the pod bay door

:: This weekend, Geoff was over again, helping me with the home renos. He cut and installed a few sections of baseboard, as well as a couple pieces of transition moulding. I stained some smaller pieces of moulding, to be installed around the piece of slate in front of the fireplace. In the evening, I visited Geoff and Kim, we had Chinese food and watched this movie on their big basement screen. Today I drove with Amelia to Smoky Lake, where we, along with her Harvest Moon Fiddlers, performed for the locals as part of a celebration in honour of town volunteers.

I was also in a spending mood this weekend. I bought one of these, to be delivered on May 27th. The model is called South Beach, but I can’t find an example on the web site. Then I went to Best Buy and bought this, this, and this.

There is more to come: new clothes, a cell phone, and a few more items for the home renovations. I think I will enjoy the laptop. My Dell 4400 is three years old, and somewhat sluggish, but still useful. I’m surprised at the ease of transition to the laptop, and look forward to learning more about it. The wireless mouse works well so far, and the wireless router is a godsend.

:: Yesterday I received acupuncture for a tendonitis problem in the area surrounding my right elbow. The practitioner is an acupuncturist and a physical therapist, and came highly recommended. Needles were placed in the area around my right elbow, the tops of my feet, outsides of my calf muscles, in and in my chest and forehead, for other reasons. None of the needles hurt, and in fact, I nearly fell asleep during the time the needles were in me. I will go for at least three more treatments.

:: I don’t know if it’s a function of age, but there are more and more moments while watching a tv show, I will not understand a line said by a character. It’s not that I didn’t hear it, it’s that the actor didn’t enunciate it well enough for me to interpret what she or he just said, or the sound editing is bad, or whatever. One solution is to turn on the closed caption function, which I’m doing more often these days. For certain shows like Deadwood, where the dialogue occasionally sounds Shakespearean, the CC function is a blessing.

:: A new, modern rock radio station is in the midst of its four-week testing period on the air at 102.9FM in Edmonton; the station officially begins broadcasting on May 5 or 6, 2005, with live djs, etc.. Sonic 102.9 Modern Rock is a welcome breath of fresh air, at least so far. The other rock stations in Edmonton collectively suck big time. My car radio is tuned permanently to this station at the moment, which is playing, and I hate to use the word, alternative rock. But in this case, my meaning is that the music being played is indeed an alternative to anything the aforementioned stations are offering at the moment. And it’s new, content from the 90s foreward. My hope is that it continues into their broadcast life, and that their djs show some respect for their audience. One of my favorite kinds of music is edgy, noisy rock, with good melody and song structure, and that’s what I’m hearing so far..

:: Filed under, “What Th-??”, a woman in Arizona ran 301 miles in just under 80 hours, without stopping to sleep or take any breaks, other than one brief stop for a leg massage.

:: Yesterday, while talking to my friend Pam in her office, I leaned against a bookshelf that was holding a glass jar of coins of all denominations. Of course, the shelf was adjustable, and therefore not one with the entire unit, and it flipped, sending the jar crashing to the floor, where it broke into a million shards. I’m always good for a few yucks, and once the laughter subsided, we spent time picking up the glass and coins, until I realized I cut my right hand in a few places – nothing major, mind you. I owe Pam a new glass jar.

Captain Klutz, at your service.

:: No, no, not the play currently running on Broadway, as much as I’d like to see it. (The web site is hilarious!) Maybe it will still be playing in the fall when I return to NYC (dates yet to be determined, trip yet to be confirmed.) I’ve been fighting a steady battle with blog spammers lately. The amount of spam targetting blogs is torrential. After Tony advised that my comment function wasn’t working, I upgraded to MT-Blacklist 2.04b a couple weeks back, and in the time it took to upload and install the necessary files, I was hit with over 100 comment and trackback spam. Even with 2.04b installed, I’ve been moderating and deleting hundreds of blogspam a week.

