The Next Window

It looks like Baton Rouge is going to be spared everything but a little rain and some 30-40 mph wind. Fantastic.<br />
<br />
Mobile looks like it has a big target sign painted on it. Hope the pumps are good in the tunnel.<br />
<br />
The folks in south Mississippi, south Alabama and western Florida are in for a lot of wind and rain.<br />

Just finished the upgrade to version 0.7beta2. There were a number of changes to the mysql database tables, which caused some issues temporarily. All finally resolved. The issue was with the Serendipity user of the MySQL database. I had changed its privileges, but the changes weren't showing. I needed to do a reload of the permissions table. Once I did that, the update went fine.<br />
<br />
Maybe the next step will be to add it to my website at <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=23&amp;entry_id=20" title="http://www.terrystockdale.com" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.terrystockdale.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">http://www.terrystockdale.com</a>. At this point, it is running on an in-house Linux box that is inaccessible to the public.<br />
<br />
Terry<br />
<br />

The Chinese have a infamous curse "May you live in interesting times."<br />
<br />
Well, those times are here, in hurricane season this year. Florida has gotten pasted three times so far (Bonnie, Charley and Frances). Now, the Gulf Coast is bracing for a Category 4 storm called Ivan.<br />
<br />
<br /><a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/index.php?/archives/18-Interesting-Times-Ivan.html#extended">Continue reading "Interesting Times — Ivan"</a>

Did my second and third batches yesterday. I was able to control them much better with better results. In addition to the New Braunfels thermometer mounted to the grill, I used my Digital Thermometer with thermocouple ($29.90 at Sweet Maria's). This is the one imported by Circuit Specialists, from whom I bought mine along with my variac — before SM started carrying either.<br />
<br />
<br /><a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/index.php?/archives/14-RK-Drum-roasting-session-2.html#extended">Continue reading "RK Drum roasting — session 2"</a>

Boy, what a day. We had 10 people building their own computers and probably 8 or 9 assisting. Some of the people building their computers were advanced users and just needed some oversight. Others needed a <u>lot</u> of help. <br />
<br /><a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/index.php?/archives/13-Build-Your-Own-Computer-day.html#extended">Continue reading "Build Your Own Computer day"</a>

We had a great turnout for the PC Tuneup organizational meeting. We're trying to train some more folks to do the "technician" work and to handle the front-end processing. Our intent is to standardize what's done and to get it done more smoothly.<br />
<br />
<br /><a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/index.php?/archives/17-PC-Tuneup-organizational-meeting.html#extended">Continue reading "PC Tuneup organizational meeting"</a>

I went on a charter boat fishing trip on Wednesday, sponsored by my broker. Boy! Was that fun! We went to Port Fouchon on Tuesday to Steve Tomeny's Charters (800-259-8452), and slept in one of his "cabins". There are four of these, and each has a bunk room that sleeps 20 and a similar-sized room with TV, couch, table, chairs, microwave, and two bathrooms with showers. <br />
<br />
Steve has four charter boats that easily handle 15-16 people fishing. Based on the one we were on, I guess they'll sleep 16 also. While we had a day trip of snapper fishing while tied up to oil rigs, Steve also does overnight, sleep-on-the-water trips far offshore for tuna.<br />
<br />
We hit the water at 6am for a long day. It took about 45 minutes to get past the "no wake" / "low wake" portion of the canal and into the Gulf proper. After a total of 2.5 hours, we arrived at our first and farthest fishing point — an offshore oil rig.<br />
<br />
During the day, we visited either 5 or 6 of these. Generally, we'd fish, catch a few, and then move on looking for more fish. The last stop was the best for me. I caught two Mangrove Snappers around 26-28" in length and several small Red Snappers that had to go back. The fish were all the way down — free-spool (with a little thumb drag to prevent backlash) to the bottom and then come up about 5 cranks of the reel. That made for a long way to haul them back up.<br />
<br />
Other fish that our group of 14 caught were strawberry grouper (ugly fish), a barracuda, a lemon fish, and some "hard tails" (trash fish, used as bait).<br />
<br />
We landed back at the dock at 6:15pm. The boat crew cleaned and filleted the fish, then we bagged and iced them. Several of the folks fish a lot and declined to take any fish. Those of us who don't get out often got a couple ziploc bags of fillets each.<br />
<br />
We stopped in Port Fouchon at a restaurant for dinner. There were 11 of us at that time, and they didn't handle it too well. The classic onion blossom was good. The salad ok. Most of us had either half-and-half shrimp and oysters or shrimp and fish. Dinner took about 1.5 hours. Then, the other 2 hours back to Baton Rouge. We arrived back at about 10pm. What a day!<br />

