Out of The PIT

I've finally finished turning The PIT into a static website. The whole thing ballooned from about 10MB to 200MB in size! This is what happens when you have a lot of repetitive HTML. So the site itself is currently on my temporary web server . But I plan on blowing the old web server away and starting fresh with just the wedding website and The PIT hosted on it. I can then just let it run forever.. Unless I plan on hosting another static website there. I should have plenty of space.. *rubs chin*

My lift supports came in today so I picked them up this afternoon and was fortunate enough to have some sunlight available to install the new supports. I discovered, to my dismay, that the connectors for the supports were facing the wrong way, but after noticing that the two new supports I had both connectors facing different directions than the other support, gave me hope that I could twist the end around so that it would fit. It took quite a bit of torque, since it was hard to grip the thing. Otherwise, the whole installation was fairly straightforward and only took me thirty minutes, which got chilly on this spring evening. I'm just happy that I don't have to keep my broomball stick in my trunk to keep the lid open!

It has taken me a lot longer than anticipated to static-ify (is that even a word?) my old website. Getting it up and running took a little time, and conversion was fairly painless, although each conversion takes over an hour to do. So after each conversion, I would take a look into the log to see if there were any errors I need to deal with. This led to many alterations on the web page to take into account the lack of form processing in static HTML files, which took up the bulk of the time this weekend for changes. However, even after getting that out of the way, I still had issues with broken links and improper settings. I mean, the site pretty much is 99% working. That 1% really bothers me though and it will take another day or so to fix. Annoying!

I came across a product called HTTrack Website Copier which I ran against my website. It did a pretty good job of pulling everything and compiling a nice, neat, self contained folder with just about everything from my website! Now there are some things that it does not handle too well, like forms, and there were quite a number of broken links on my page, but this is a good sign. I do think I'll just fix up the links on the page, make some changes to deal with the forms, and compile a static site so I won't have to worry about it for the rest of my life?

I've had a task on my list for quite some time: Revive the PIT. Since I had purchased a virtual server a year ago, I have had the tools to set it up, but just never bothered starting the project. There were some security issues that bothered me, and I wanted to convert my website so that it was static. Making the website static would mean requiring only a very small and simple web server to host the page, but to do that I had to bring the site back on line. I finally gathered the will to set it up this weekend. Well, I had anticipated working on it all weekend, but managed to bring it online in four hours. Some things may still be broken, but right now I realize that because of the way I had set up the web page, I can not easily freeze the site like our wedding website. I think I'll leave the website up for a bit. After I clean out any of the old data and remove some of the unnecessary functionality I'll reassess the situation and decide then whether or not to keep the

My right index finger feels like it's permanently jammed. MJNL thinks it's because of overuse, and I am inclined to agree with her. I've tried applying pressure to the muscle that controls that finger, but this issue seems fairly chronic, as it has not gotten better over the weeks. MJNL has the same issue, and attributes it mostly to excessive writing. My routine hasn't changed much for the past year, and after changing my ergonomics and use of braces, I thought I had limited this type of impact. I guess the stress just transferred up the arm. In any case, I've been moving things to my left hand again: badminton, mouse use, carrying stuff, just to give my right hand a rest. We'll see if things improve, since broomball should be ending in a month and that would just leave hockey..

We had a rather large CME earlier this week, and I had wanted to make a note at checking the space weather but it had completely slipped my mind. MJNL sent me a link that had some photos from the one that hit on Tuesday . Gosh darned it! But in hindsight, the weather was kinda overcast last night so I do not feel too bad for missing it..

MJO sent me a link to a Second Reality parody video that some folks made. It's an interesting parody. I especially like the Dr. Whoesque special effects for the spaceship scene - plunger and all! I do remember when Second Reality came out. It was quite an impressive feat of coding at that time, and I can not recall where I put my copy of the demo. (My copy is probably long gone now, but thanks to the internet, it will always be at my fingertips ..)

On Friday night I had booked Laz and Growly's birthday present: A night to Escape from the Mysterious Room . It looked like it may be a real live version of The Crimson Room , which sounded like fun! In addition to the two birthday boys, I had asked them to list people they wanted to invite to the party (up to eleven people were allowed), so we were able to gather eight people together, six of us went to dinner at One of A Kind Pasta & Grill before heading up to the room. Actually, we had issues leaving the restaurant as the cash we put down for the bill added up exactly to the bill amount. For some reason there was no tip added even though both Laz and I had put in a tip (I knew what we had both ordered and we definitely put in a tip), and I was pretty sure I knew what Tomer had ordered and I was pretty sure he put in a tip. That left the remaining three.. but it was all straightened out in the end. So after our escape from the restaurant, we headed out to the room, where

MJNL sent me a link with lots of interesting space based images.

So it was JW's birthday and Jeanious had set up a day of food of merriment on Saturday. First was a lunch with family, with much time spent in front of the Xbox One dancing and blowing up lots of shapes. Afterward, JW's bestus buddies got together for some Archery Tag at the Archery District . It was fun, but I probably will not go out of my way to do it again. I would rather go to an archery range and do some real arching. Jeff's boyz (and girl) at Archery District. Anyway, afterward we went to Rally Sports Bar & Smokehouse where the food was really tasty and the portions were good. Desserts were not so good, but you do not go to a bar and smokehouse for dessert right? Finally I went to hockey where we had a really close game. Really close. Drat.

I got an interesting e-mail about someone using my Apple ID to access my account from an obviously non-authorized device. There was a link in the e-mail to "confirm" your billing information and change your password. I initially did think someone did potentially access my account, until I took a closer look at the e-mail and link. Here are the contents. I've removed the link so people won't accidentally click on it. Dear client, Your Apple ID was used when connected to iCloud and iMessage from an iPhone 5s appointed : iPhone Ahmed  Date : 10 March 2015 a 04:12 Operating System: iOS 6.1.3 If you've recently connected with this unit , you can ignore this email if not We're concerned that someone is using your Apple account without your knowledge. Recent activity from your account seems to have occurred from a suspicious location or under circumstances that may be different than usual Please confirm

Laz and I participated at this year's Board Game Jam again and came up with an interesting idea of having players set up events in the future that they could try to leverage as they were playing the game. Unfortunately we had not designed a game mechanic that would use this event driven dynamic and spent the weekend building something, which ended up borrowing a lot of aspects from Agricola. When I was asked what name we should give our game I suggested "TINA". i.e. This Is Not Agricola. Laz (rightfully) disagreed, and we settled on "The Villagers". The game was kinda fun, but incomplete, with ending conditions not very well thought out. But a decent effort on our part I should say. Not bad for two days of work. It is amazing how quickly time flies when you are trying to design a game.

So I've been told that it is root erosion. I'm getting it filled right now.

I noticed something funny with one of my molars a few days ago. It felt as if there was a ridge near the gum line. Unfortunately, the tooth was hard to see and the ridge was so close to the gums that self inspection was difficult. Last night I tried probing with floss (which drew blood) and my fingernail, which drew.. another ridge deeper in. Uh oh, could this be a crack in my tooth? I will find out this afternoon when I go to the dentist.

HKL sent me a link informing me of the DRAM class action for anyone who purchased electronics between 1999 and 2002. I know I did. I'm debating whether I should dig through my old receipts to see if I can claim more than $20..