Until a few minutes ago, MT-Blacklist had blocked 34,932 spam on my site since its reinstallation, and for that, I bow in a southwest direction towards California and give thanks to Jay Allen for creating the program. Earlier today while checking my sites, I noticed the new link to “Introducing SpamLookup.” Desparate for anything to improve the situation, I read Jay’s entry, and immediately went to Brad Choate’s site, downloaded, unzipped and installed the gobbler, and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work brilliantly. I have had NO spam since it was installed this morning. I bow for a second time in the same direction. Thank you, Brad, for writing this program, and thank you Jay, for letting us know.

BTW, ever notice that the plural of spam seems to be spam? Who made that decision? I’ve never seem a statement that read something like, “I’ve been receiving a lot of spams lately.”

:: I played guitar today at Amelia’s annual spring tea, including a few songs with her, and a few with her group, The Harvest Moon Fiddlers. Next Sunday we have a gig in Smoky Lake.

:: It took me half a century, but on the weekend, I bought my first one of these. I feel like such a guy’s guy now. What’s next, NASCAR? Meanwhile, the house renos continue. Floor screws were drilled into the floor by the front door entrance to help reduce floor squeeking. It seems to have helped somewhat. Next, the purchase of 70 feet of MDF baseboard.

:: Everything continues to move at a fast pace. Tonight I blew away Norton Internet Security 2005, despite having paid for a full year’s subscription. I’d grown tired of its increasing sluggishness, error messages, and for the past couple days, preventing me from connecting to my ISP. I replaced it with avast!, at the suggestion of Geoff. I’ve been running Microsoft AntiSpyware, which seems to function quite well as a firewall for now. The only thing I don’t like about avast! so far is that it unleashes a siren sound, followed by a woman’s voice saying, “Warning, there is a virus on your computer”; however, I could turn the sound off, but for now, I’m still learning how to use it.

:: I am pleased to report the publication of an article¹ co-authored by your humble correspondent and the amazing Geoff Harder, my friend and colleague (on the other side of the wall in my office). The article, “Weblogs: Their Use and Application in Science and Technology Libraries“, briefly covers the history of blogs and considers how they can be put to good use in the science and technology library setting:

Weblogs, or blogs, emerged in the late 1990s on the Web, quickly becoming a new way to communicate ideas, opinions, resources and news. Since that time, the community of blogs has grown to encompass specific subject areas of study and research. This article briefly discusses the history and background of blogs, including blogging software. Literature searches suggest very little has been published on subject-specific blogs in scientific and technical publications. Applications in science and technology librarianship are discussed, including team and project management, reference work, current awareness, and the librarian as blog mentor for students.

Please note that my work e-mail address listed in the article and on the Haworth web site is incorrect, and should read randy.reichardt@ualberta.ca.

I’ve written or co-written a small number of articles in my professional life, but this is the first peer-reviewed article I’ve had published, which is a nice accomplishment, if I may be so bold.

1. Reichardt, Randy and Geoffrey Harder. 2005. “Weblogs: Their Use and Application in Science and Technology Libraries.” Science & Technology Libraries, 25(3), p105-116.

Update: The pdf version of the article is here.

:: Word up: Are you looking for that perfect gift for yourself or a friend/lover/relative who (like yourself) enjoys literate, well-written science fiction, and enjoys supporting local talent? Look no further than my friend Derryl Murphy‘s first release, Wasps At The Speed of Sound. Wasps is the first published collection of eleven of Derryl’s short stories, which he describes as “environmental SF”, many of which I have read already and can attest to the high quality and originality of his writing. The title story is quite imaginative and riveting.

Information on ordering Wasps At The Speed Of Sound is in Derryl’s entry about the book, which is available in hardcover (HC) and trade paperback (TP). I’ll be ordering a copy soon, and encourage you do to so as well. Congratulations, D. And what’s the latest on Napier’s Bones? 🙂

:: Thanks to Tony and Jen for letting me know that the comment fuction wasn’t working properly. I downloaded and installed MT Blacklist 2.04b, and all seems well again.