Finally figured out the title image thing with the help of my 14 year old cousin! After staring at his answer for a while, I figured what I did wrong. I was basically right the first time I tried, but i was missing one reference, and that caused me to butcher what I was doing and made it worse! Oh well, it’s working now. So now I’m going to make a bunch of different title images, then try to get it to randomly select one when someone visits.

Finally got around to working on the title image. Trying to figure out image tables (html) at the same time. I just can’t seem to figure out the right side of the image! I want to get it so the obvious right side of the picture is always on the right side of the browser., even if you resize it. It seems to act almost correct. I’ve been reading all the table references I can find, but can’t seem to figure it out. Please contact me if you know what’s up. Its a standard 100% width table. and the last cel doesn’t go all the way to the right (as you can see) and the background image continues past it.

I don’t typically report news items, I think that’s a little too overdone, but here is a great story that I couldn’t pass up. So beleive it or not, I turned down a 6-figure government contract to do TSM for the U.S. Navy in Norfolk, VA. I just want a little stability right now, and I didn’t want to front the 10K of expenses it would take to get me down there as quick as they wanted me to go. Oh well, more opportunities will show up if/when I want them.

First update from home! and, I’m sitting in my bean bag chair in my living room on wireless, Watching my ReplayTV, chattin. Slept a good 10 hours today… Life is good. Now I just need my couch and coffee table to be delivered, then I’ll be styling. Instead of using bean bag ottomans for my laptop, I’ll actually have a table. Alright, enough talk, back to ReplayTV!

For the last month and a half (without Internet) I was finding myself bored fairly often. I would wake up, hang out at work (on my days off), come home read alot, then sleep. During this period of time, I was considering attending school, excercising, and all that stuff. Not having internet had a particular side effect. I may have mentioned before, but I like to repeat myself….I bought ReplayTV about 8 months ago. In order for it to obtain the program listings, it needs to hook up to the internet. So…my replay has been out of commision for the past month and a half. I got so used to it, I don’t even know when my shows are on anymore. So I haven’t even been turning on the TV. So subtract TV and Internet from my life, I only have my books and Warcraft3. Now that I have everything back, I realize that was the resaon I was thinking about school and excercising. because I was bored! I still have those thoughts in the back of my head, but its not as urgent anymore.

Finally got internet at home. Pretty fast, i got the 2 login 1.5mbit connection. Faster than advertised so far, since the network is still pretty new and underused. The installer said only about 15% of the bandwidth is being used right now. the irksome thing is that its setup with PPPoE. I guess this is common with DSL. I compiled my linux kernel a LONG time ago, and got it just right after several days of messin with settings. So I forgot to set up PPP support, which apparently is required for PPPoE. Now, I can either try and remember all those settings and add PPP support, or wimp out and get a DSL router. So I broke down and got a DSL router, but I’m justifying it to myself because it also has the wireless capability so I can use my laptop anywhere. So now, I can phase out my faithfull 5×86 “Jeddah” but I don’t wanna! Without doing ipchains, it’s only task will be to handle login accounts and SSH, which can easily be handled by my dual-933 fileserver. I guess I can claim “security” and keep it seperate. I guess I’ll use the extra NIC in there for another 2 port Etherchannel for no good reason.

Finally scheduled to get internet in friday. Only took a month and a half of waiting. They are givin me a free installation. The quandry is the 6-month contract. My apartment complex just passed the word they might go with a local cable carrier because alot of the residents are not happy with the monopoly deal they gave us. So if that happens, I can have cable modem again, which I know is better than dsl. We’ll see.

Another instance of being in the right place, right time happened to me. I joined this hosting company called Eryxma a while ago. about 20 bucks a year. So now, they are installing some partitioning software so I can have complete control over my “host” Re-install the OS, handle the daemons, whatever. I’m totally psyked about it.

Just finished reading “the book”. Now I’ve seen the 4 Clancy movies and read the corresponding books. It seems to me that the larger the book is, the more degraded the movie will be…most of the time. Patriot Games and Red October were relatively small books, the movies were very faithfull to the books, hence awesome movies. If the book is already a best seller, don’t stray from the formula. Clear and Present Danger tried to catch a lot of the elements in the book, but I think it overall missed the enjoyable parts, and , for me, ruined the John Clark character. Sum of all Fears is a weird situation . I liked the movie, but it departed SO much from the book, it was hardly recognizable. I think in this case, they just got the basic ideas (terrorists, nuclear bomb, Russia vs USA, etc) a few character names, and made a completely new movie. Albeit a good one, I hardly think it could carry the name. I enjoy, for some reason, to chronicle the differences between movies and books, so :

- Chronologically, Sum of all fears happened after Clear and Present Danger (I.E. Ryan is older and the Deputy Directer Central Intelligence) I guess they wanted to target a younger crowd with Affleck

- The President,National Security Advisor, Director Cabot, are all a bunch of idiots

- The bad guys were Palestinians and allies that were bitter of the Soviet fall, and wanted to get back at them and America for bringing them down. (The Soviets funded anti-western revolutionary/terrorist groups)

- The few Germans in there were former East German communists who were bitter for the same reason

- The bomb actually malfunctioned and the explosion was around 15-20 kilotons (Hiroshima was about 1500 kilotons) This is the reason that people can run around realatively close to the center of the blast.

- No one got anywhere near an American carrier group. (I think a couple planes got shot at a little) That was my biggest problem with the movie. To think a US carrier group could be that relatively vulnerable is unbelievable.

- Although John Clark had a better role on this movie than Clear and Present danger, they forgot about Chavez, and they didn’t use him nearly enough.

- The President and Director Cabot were no where near the bomb (Bomb was in Denver)

I recently got an IMAP email account, I have always heard about IMAP having problems, and for some reason POP3 is more popular. Now that I have seen IMAP, I can’t see why anyone would not use this!?! You have your messages on the server, access it from anywhere with any email client. Mutt has IMAP access. Squirrelmail is a Free (note capital “F”) web-based IMAP client. What else is there to talk about ?
——-end IMAP plug——–

It looks like the new company picks up the tab on any education that is work related. They will also pay for a complete degree program as long as the degree is work related. Alot of people are jumping on the band wagon but they are just going for individual certifications and such. Should I go for a degree? I work friday-sunday, so I certainly have enough time. I guess its all a question if I want a “routine” in my life. Time to grow up? I think I’ll drive up to Lowell next week and talk to a UMASS advisor.