So I may have mentioned before, that my new apartment has a monopoly deal with Verizon DSL for internet access and DirectTV for TV. So…Its a new building and I set up for an account 3 weeks ago. Apparently they hadn’t hooked up the building, and they were supposed to do that 2 weeks ago. Well they finally hooked up 2 out of the 3 buildings yesterday (Yes I am in the 3rd building) Once that happens, they can call me to schedule a time to come out, which will probably take another week. So.. Im comin into work everyday for my fix. Sucks to be me!

AND! My sister took off to Belize, and the UPS folks are trying to deliver the computer I bought for her.

I came into work today for my internet fix (still don’t have dsl) and we got a new laptop and badge for the new company (StorageTek). Laptops aren’t IBM’s, they are Dell’s, but they are still pretty good. 1.2 ghz and 512 megs of RAM and a DVD drive. a step up from the last laptop, but they have Big Brother MS SMS on there. I gotta ask around and see what the policy is on changing all that. So STK makes a mid-high end tape libraries and related storage hardware. Why did people in the orientation look at me funny when I asked if we got employee discounts on STK branded hardware? Wouldn’t everyone want a rackmounted dual drive DLT library? Am I the only one with a 7 cartridge DLT Autochanger at home?

So I woke up today, watched some TV, then came to work. Another boring day. What I hate even more, is that I like boring. I accidentally watched that show Blind Date, and everyone tries to be “exciting, adventurous, etc” That is almost the exact opposite of me. The only thing I can talk about is that I have been lucky enough to do some interesting travelling. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do this year. Not coming up with any ideas that I really want to do. AND!!!! I still don’t have Internet in my new place. I have become so reliant on it. Even my ReplayTV thing needs the internet. and for TV watching, I got so used to the ReplayTV, I can’t even watch TV anymore!. I am missing everything. Woe is me! ….Send pity email now….

I found out about 2 Michael Crichton movies coming out. One is old news, which is Timeline. I read the book, and it was pretty good, so I expect the movie to be pretty good, if they put enough money into it. I hear period pieces are expensive to do right. I like the book Airframe better, wish they would have made a movie on that one. Anwyay, a book called “Prey” is coming out in November, and Paramount already bought the movie rights for it. Don’t know anything about it, but I haven’t read a Crichton book I didn’t like.

So its my dad’s birthday. They got a DVD player recently so I sent him Spy Game and Sneakers. Two great spy-type movies.

I saw K-19. It was a good movie, but it was no Red October. Red October set the bar so high for sub movies. K-19 was very believable, but I don’t know that I like a sub movie without any torpedos. Maybe it’s just because this was based on a real incident. And I’m not too keen on the whole stone-cold Communist Party member captain tearing up when people die from radiation. Oh well, it is a sub movie, so I’ll probably buy it anyway when it comes out on DVD.

So I saw a good deal on a desktop, and I’ve been meaning to buy a computer for my sister. (Good deal site by the way) So what the hell, my job is treating me good.

Got the gallery working properly and found a good archive program for the news, so I’ll just use that instead of finding a separate Journal module.

So I found a version of the journal that sbrooks wrote (from dogdoo.net) that portalzine.de modified to work with .714. Exactly what I need!, BUT…. so portalzine.de gets this journal from sbrooks. Modifies it, then puts it on their list of downloads only available to paid subscribers. I thought this was a total violation of the GNU GPL, but after reading this, it seems that this is acceptable. So.. the question is, is it worth 6 bux to have this journal? or should I continue to use the News feature, like I am currently doing. I’ll have to think about it more and decide by the time I get the gallery just the way I want it.

So I uploaded a bunch of pictures, and like how everything is coming out. Still looking for a journal module for .714 contact me if you know of one.

Also got a camera finally. took a few boring pictures and uploaded them. It is a damn good camera. Check it out. I think this is too much camera for me, since I am dumbing it down and only taking 1024×768 photos, but I like the presets it has. Apparently you can adjust fstops, ISO levels, focal lengths, and all that. The presets dumb it down for me and translate those settings to “portrait, landscape, low light, etc” Since I’m not into photography, I appreciate dumbing down

So I actually followed the instructions this time, and it worked. I was trying to modify them so it will work as a postnuke module, but that wasn’t getting along with the .htaccess stuff that php needs to run in cgi mode. Anyway…. I got the gallery up, and running it with a framebrowser so it appears in a frame. I only found a german version of framebrowser that works with PN .714, so ignore any weirdo german errors I think the colors go together even though the theme isn’t being adhered to in the gallery. Now I only need a journal module for .714 so i can get off of this one. I’ve been debating about resorting to livejournal.com, but i’d like to keep all the stuff in my own db. Oh well, we’ll see how long my patience lasts.

Well, after some testing, i found that this article thing has an expiration. Not really good for a journal. I found another journal, but apparently it has problems with the .714 version of Postnuke, cause its module API was rewritten. oh well, i guess I’ll just wait.

In the mean time, I spent all day yesterday trying to figure out how to get a photo gallery to work on a shared virtual host. Apparently people on my host went through my exact issues, and answers are in their forums. I recommend my hosting company Eryxma. From reading this forum entry, you can see they go above and beyond to help out (Shiekron is the eryxma employee)