the pod bay door

:: It’s been quiet on the blogging front for a few days. I’ve been working on loading the Gallery program, which Geoff runs successfully, and since Geoff and I share the same hosting service, one would think I could get it to work. But no such luck. It appears that I’m mucking around in areas beyond my abilities, and it is very frustrating. I’ve had help from the Blogomania HelpDesk, and the Gallery Forums.

Contributing to the problem is the ambiguity of the Gallery documentation. The directions on the Installing Required Programs page are not that clear or user-friendly. For example, regarding NetPBM, you are directed to go to this page, and “grab the files” (binaries), FTP’em over to your host, and chmod them to 0755. Even I know how to do that. This page even lists the binary files (12 of them)! Wo-hoo! Ok, so Randy goes to that page, grabs what he thinks are the necessary NetPBM files, 6 zipped files ending in .tgz, unzips them, and none of them seem to contain any binaries. Um, btw, those six files are the ONLY files on this page. Like, there are no other NetPBM files to download.

Hello? This IS boring, isn’t it?

:: In the meantime, I am a hurtin’ unit tonight. My bones and muscles are aching, so it’s off to bed. The configuration of Gallery, seemingly an endless activity, shall wait for another day.

:: September 12th, “The Day After” for many people, I suppose, is a significant day in my life. It’s my father’s birthday, the birthday of another very close friend, and the day in 1983 I was hired to work at the SciTech Library, where I remain to this day. For me Sept 12 is always a day of celebration.

:: What a sad morning, however. I woke up to learn that Johnny Cash and John Ritter both passed away overnight. Ritter’s death was a shock, as he appeared to be in fine health when he collapsed on the set of his television show. Cash’s death resonates through the music industry – his influence and impact was and is immeasurable. What other artist, late in his or her career, would cover Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails? He is already sadly missed.

:: 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.