL db (whatever that means – Geoff, he knows what that means; so does Kenton.)

What’s next is that I have to create a weblog on the new site, and then try to import the entries from here to there. As well, I want to import my templates. I hope I can do it without much grinding and gnashing of teeth.

:: Perhaps the best nutrition site I’ve ever seen is this one: NutritionData. It features a db of 7,154 foods, and “generates nutrition facts labels and provides simplified nutritional analyses for all foods and recipes.” The only drawback: no foods found only in Canada are in the db (such as Vector or Optimum cereal).

:: This article on “geezer rock” is more annoying than anything else. It’s been interesting watching rock music age, from its beginnings in the 1950s, to present day. The musicians who create and play pop, rock and folk rock music, seem to be the only ones who get slagged because they get older. Musicians working in classical, bluegrass, country, blues, soul, rhythm and blues, opera, klezmer, whatever, are never bashed around because they get on in years. But in rock, journalists like to lambaste them, as Jim Derogatis does here, almost just for the exercise itself.

Derogatis’ thesis: that “the best rock ‘n’ roll is immediate, urgent and vital–it is music that celebrates living in the moment“, is a good one, but it doesn’t necessarily need to apply across the board. I mean, do the Artists That Matter need to rebel 24/7? I’m biased towards Steely Dan, but damn it if their new album doesn’t haul ass, and sound better than most of the shyte being fobbed on music fans by artists and acts half their age. Derogatis offers five geezer lists, from Geezers who still matter, to Geezers who never mattered and are now less relevant and more offensive than ever. In the end it’s all subjective. Who’s to say the music being made now by (some of the) artists who’ve been active in these genres for 25-40 years can or cannot stand on its own merit?

Check out these responses from the Hoffman forum, many with which I agree. My favorite comment: “Terrible article. I wish I could have written something so shallow and negative when I was 15 and get paid for it. Might as well tell us that Jazz is for dead people. Go fling yourself in front of a schoolbus.”

:: I heard from my new host, and have the necessary information to begin setting up on their server. I’ve installed MT 2.64, and will begin configuring it tomorrow. Wish me luck, I hope it all works.

:: I spoke with a personal trainer at the Y today, and will meet with him on Sept 11 for an initial consulation. Tomorrow it’s another meeting with the nutritionist.

:: Last night I sat on the edge of my bed, and stared at the bookcase next to it. I looked at, maybe 10 different books of interest that I’d like to read. Couldn’t decide which one to read next. So I went to sleep instead. I’m no further ahead tonight.

:: The e-mails with the SobigF worms seems to be diminishing in number. Maybe the creator did discover girls. Or something. Maybe not.

:: School started today. Yesterday 23 new bright, flat-screen terminals were installed on our main floor. Today the new students attacked them with a fervor. The days of wondering if the new cohort of students is familiar with computers and peripheral devices is over. Already today, a student asked if he could plug his memory card into a USB port on the new machines (which aren’t configured yet for said cards). Most of us don’t know a USB port from a bottle of port. So the learning curve is steep again.