Hooray!

I dutifuly called my termite company, they came out and informed me that they weren't termites at all, but some form of Japanese Beetle. Dur, okay, I said, as long as they're not eating my house, I don't care that they don't look like any Japanese Beetle I've ever seen. The hot spell passed, and the bugs eventually went away.

Well, the latest edition of my neighborhood newsletter contained a little gem: these bugs are Ischnodemus Falicus, who have moved in to the recently-marshified Lake Powell. They eat crops, and trying to eliminate them from anywhere but the source is doomed to failure. It took sending a sample of them to the Smithsonian to identify them (Virginia Tech didn't know what they were), and not much is known about them.

Let me tell you, I can't wait for spring. Ugh.

Now, if only I could heed my own advice.

1. I was seriously considering upgrading the software that runs a few of my sites to Movable Type 4.x to allow the use of the the iPhone/MT interface plugin. Yes, you read that right: I'm considering installing an entire CMS to get an interface for my phone. This plugin makes posting from the iPhone very, very easy. And a clean install of MT 4.x is actually quite easy as such things go.

   But upgrading from an old version, with an extremely custom template and unsupported database? Very, very difficult.

   So difficult, in fact, that I gave up trying to upgrade the existing installation and instead evaluated how much effort it would be recode several sites on the clean install.

   And the answer? Way more effort than it's worth.

2. I'm of a similar feeling of my second recent upgrade, of that to Apple's Leopard on my G4 Powerbook, Hithlum.

   My first upgrade attempt resulted in an unbearably slow system. This was not the desired outcome.

   So, after several hours debugging processes, killing off all sorts of little performance-stealing problems, I opted for a clean Tiger (10.4) install and trusted my backups. Tiger was great in all the areas I remember, and weak in all the other areas I remembered (cough cough Spotlight cough).

   After a few days of that, I thought that since there were enough other people having success with a clean install, that I would give it a try with a clean upgrade back to Leopard. In other words, I lost my marbles.

   You know what? I have not been entirely happy with Hithlum since I started meddling. And really, there's no turning back.

   Leopard may be faster than Tiger, but it doesn't feel faster. The 10.5.1 update helped stabilize some of the applications, and I'm sure that on a newer machine that I would be happy as a clam with Leopard. But instead I ask, was this really worth the time, effort, and money I spent?

   I suspect that the answer is no.

So: Future Brett! Listen up! I will make this simple for you. NEVER UPGRADE! Okay? Never.

(I don't know why I bother. Future Brett never listens.)]]> 4287@http://brettpeters.org/log/ Brett Peters Site Log 2007-12-04T01:48:52-05:00 http://brettpeters.org/log/2007/11/06/paper-spam-sucks.html#4266 Paper spam sucks. It’s a waste of time and resources (both yours and the planet’s.)

Do something about it.

• Catalog Choice is a non-profit who gets you off of catalog lists. Free, and they do it well.

• OptOutPrescreen.com gets you off of firm offers for credit and insurance for 5 years if you do it online, permanently if you mail in the form they make up for you.

• Register for the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service to get out of most everything else.

Okay? Go to it.

Busy again this year; 91 kids, one more than last year.

Trip was more interested in answering the door than collecting candy.
He's a funny kid.

In this case, she was going in for her 90k mile service and a headlight upgrade. Apparently a breather hose failed, causing a variable-speed fan to stay on max until it burned out, and several other parts of her engine need fixing. I am admittedly hazy on the details.

I just know that the repair bill will have four digits left of the decimal.

With that in mind, I am somewhat less excited about the headlight upgrade that I decided to treat myself and my car to. See, the Mark IV Jettas have headlights that scratch and cloud over, rendering them less bright than one might like. I watch the new cars pass me on I64 and wonder if that many people really drive with their brights on.

There is also this unshakeable guilt that we might have seen that deer coming last year with brighter lights in a wider dispersal pattern.

So when the headlight polishing had worn off, instead of dropping in the same OEM lamps for the GL/GLS model, I opted for the very cool GLX/GLI style, with integrated fog lights for better peripheral vision.

Yes. I pimped my ride, and all I did was add fogs. No smoked glass, no Angel Eye reflectors, no HID/Xenon upgrade kit.

I think I’d rather have an engine that runs instead of 19” wheels, anyway.

(I admit, it was a little startling to realize that I got my first computer 25 years ago.)

The interview is now up at his site.

• It loses millions of dollars for the athletic department, turning a department that would otherwise be operating in the black into the red.

• We lose to I-AA teams. (Unlike Michigan, we weren’t heavily favored to win.)

• Yes, we went to a bowl last year, but that’s something that 53% of all college teams manage to do. And for Rice, it’s a rarity.

Does this sound like a good use of time, effort, and money to anyone else? I sure doesn’t to me. I’d love to see us ditch I-A football and concentrate on those things that we do well.

Like, you know, Baseball.

Her: “That’s Noah, and that’s his mommy.”

Him: “Dats Noah, and dats his mommy.”

Her: “Would you like to see pictures of Trip?”

Him: Makes agreeing noises. Merrystar calls up his site.

Him: “Backhoeses!”

And then he reached out and tried to swipe the page on Merrystar’s Toughbook, just like it was an iPhone.

Me: “You’re going the wrong way.”

Her: “You hush.”

Him: “Boats! T-t on the boat!” more swiping motions, more of the page not going the right way.

I find it both wonderful and a little scary that my son knows that much about using my iPhone already.

Epilogue

After Trip had gone to sleep, we had the following exchange:

Me: “Finally, I found something your computer can’t do.”

Her: Swipes at my laptop screen. “Doesn’t look like yours can, either.”

Have I ever come out ahead in these?

Don’t answer that.

Trip was in his playroom today when suddenly he got up and walked out.

"Trip, where are you going?" his mother asked.

"To get dada's phone," came the answer from our bedroom. A few moments later, he returned with my phone in hand.

"Who are you going to call?" I asked. (Keep in mind that he called Manila before his first birthday.)

"TT taking pictures," he said, swiping at the phone to unlock it.

He had some problems aiming it, and ended up taking a lot of pictures of his feet, but he knew what he was doing with it.

I remain constantly amazed by this little person in our midst.

"There are no items to show in this view."

Sweeeeeet. It's quittin' time.

to this —

Shows what part of my problem with my backyard is: it’s featureless. Just a big plain of plants to be maintained at a 2-3 inch cut, with 35 feet of conservation area in the back. There’s nothing to focus on, nothing of interest. Just… green. Lots of green.

This would be desirable if I were playing football on a regular basis back there… but I’m not. (Even then, then I’d have to exterminate all the voles and regrade the soil. They’ve made it bumpy back there.)

Paths, and gardens, and slopes, and benches, would go a long way. We’ve already planted trees. More will follow. But maybe the problem isn’t just that I need a robot to do my lawn mowing; perhaps the backyard just needs to be more interesting.

‘Simple’ should never equal ‘boring.’

Eight hours wasted on this?]]> 4068@http://brettpeters.org/log/ flickr.com/photos/btp Personal Log 2007-08-12T17:04:54-05:00 http://brettpeters.org/log/2007/07/27/the-items-i-carry.html#3977 Looking through the The Items We Carry pool on Flickr, I see an awful lot of Apple/VW crossover things.

Yeah, I threw my pockets into the pool, too:

(Via.)

Trip has recently learned how to ride on my shoulders. He's not convinced that it's the best way to get around, but it's all right in moderation.

(Now that my father-in-law has an iPhone, hopefully pictures of me will become a little less rare. It's difficult to remove one's good camera when said camera is strapped in underneath a toddler.)