Rants

At Least I Thought It Was Great Idea

Cancer Care InstituteThe other day I realized that I wasn’t using my camera anymore, it was just riding around in the cargo net in the trunk. The honeymoon was over. Then I had an idea (watch it, I know what you’re thinking), I would take one picture a day for every day in August. This way when I blogged in the evening describing my mundane day, there would be a mundane picture to help you really get a feel for how my life is being carried out. After all this thing is called “Life of Brian.”

Yesterday’s photo was supposed to be of the local used bookstore where we stopped on the way home and I selected 5 fiction paperbacks to read. I forgot to take the picture. You would have think I would have been reminded to do so when I plopped the books into the trunk, because the camera would have been plainly visible. But noooo.

This afternoon Donna was feeling a bit worn out, so I volunteered to drive her to her radiation treatment and then take her home. While she was inside getting zapped I took my camera and walked to the edge of the property and took a couple of close-up snaps of the Cancer Care Institute sign with the building in the background. Tonight I put the camera in the cradle and hit the download button. Selected the directory, as always I checked the remove from device box and hit go. Everything looked normal until the EasyShare Gallery software loaded and today’s pictures were not where they were supposed to be. Searched the hard drive to see if they went somewhere else, nope. I picked the camera up out of the dock and the LCD screen said, “Memory Card Needs Formatting. Proceed or Cancel.” I hit cancel thinking maybe I can salvage the pictures tomorrow at work.

Started down, went up, still up.
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Brian Buys .06 Gallons Of Gas

We wanted to do our weekly grocery shopping late tonight to avoid the heat, so we left the house at 10PM mainly because that is when the Trading Spaces Donna was watching ended. We shop at Kroger because it is convenient and they sell gas too. Because we have a customer loyalty card I get to save an extra dime off the per gallon cost of their gas. This is usually a good deal as most times their price per gallon is a nickel or so less than the surrounding stations to begin with.

I dropped Donna in front of the store, so she could start shopping while I went and filled up the tank. When I got around the side of the store where the gas is it looked kind of dark. The overhead lights of the gas station were off, but the pump lights were on bright, so I went over. As I pulled in there was an attendant in the booth, so I stopped and opened the gas cap. I scanned my loyalty card and then inserted my debit card. When it told me to lift the nozzle and select a grade, I did just that. I started pumping and it was coming out really slow and then stopped at 17 cents. Hmmm. maybe they are out of premium. I walked over to the window and asked the attendant if they were out of gas or something, when she told me they were closed and that must have been all that was left in the hose.

I went back to the pump replaced the nozzle and closed my gas cap. The little LCD window on the pump asked if I wanted a receipt and I replied yes, to which it told me to see the cashier. Back to the window I go. The attendant said that she couldn’t get me a receipt because she had already closed the register. When I asked her, “If you are closed, how come the pumps would let me even attempt to pump some gas?” Her response was typical minimum wage earner, “I don’t know.”

Started up, went down, went up, back down, up again, down again, still down.
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Because There Is Nothing On TV

I used to think it was the lack of entertaining shows on TV that kept me from watching, but I now realize that it has to be me. Because we have added the digital package to our regular cable, so we can watch le Tour, I now have at my disposal probably twice the usual 60 channels. Including 16 Starz/Encore movie channels (none of whom were showing “The Incredibles”), 10 different channels devoted to religion, a dozen flavors of music video channels (a couple of which are religious themed, even one called, no lie, JCTV), a half dozen flavors of ESPN, BBC America, etc., but there was nothing to watch. The closest thing to holding my interest was an Everybody Loves Raymond repeat on TBS. So here I am listening to RadioParadise and surfing the web looking for entertainment.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
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Robbinsville

Fun drive up. We stopped a couple times and took short walks. Once at Whitewater Falls which we have visited before and once in Gorges State Park which we hadn’t. Took our usual Wyah Bald Road from Franklin to Nantahala. Instead of fighting the expected crowd at the NOC restaurants, we stopped at a roadside place and had a pretty darn good BBQ sandwich and some nachos.

By the time we got to Robbinsville we were pretty worn out, so we did a little shopping at Ingles and headed up to the Inn. The Blue Boar now has wireless internet, so I could blog and listen to the FRS beat up on the Marlins. I took a few pictures today and about the only thing missing in my mobile office now is a way to transfer images from the camera to the laptop. Kodak had an Easy Share camera similar to the one I bought with wireless connectivity, but it lacked a couple things I really wanted, so I didn’t get it. While looking around on the net for a sort of multifunction USB thumb drive and SD card reader I found the perfect solution. Behold, the transforming SD card that folds to reveal a USB connection – Sandisk 1 GB Ultra II SD Plus.

Later tonight we plan on a quick trip up to the Cherohala Skyway for some star gazing. We get up to almost 5000′ and far enough from any lights that, weather permitting, we can see the milky way. Breakfast at the Inn is from 8 to 9AM, so tomorrow morning we plan on an early rise to get in a out and back run through the Gap and then get breakfast.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
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If It Ain’t One Thing, It’s Another

Not only has the Sticky Image Plugin stopped working, but the image gallery thing stopped too. I did manage to get it going again, but the thumbnails don’t work.

As I’ve mentioned somewhere here before, the gallery script author is no longer supporting it (his web site has completely vanished,) but there is an enhanced version created by a couple other folks out there. I think I’ve even tried it, but for whatever reason didn’t like it. May have to try it out again.

My freeware HTML editor I’ve been using, TSW WebCoder, started throwing errors at me when I use it on the laptop. I went to the author’s web site to see if there was an update available and there was. Unfortunately it isn’t freeware anymore. Still seems to work OK on the desktop. Guess I’ll try the old uninstall/reinstall fix.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
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So Much To Say…

…So Little Actually Worth Saying.

Are you as I tired as I am of the incessant promotions and marketing for the movie Cars? On ESPN’s Sportscenter last night they interviewed on of the actors who voices one of the cars. And some of the characters are so stereotypical they border on insulting; Mater, the slow speaking and possibly dim witted southern rusted tow truck voiced by Larry the Cable Guy. George Carlin the Hippy-Dippy Weatherman voicing the psychedelic VW van, Fillmore. Plus Ramone, the bright purple hydraulically enhanced low-rider voiced by Hispanic Cheech Marin.

Do we really need a movie version of Miami Vice? An 80’s style rap commercial for Pepto Bismo?

And speaking of commercials were these made by the same ad agency? For the Hummer H3 the stylish, eye catching “Urban Techno” and the totally lame and unimaginative “Goldilocks and the 3 Bears.”

Is it WordPress or more probably, my lame web host, but all of a sudden the plug-in I use to attach the thumbnails to posts is no longer working. Tried stopping and restarting the plug-in, but that didn’t work and if I shut it off all the past attached pictures disappear.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
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Forgetful?

Didn’t get to post last night because my webhost misplaced my SQL Database. Put it down with his keys I guess… He must have found everything late last night because when I got up this morning the database was right where I left it yesterday.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
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