Let’s take it on the road

Well, folks, it’s time to pack it up and head over to the new place. And that place is:

http://www.hoodathunkblog.com

HoodaThunk? will continue to cover what I’ve been covering up to this point, it’s just going to do it over there. Barring some issue, I don’t intend to update this WordPress.com site any further. While there are a few items that still need to be straightened out (the blogroll, for example) the basic functions are all there and are all working.

So, I look forward to seeing you all over there and let’s get back to blogging!

OK, so what’s going on at HoodaThunk?

OK, so the combination of being out of town for a few days and a decision about the blogging here have made for very light posting for the past week or so. Time for an explanation.

The part about being out of town is self-explanatory, but there was an additional twist to this one. I was doing some serious electrical work at my Mom’s house which involved me crawling around in the attic for a couple of days and cutting holes in the bedroom ceilings. Given that I also want to put in an attic fan in her house this year and the high degree of confidence that it’ll be me doing the electrical work on that project as well, I made certain additions to my design to make it easy on me the next time i show up. That takes time. And, when you’re crawling from joist to joist in the attic, you’re not banging keys for a blog post.

The other issue is this: I’ve been doing some research into moving this blog to a hosted server. The reason for this is simple: I’ve been wanting to add functionality to this blog for a long time that I’ve been unable to add due to it being hosted at wordpress.com. Please don’t get me wrong – this is a great service and it’s handled my needs for at least 3 years. But there are tools and widgets I’ve wanted to use that I can’t unless I move. So… I’m moving.

I am in the process of setting the new place up. At first, I was working to make the new blog location look as much like this one as I could. I’m still working on some of the basic functions (which I do like and do want) but I’m taking the opportunity to rework the page a bit and see what I can come up with to reflect the new status.

Lastly, I’m going to be playing around a bit with some of the monetizing features to see if I can get this hobby to actually generate some capital. We’ll see how that part goes but I can assure you I’ll not sacrifice the readability here. So again, stay tuned and see what comes.

Changes coming

I’m working on the blog right now and that’s taking up all of my bandwidth. Stay tuned for changes coming.

RTB Complete

Well, we’re back at the home base after a week out. The visit to family members out that way was fun and I accomplished the goals I’d set in handling some of the larger tasks my mother had on her household “to do” list. A good visit in all respects.

As usual, the return trip was draining and we’re all sitting around in that “don’t wanna do nuthin’” droop. Give me a few hours and I’ll get back up to speed.

Light blogging alert

I’m in the middle of some rather long-range travel at the moment, blogging this morning from a hotel. We’re visiting some family this week so I might be a little lighter in the blogging department. There are some interesting goings-on lately, however, so I won’t be completely silent. Hope all of you had a Happy Easter!

Back on-line

We appear to have fixed the issue with the laptop and I’m getting back on-line. Slowly.

Bloggus Interruptus: Dead laptop edition

Laptop dead. Blogging seriously curtailed. Send guns and money.

OK, just send the money, then.

(Kidding. About the money, not the laptop.)

Typical response: blame the person who points out the truth

Blogging is an interesting endeavor, equally for having a venue to express your thoughts and for seeing what, if any, reaction you invoke. My grousing about the dearth of any reaction from the… shall we say “aggressive” feminist contingent of our body politic regarding the judgement of a Saudi court convicting a gang-rape victim for being raped was something I had a suspicion would arouse a response. I had hoped for, but not counted on, a reaction that would actually show some focus on the issue I spoke of, rather than the fact that I, a mere man, had been the speaker.

Well, maybe it did out there somewhere but the one who actually linked to the post failed to rise to the occasion. Typically, it’s the notion that I find the problem to be their lack of interest in what should be a serious concern that finally stirs a vocal response, and it’s directed at me not the people who need it. Spinster Aunt relies on prose that proves my point about those folks at the diversity training and hammers in yet more stereotype. Not my fault this time, ladies, so enjoy. Meantime, maybe the ladies at “Blame the Patriarchy” will get around to actually, you know, speaking out about this Saudi mess. Lord knows I couldn’t find anything over there about it.

Thanks for stopping by, Aunt. Have a good one!

Latest Scribefire release not working with WordPress.com (Update!)

I got the latest update to Scribefire (version 3.2) when I logged on this morning and got a nasty surprise: I couldn’t post to HoodaThunk? at all with it. It appears to work normally right up to the moment when I confirm that I want to publish the post. At that point, it acts as though I’ve canceled the publish request instead of actually sending the post.

