Thursday, February 16, 2006
I've just posted a beast of an update with nearly 5,000 new pictures (all public access today). Thank you to all the contributors and to DarkEntrieS for being the cover model. The members update will follow tomorrow (Friday), and then experiences will be posted over the weekend (and of course ModBlog has been updated also).
My daughter asked me to paint her a picture of an alligator so the above sketch is (very roughly) what I'm going to paint for her. It looks kind of terrible in that sketch because all I had to draw with was highlighters and a dry-erase marker. The painting is called
“Yeah, but you're both still reptiles,” and I assume the metaphors are obvious they're so ham-fisted.
Anyway, enjoy the megaupdate and expect more tomorrow. Hopefully the drive/adaptor problems (which are worse after an update) don't take us offline because I've got plans to go to the zoo (the little zoo anyway) tomorrow morning. Oh, and I think my sister is visiting for about a week starting tomorrow as well which is cool…
Hey! Read this if you are a good driver! If anyone would like to help Rachel with her road trip from LA to Chicago (can you drive an Escalade with a trailer?) — she's currently in New Mexico and I'm sure would appreciate a helper… Drop her a message with your phone number and location if you want to take a break — she's great company — CC the message to me if you'd like and I'll make sure she gets it if she can't check her messages online (ie. I'll call her and pass it on).
Well, I'm going to go watch Survivor (yay for PVRs) with Saira, Michael, and Jon.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Hey, check out what's getting added to BMEshop soon (link: BMEshop forum).
Plans for today: Blair is coming over today to work on his book, I have to get the final 2005 staff shirt numbers and addresses and all that to Ryan for printing and shipping, and I have some work to do for a project with Lane, and I expect to do an image update as well… Oh, and for those of you that are members, I did a massive update to
über explicit BMEvideo yesterday.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
I'd written yesterday about going to Jamaica with Rachel on our first “date”. Cayne, who lives not far from where we stayed in Jamaica, sent me the following picture that almost made me start crying! The inset is a photo I took while on vacation almost five years ago.
That really sweet dog slept under our bed… I know it's silly but it makes me happy to know it's doing well. Who knows, maybe one day I'll still make it down to my yet-to-exist house in the tropics?
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Well, BME and ModBlog are back online (which is updated a little, but I wasted too much time today already so the updates are brief)… It said on the screen that it was “syncing” the discs, but after four hours I figured I ought to just do a hard reboot to confirm that it wasn't locked up… Turns out it was, so we're back online for now. That machine desperately needs a replacement.
That said, I got to meet the actual people who run our hosting facility today and they're very nice, so it's not all bad… And on the way out I bumped into our neighbor (Ivan I think) who's also a real nice guy. I've been doing my best to talk to everyone I meet and getting to know the people in my neighborhood (like on
Sesame Street… “the people that I meet when I'm walking down the street…”) and so far it's proving a good strategy for personal happiness.
Me at the co-lo facility today
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
So as you may have noticed, the main BME server (which includes ModBlog) has hiccupped again. I wish I had the money to just replace it but things are kind of tight right now… I've been down to see it in person and it's currently syncing its drives. It should just come back up on its own but if it's not done so in a couple hours I'm going to drive back down there and try and force the matter.
I really can't stand dealing with this type of issue. Wasting time keeping crippled boxes running makes it very difficult for me to do the core site development, but for a variety of reasons, there's not much of an alternative for at least the next few weeks unless some angel grant-giver feels like sending me a server (BME is pretty simple and just has to spit out files, but it does need an Ultra-320 RAID setup to handle the load, so all-in-all it's probably a $3k to $4k box)…
But if you're wondering why I don't really mind the hassles when it comes down to it, here's a picture of the wall next to my computer. They're postcards that readers of the sites have sent me in the past… I really like getting location specific cards. It's illogical, but I think I like them more than people buying memberships… The memberships keep the site fuelled up, but maybe the cards keep me fuelled up? Hmm… Maybe my incorrect focus on people instead of money is why I'm in this jam?
CLICK TO ZOOM
Meh, I don't regret it.
PS. Shannon Larratt, 2545A Dundas St W., Toronto ON, M6P1X6.
