Hey does this work?

Hey all,

The server this site is run from is going to go through some downtime over the next several days. I got a new drive so that I can put up more music and maybe even some movies, plus many more photos. I have to bring the server down and with Trevor’s able assistance migrate a bunch of stuff from its existing location to the new drive, so I will be up and down as we try and get this working. Geeks may be interested to know that the drive I bought was a Seagate 7200 rpm 60 gigger, which I got at my online cpu parts merchant.

…is one of the sillier things I’ve ever linked to. This fellow built a playable harpsichord entirely from Lego bricks. He’s even got an .mp3 file you can listen to and savor the sweet sound of shrill twanging strings that is a harpsichord. Yuck! And I thought I had too much time on my hands 😉

Well…not really. But it did end badly. Lisa and I went out on Saturday night. We went to see friends of hers play a gig at a church in Brunswick. The band, the Coming Grass, was actually pretty good. They play a sort of folkish rock n roll mix. I knew when I heard Roger McGuinn/the Byrds playing on the PA system when I came in that I would enjoy it. They also had an opening act whose name escapes me, she played a half dozen Aimee Mann type ‘my heart is broken’ ballads on 6 string with a bass player accompanying her. She was ok.

The downside was that they got a late start, and Lisa and I had not had time to eat before we showed up. By the time their set ended it was like 9:30 and the restaurant we intended to eat at, an Indian place in Brunswick, was empty. So we went to the Sea Dogs Brewpup in Topsham (it’s just across the bridge from Brunswick). I’ve been in there a couple of times and it’s ok, the food is nothing special but not bad either and the beer is decent. The problem was, 10 minutes after we showed up these guys came on stage and they had the volume turned up to 11. Lisa and I ended up sitting about 10 feet from the stage and we couldn’t hear ourselves think let alone carry on a conversation. Plus something we were served didn’t sit well and both of us ended up feeling ill. I almost felt bad for the band, in about a half hour they managed to entirely clear out what had been a full restaurant. But given that they were ruining my date I didn’t feel that bad for them. They played a kind of rock/jazz fusion improv which sounded most like Phish, and it was WAY too loud. Neither of us enjoyed it and it really took the shine off the evening, which was a shame because up until then we had been enjoying ourselves. I told her next time I would take her to Taco Bell 😉

Beaten to the punch again. I discussed this thing as a possible invention at least a year ago on this weblog. Once again one of my ideas is turned into a product. Mind you, it’s overpriced and kind of a stupid product, but as a follow-up prediction, I think you’ll find these for under $10 in Walmart and maybe even on one of those cheesy tv ads within a year or so.

Bet you were surprised when you saw this 😉

I took the day off from work on Friday because of my chest and spent almost the entire day working on the site’s design. I’m reasonably pleased with how it’s turned out. Let me know if you find anything broken.

I can’t decide what’s next – upgrading the moveabletype software, installing a Wiki, working on the various application templates so they inherit the new design (things like the gallery and andromeda pages), or working on the ancillary scripts like the image rotation and file listings. If anyone has any strong preferences leave a comment for me.

Hey all,

I’ve almost got the redesign finished. Err…well, that is to say I have made great progress anyway. You can scope out a sample by going to the top level of the site:

daves-place.dyndns.org

And you can check out what this weblog will ultimately look like:

here

Comments welcome on this one. First radical change in over a year, let me know what you think.

Ok so since I caught grief for not mentioning anything…I’m heading off to the docs today. I had another episode last night and this time I couldn’t breathe very well. I still think it is like a muscle or tendon pull or something but it’s time to get it checked out, I thought it was getting better but it seems like I was wrong. Just FYI for you whiners who think I play it too close to the chest 😉

…which in the end makes me laugh.

Saturday night I am changing the sheets on my futon when suddenly I get two intense pops in the middle of my chest. Felt like a 2 x 4 snapped in half inside my chest. I was like ‘shit, this is it, heart attack!’ I coudn’t believe it. While I am not the most physically active person I am basically a healthy guy, I kayak, I run a couple of miles every other day in the winter, I tend to eat well. So I collapse onto my bed thinking something like ‘fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, 35, thats it? What a gyp!’ no life flashing before my eyes or anything, I was just pissed. After a few minutes I realize ‘hey I’m not quite dead yet, what the hell is going on?’ So I gingerly get up and try walking around the room. Instant chest pain. So I collapse back onto the bed, befuddled.

I spend the next several days in various degrees of discomfort. I don’t tell anyone because I had sort of concluded I must have had a minor stroke or something and I am completely embarrased about it. But I am feeling otherwise healthy (no weakness, sweating, stomache problems, anything like that) so I’m still puzzled. What the hell is wrong?

Long story short, I talk to my friend Paul, turns out he had a very similar episode, went to the doctor, and was told people pull tendons in their chest all the time and confuse it with a heart condition. So here I am walking around wondering if I am about to keel over from a big heart attack and it turns out I have a tendon pull in my chest. Huge relief, let me tell you. Now I’m off to the store to get some Motrin.

Finally! After a multi-year quest I have found the ideal image gallery software. This will allow me to get images posted much faster than my old approach, and at much higher resolutions. You can check it out here:

new gallery

I’ve loaded it up with photos of the kayaking trip on the Delaware River I went on earlier this summer. Note how you can post comments to your heart’s content, view the images at different sizes, send them off to be printed, and more. I’ll continue to populate this with all the images I have sitting around on my various computers as time permits. And of course new stuff will be flowing in as well.