A couple months ago, I won a contest on the Sweet Maria's mailing list, where Ron Kyle was offering one of his fantastic stainless steel drums for roasting coffee. You couple this with the gas grill and rotisserie of your choice. For various reasons, I delayed purchasing a second gas grill to do this project. But, I'm finally there!<br />
<br />
First roast with my <a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/exit.php?url_id=349&amp;entry_id=15" title="http://www.rkdrums.com" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.rkdrums.com';return true;" onmouseout="window.status='';return true;">RK Drum</a> was today.<br />
<br /><a href="http://www.thenextwindow.com/index.php?/archives/15-RK-Drum-roasting-setup-1st-roast.html#extended">Continue reading "RK Drum roasting — setup &amp; 1st roast"</a>

Saturday, Sept. 4th<br />
Windows XP Special Interest Group meeting — Larry Braud and I are the co-leaders of this SIG. Since we had an open house in August and about 150 new members, we did a number of basics in this session. Lots of Q&A, too. About 1/3 of the 20 people there were new members.<br />
<br />
Saturday, Sept. 11th<br />
9am: Cajun Clickers Radio Show. I'm a regular guest in the show that is hosted by Sherry Zorzi. This show is on WJBO at 9:00am (http://www.wjbo.com) and can is broadcast live via their website. The format is call-in question &amp; answer — e.g., ask the experts.<br />
<br />
And then, at 10am (for me, about 10:30 because of the Radio Show): PC Tuneup reorganizational meeting. How can we improve our tuneup program and make it easier to get more members through the process?<br />
<br />
Sunday, Sept. 12th<br />
Build-your-own-computer: I'm one of the experts who will help members that have signed up for this program and purchased their parts. This usually runs from about 1:00 to 5:30.<br />
<br />
Most days:<br />
Active on the Clickers mailing lists answering questions.<br />

Last Friday, I put up an expensive ceiling fan. Well, not that expensive for the fan — a $90 Hunter, 52 inch, ceiling-hugger design with 5 blades — that I bought at Home Depot. The expense was in the hanging part.<br />
<br />
When I pulled down the old fan in my Den, I found that that there was not an electrical box above it. The previous owners had drilled a vertical hole through a 4" by 12" cedar ceiling beam (12" is the vertical dimension) and hung the fan on a hook. That wasn't going to work for this fan. It wasn't up to Code, either.<br />
<br />
So, I went to my local hardware store to buy a 4×4 half-height square junction box to install into the beam. I knew I was going to have to cut out a chunk of wood, and planned to do it by drilling a bunch of holes and a then using a hammer and chisel to clean out the area.<br />
<br />
At the store, I couldn't find the junction box, but asked another customer who was holding one. He pointed them out and we talked about our projects. I made a comment "thank goodness for power tools." He asked if I had a reciprocating saw.<br />
<br />
"No, but that's been on my wish list for a while," I said. <br />
<br />
He responded, "I bought a combination kit by Ryobi at Home Depot for about $200. It had a reciprocating saw, drill, flashlight, chainsaw and circular saw." He even mentioned that he used the recip. saw to trim the bushes in his yard and to cut roots when removing stumps. We talked a while longer, and then I bought my $0.99 junction box and went home.<br />
<br />
So, later that afternoon, I stopped at my local Home Depot. They didn't have that exact package (no chainsaw), but they had a combo package for $169 that had the recip. saw, circ. saw, drill, flashlight, two 18v batteries, charger and a case to hold it all. They also had a $269 (or so) package with a couple more items, but still no chainsaw — it was available separately. I got the $169 package. The only thing that was not included was a blade for the recip. saw. Fortunately, I had some in my tool box.<br />
<br />
The next day, I cut a notch in the beam with the reciprocating saw. Easy! Then, I drilled holes in the cedar beam for the lag bolts I used to mount the fan's mounting bracket, and screwed in the lag bolts using the drill and a socket set.<br />
<br />
Nice fan. Really moves the air on slow speed. QUIET! But, it cost me $90+$0.99+$169+tax. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.<br />
<br />