BoomFlag

And there was much rejoicing.

After a couple abortive attempts to set up spam blocking and virus checking on my mail server, I finally succeeded last night. No more irritating “Is this your document?” attachments, whee!

Although I’ve been filtering spam locally, it’s somewhat annoying because I have to download the message and then drop it into my ‘Spam’ mailbox if it looks like a live one. Now, the server takes care of that for me– it just trashes the message, and I never see it here.

Of course this doesn’t mean I don’t get any more spam at all, because I had to keep the filters somewhat lenient so I don’t inadvertently delete false positives for my clients. But it’s sure nice not to have a hundred “known” spam messages a day flowing into my mailbox…

Looks like it might be one of those days… I logged in this morning and had a couple of e-mail messages waiting:

I had a lot of fun skiing last weekend with my old college friends Sarah “Sweet Thang” Hummel and Brad “Bo Brad” Shores… the only problem was I neglected to put on some sunscreen, and there was nary a cloud in the sky and I was up around 10,000 feet most of the day.

Thus, afterward I was pretty toasted. And a day later I looked like a raccoon with leprosy– the area around my eyes was white (sunglasses) and the rest of my face was peeling nicely.

Note to self…

For the last three days I’ve been troubleshooting some internet connection problems between users in Europe (England and the Netherlands, specifically) and my servers. These guys were having real troubles because they couldn’t get to web sites, e-mail, or other things they needed… and I had no idea why.

While each user had consistent problems, between their two countries the issues were slightly different. I logged into servers in Amsterdam to try to figure things out; the guy in England asked buddies in the area to see if they had the same issues. We spun our wheels for hours (and the time zone difference made it even more interesting) and simply couldn’t figure out what was happening. The worst part was there wasn’t any pattern to it, so we didn’t know where to begin fixing it.

In the end, a few helpful people on the local Linux user’s group suggested some things to try, and I figured out that the problem was in a network router somewhere near Chicago. Apparently the trans-Atlantic connection hopped from London through New York and into Chicago, where it stopped dead. But connections to other addresses on my server did go through– after being routed around Chicago.

It’s all part of the vast globe-spanning network we call the internet, and let me tell you it’s a frustrating and hair-pulling experience to troubleshoot something that turns out to not even be your fault while users across the ocean are getting equally frustrated because they can’t do what they need to do.

So about an hour ago, the company that controls that router either figured out they were horking traffic, and either just switched it off and re-routed traffic around it, or finally fixed the problem. Everything magically started to work, and my European friends are happy again.

These computer thingies are sure complicated sometimes…

Today is one of those days where it’s really hard to get motivated to work. It’s sunny, clear, and almost seventy degrees outside. I went to play ultimate for an hour or so, and despite the fact that the field had just been aerated (in other words, there were about ten billion plugs of dirt that were vicious to my bare feet) it was a great day to play. We had a seven-on-seven game– which is almost unprecendented except on nice fall days. After getting home and showering, it was time to settle in and get down to the old grind.

But then I went outside and sat in the backyard with Zack for a bit, got a snack together, and somehow managed to blow a good half-hour putzing around before coming back down to the office.

Ah, the joy (and suffering) of working at home…

Will the madness never end?

Over the past year we dumped what seemed like half a billion dollars into house projects. We began with the basement refinish and extended into the installation of a lawn, garden, and various other improvements peppered throughout the inside and outside of the house. After all was said and done, we brushed off our hands, nodded in a satisfactory way, and said, “Okay, we’re finished.”

But the reality– as any veteran homeowner will tell you– is that house projects are never truly finished.

This year we planned to put in a couple of trees and perhaps a few lilac bushes or whatever. No big deal, and something we had anticipated anyway. But then Laralee pointed out that we’ve got a weird little storage area behind our basement steps. It’s unusable space right now, and quite an interesting little construction quirk, but the addition of a simple door on the basement landing would transform it into a little 5×5′ closet.

We could always use more storage space, since the builders were so kind to give us a lame half-dug-out crawlspace. This little closet area would be ideal for some biggish items that won’t fit in the crawlspace, garage, or our tiny storage area behind the furnace. So it makes a lot of sense to put in that pesky door.

