Well, I knew it would happen – actually, I lasted longer than I thought I would. It’s been a week since I successfully got an LJ post up. And I posted every day – including today. But does today’s post really count when all I’m doing is writing to say that I have nothing to say? Hmmm, that’s an interesting question…

OK, here’s a question for y’all – if you were going to take your 11 year old cousin out for her first Indian meal, what would you order for her? Just for some assistance, she’s more of the non-adventurous sort. I seem to remember I was willing to try any strange “ethnic” food when I was her age, though I avoided “healthy-looking non-ethnic” food (aka, veggies). But she seems even more finicky than I was. Suggestions on a postcard to… Hell, I’ll make it easier – just comment on my LJ.

Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: “Parents Just Don’t Understand” by DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince

judiang and I watch Angel together every week cuz neither of us are much in the way of Angel fans. I happen to like Spike and we both like Elsa, so we watch this show. So, now we get to comment on the episode before Elsa even gets home from work. Ha!

The best line of the show: “Sex with robots is more common than people think.”

Guest Star: That was Roy Dotrice, wasn’t it?

Acting: There was acting? Last week, Judi and I decided that Angel had two expressions, moody and constipated. The real problem occurs when he has to do both at the same time.

Pulling Punches: Yeah, ElsaF was right when she claimed that the current season of Angel has been pulling its punches. I think this tells us one thing – Angel (the vampire or the series – take your pick) has no balls. Was he castrated in the last season?

My opinion of Wesley (shebit is gonna KILL me): He’s still a turnip. But at least now we *know* why he’s a turnip.

Spike: Judi’s comment: “Spike was a poor bedeviled vamp. Now he’s a pain in the ass ghost.” True, but he is the funniest part of the show.

Current Mood: indifferent

As mentioned in an earlier post, I’m the network administrator and all around computer guru at school. I’m also the physics & chemistry teacher there. So for me, computers are a daily thing. Thanks to our school being an Ohio school, we have no money. So our computer upgrading has not been the ideal 3 year cycle that we mention in our Technology Plan. It hasn’t even been a 5-year cycle.

But thanks to some grants (which, although wonderful, are always a spurious thing and should never have to be counted upon) we’ve been able to get some new computers for the elementary and high school. We have 270 computers in the small K-12 building (yes, all the same building) and try not to change the total all that much. (Just no room for more than 6 computers in most classrooms, and there are 3 big HS labs and 1 big elementary lab – junior high is considered part of the HS for most classifications.)

So what does one do with the old computers? Yes, that’s right – put them under the chemistry tables, under the physics tables, on top of the physics tables, in the science computer lab along the back wall, and in the technology storage area (which is first and foremost the physics equipment storage area). Oh yeah, and also put them in the wire-closet, too. We had over 100 computers, nearly 90 monitors, boxes of mice, keyboards, and speakers (when people request speakers for every computer in their classroom, just say no and give them headphones instead!) and horrid SCSI/Parallel scanners. They were on my carts and in my way. And today, we finally got rid of them all! YAY! Thanks to Computer Haulers of Dayton (who supposedly recycle the good bits to make computer systems for people who can’t afford them) I now have my chem lab and physics storage back!

The truck arrived today (coming for the second batch of stuff – it didn’t all fit the first time) during physics and the students were thrilled to help take all the monitors and carts out to the truck because it meant another delay in taking the test on circular motion. 🙂 So now they get to take it on Monday (when their catapult research papers are due – but that’s also an extension). So let’s hear it for Computer Haulers of Dayton and Miss Short’s physics class for finally getting my rooms back!

Current Mood: grateful
Current Music: “I’m Coming Out” by Chumbawamba

One cool thing about my new host is that I can (once again) personalize my error messages. So far, I’ve only done the 404 error (which is, usually, the most common to occur).

So, if you want to see my new error message, just check out a page that doesn’t exist. Try http://pagefillers.com/nothere.html for example. (I’ll eventually get it to the same font as the majority of my page.)

If you think it’s too sarcastic, let me know. If it’s not sarcastic enough, let me know. 🙂

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: “Tubthumping [Original Mix]” by Chumbawamba

Isn’t it the way? You finally contact the technical guru, and the problem clears up… As the network adminstrator, I see this happen often. (I think, at work, the computers are just afraid of me and behave when they think I’ve been called – after all, I know how to do format c:!) And, of course, it happens to me too. So here I am, waiting for RoadRunner’s LiveChat to start, and I think “I’d better check to make sure my page doesn’t make me a liar…” And guess what? The new page has finally arrived! (15 minutes ago, I was still getting the old one.) So RoadRunner must have had one DNS server that was just a bit slower than the others.

No idea if it’s propagated throughout the world yet, but at least I’m finally able to see my new page. The URL, in case you haven’t been paying attention (ha!) is http://pagefillers.com. I’m happy! Yay!