I’ve had to revert back to version 3.1.6 (which works fine, by the way) and I’ve posted an issue update with the coders. We’ll see what they find.

Update: This just in: if you’re using Scribefire 3.2 with WordPress, select the Settings tab at the left-hand margin and then select the Publishing tab within Settings. Uncheck the “Automatically insert invisible tracking pixel” and you’ll find it works like a charm. Click on the issue update link above for the latest.

After-action report on a cable cut in the yard

Back in early December I had a contractor come to the house to look into a couple of issues with trees in my yard. What was to have been a discussion on trimming some branches and options on making the existing greenery a bit nicer turned south pretty quick when he demonstrated that the 55-foot oak tree in my back yard was rotten in the middle. It turns out that the trunk had a gap in the center that comprised between 70-90% of the tree’s thickness up to a height of about 12 feet. In short, it was a heavy windstorm away from coming right down on my house or that of my neighbor. It had to go.

Another tree that had been looking sickly from a distance turned out to be, literally, half dead at close range. It also had to go. Ditto what used to be a holly bush in the back that had been allowed (by the previous owner) to grow to tree dimensions and now had an 18-inch truck less than 18 inches from my foundation. Finally, 2 large arborvitae were so old and tattered they were literally splitting apart. The decision was made to cut them down and that was done in mid-December. I didn’t want that big oak hanging over our heads while we traveled during the Christmas season. Considering the wind storms that happened the week between Christmas and New Year’s, I’m glad we had it handled.

However, while the trees got cut down, the stumps remained until we got back. Various weather/scheduling issues kept the contractor from coming back to grind the stumps down until this week. When he showed up, the folks from Miss Utility hadn’t, so there were no markings in the yard. They called the utility folks again and got them to come out to paint the stripes on my lawn where the electric, gas, phone, water, phone, and cable lines were buried. With that out of the way, the contractor went to work.

The good news is he came no where near those marks. The bad news is the cable line didn’t, either. And since it was up against this:

…you can imagine how long it lasted. I, of course, found out about this issue when I got home from work. After getting the necessary evening routine done (dinner, supervising the kid’s homework, etc.) I got on the phone with Comcast, the cable provider, to report the problem. Like you, I had visions of how this was going to turn out. I was wrong, from the 1st ring.

The phone system asked me to say whether this was a maintenance call (yes), whether the outage was on all channels (yes) and to verify the zip code I was calling from. As soon as that was out of the way, I was transferred to a real, live human who confirmed he knew my name, and phone number I was calling from. He asked me to confirm the address and then asked for the problem details. Well, I wasn’t going to try to snow job the guy so I told him straight up what had happened. In response he did something surprising: he apologized for the inconvenience.

I was thinking, “Inconvenience? It was my contractor who chewed up the cable. Isn’t it you being inconvenienced?” He clicked a few keys and asked me if someone would be home tomorrow so he could arrange to have the repair personnel around. Yes, that’s “tomorrow” as in “the very next day.” When asked what time they might be by he gave me 3 time slots, each 3 hours long. The last time I had to have cable service the guy told me he’d be there sometime between 8 am and 7 pm. This guy’s promising he’ll be here between 2 pm and 5 pm.

As it turns out, he called a bit ahead of schedule and showed up at about 1:30. He managed the patch in about 10 minutes and tested it. Nope, still not up. He attached the tester to the cable box at the side of the house and was able to “see” the cable DVR over by the TV which meant the problem wasn’t inside. When he went back to check his patch job, he pulled lightly on the cable that was headed toward the junction box at the back of the property line. It came right up out of the ground leaving about 2 feet of cable on the “company side” of the patch he’d done. The cable was snapped underground somewhere.

He attached a cable at the junction box and ran it, above ground, along the patch it should follow to attach to the side of the house. Connecting the new cable, the service is back up. He’s promised to get someone to come next week to bury it.

At no point in time did anyone at the cable company show anything but professionalism and I’ve not gotten a hint of an attitude that this was my fault even though, as the homeowner who contracted with the guys who cut the cable ,it technically is my fault. The service restoration was fast, easy, and the people performing the work have been nothing but pleasant. Comcast is doing a great job here and I want to say that on the record.

Thanks, guys.