Of course we’ll drop five hundred clams on it (it’s only a door, for crying out loud!) and then we’ll realize we need something else. And on, and on…

Oh, the horror.

Many many moons ago, I bought a pair of flip-flop sandals at (no kidding) the grocery store. Yes, it was an impulse buy… no worse than my usual grocery-store impulse buy of a jumbo bag of Cheetos. But I disdain shoes so I was looking for a snappy alternative that would allow me to quickly and easily put them on or take them off, depending on whether I was meeting the President or just going to work.

Anyway, for the grand total of about four bucks I got a pair of sandals that looked remarkably like eighty-dollar Birkenstocks. I wore them for years (and yes, many people commented about my Birks) until finally the soles had been worn to a nub.

Then I bought another pair. This time it was the Super Target, and the price had skyrocketed to $4.49. They weren’t quite as nice, but again I wore them for years until the air-cushion pockmarks in the bottom of the shoes were visible through the worn-away soles.

A third pair entered the scene, this time from Wal-Mart. Inflation continued to rear its ugly head; these were $4.99. And they sucked. A lot. I wore them for a single day and the leather that crossed over the tops of my feet rubbed the skin so raw that I noticed at the end of the day they were actually stained with blood. And my left foot, to this day, has a scar from that day.

So I went back to pair number two– the one in the best shape– and continued wearing them. A little hot glue sufficed to keep the dilapidated soles from completely falling off, and I know Laralee cringed every time I wore them. But darn it, they were comfortable and I was sure not about to rub my feet raw with my new ones.

But all good things must come to an end (twice, in this case) and the pair finally became pretty much unwearable. Laralee told me I should just invest the money in a pair of real Birks, which would probably last a long time. I insisted that a four-dollar pair of shoes is plenty good for me. So this afternoon I performed a little sole surgery. I carefully cut the soles off the new (scar-inducing) sandals using a kitchen knife (I doubt Birks are made of cork and rubber like this, so such a trick wouldn’t have worked).

Then I peeled off the nub of a sole remaining on my original pair of sandals and hot-glued the new soles on the old shoes. Voila, pair number one was resurrected! As comfortable as ever (everyone loves a good old broken-in pair of shoes, right?) and a brand-new set of soles.

I figure I’ve got another two or three years before I have to part with another hard-earned fiver.

Game on!

Today it was sunny, sixty degrees, and all the snow has finally melted. A perfect day for a bit of February ultimate. I went out during lunch and played a good five-on-five game with the usual gang, realizing about two minutes into it how out of shape the winter has made me. Boy, there’s nothing like running around for an hour to remind you that you have to work up to that level, not take a few months off and jump into it like it’s nothing.

Of course, it probably doesn’t help that I just turned 32. I wonder when you realize you’re no longer young and spry? Sometime in the late twenties, when you can’t stay up until two in the morning with no ill effects or hop into a game of ultimate after months of flab production.

On the bright side, by the time the league season rolls around, I should be ready for it.

We went to visit our friend Vickie yesterday, and it’s a good half-hour drive each way. There are, of course, quite a few stoplights betwixt here and there, and Alex and Kyra derive great fun from using their astounding mental abilities to control the lights.

Basically, they sit in the back seat and chant in order to make the lights green and allow us to avoid stopping all the time. So every time we approach a light, we hear two voices behind us:

“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”

Then, if the light turns green, they cheer. If the light is already green, the chant is different:

“Stay… GREEN!”
“Stay… GREEN!”

Ad infinitum.

The worst part is probably when we were going down Highway 287, which has long stretches without stoplights but since it’s flat and straight, you can see the light far ahead. Thus the kids could see it a good minute or so before we actually arrived at the intersection, and we were treated to a lengthy display of mental prowess:

“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
“Turn… GREEN!”
(cheer)

Thank goodness they were on the alert, or we might still be sitting at red lights.

So it looks like the music industry will be (finally) mailing out checks to anyone who was part of the class-action lawsuit against them regarding price-fixing of CD’s.

The checks will all be for $13.86, and I’m sure I’ll be going to the mailbox several times a day to grab it when it shows. Interestingly enough, I doubt $13.86 is enough money to buy a single decent CD…