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: “All Mixed Up” by Chumbawamba

Hmmmm – still no new site here. Yet Pegasus is finally having problems with the old mail server (mail.pagefillers.com). Being the geek that I am, I did tracert both here and at home. Indeed, I’m getting the old pagefillers (216.29.207.22) after 21 hops. Dad and I separated after 15 hops when he went onto ATL while I went onto JTK. His total hops (minus his hop to his home network router) was 25 (ending at 66.250.128.11). So I need to go four more hops to get to my new site.

In other geek searching that I did, he seems to only have 2 DNS servers from RoadRunner, while I’ve got 3 in my settings, from what I can see. (I was using WinIPcfg here and had to use his router software at his place cuz ipconfig only told me his local network settings.) What is his primary DNS is my secondary, and vice versa. And I’ve no idea what the third is as it’s a completely different set of IP addresses. (But it’s from the same set of addresses as my DHCP settings.)

So I, for one, am perplexed. If I’m feeling up to it, I’ll contact RoadRunner support to see if they can assist.

OK – now onto my non geeky rant. There’s a local “free” paper that’s just recently started up. I don’t like getting the newspaper (despite one of my best friends working for one – but she’s in Detroit and I’m in Ohio), let alone the freebies. All of the other free papers have been nice enough to stop littering my yard when I’ve called their (not always local) phone number. Yes, it’s a waste of my time, but it beats the waste of time (not to mention paper) throwing the damn things away every week. Well, two weeks ago I called this new freebie paper (the Miami County Advocate) and asked to have my address removed. The lady who answered was gracious and said to call the next week if it appeared again.

Well, I guess it’s my fault, really, because, even though it arrived again the following week, I didn’t call. (Too busy, for one.) It’s the next week, and sure enough, it arrives again. This time I do call. I’ve no idea if the same lady talked to me today, but she informed me that if I want to have my name removed from the list, I need to fill out and send in this “coupon” to the address listed on it and then (and only then) I’ll stop getting this trash thrown onto my property every week. I don’t like this arrangement. I’ve already wasted my time dealing with this with 2 phone calls. I don’t want to waste more time filling out the “coupon” and then spending 37cents to mail it to them.

I asked the lady if she could forward my call onto someone who could deal with this problem, since I didn’t want to bug her any more – she’s only trying to do her job. Of course, the fellow who’s “in charge” was in a meeting (probably devising new ways to irritate the people in their jurisdiction) so I left a voice message. If this persists, I may complain to the village council on this company that keeps insisting on littering on my property. Very, very annoying. (Can you guess what’s going to be my mood?)

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: “Stitch That” by Chumbawamba

I always loved that quote from Postcards from the Edge. Indeed, it’s the story of my life. I have no patience. And yet, it’s the antici…………………………………………………..pation that I probably love the most. Usually. Advent is probably my favorite time of the year because it’s the time to anticipate Christmas and the Holidays and time spent with family and friends (and let’s not forget Christmas Break). But when it comes to technology, not only do I dislike anticipation, but I hate any sort of delays. I can explain the same problem 15 times to a student and not strangle the kid. But if a computer acts up, I have no patience. I swear (as long as I’m not in a classroom – I hope!). I know a lot of swear words now. I think it’s because of the computers. 🙂

So why this discussion of impatience? Cuz now just about everyone I’ve talked to have seen my new page – EXCEPT ME. What’s really weird is that dad, who lives in the house next door and also has RoadRunner, can already see the new page. Perhaps after I reboot my computer it’ll show. Perhaps…

Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: “Song For Len Shackleton” by Chumbawamba

It’s the waiting game. Interestingly, I checked my webpage at work and it showed the new front page. Here at home, it’s still the same old, same old. I have RoadRunner at home as my ISP, but at school we have 2 bonded T1 lines to MDECA, which is our school’s A site. They’re our ISP, our grade warehouse, our student database store, our Internet filter (Bess – gah!), and many other things. Plus I’m getting some of the e-mail captured by InMotion and some by Sharp. So if you send me any e-mail and wonder if I got it, wait a day or so and ask.

I would like to take a moment to apologize to any family members who might happen to be reading this. Yes, I *am* a geek. You’ve known it for some time. And my LiveJournal is even more evidence of it. I suppose it’s the nature of the beast that when I post to my LJ, that some of it (most of it lately, I’ll admit, but that’s cuz of the host change) will be geeky. I shall endeavor, however, to not *always* be a geek in my posts. (Aw, who am I kidding? Once a geek, always a geek!) 😉

Leo, meanwhile, is happily playing with a twist tie. What’s the opposite of geek? Whatever it is, it’s Leo. 🙂

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: “Give the Anarchist a Cigarette” by Chumbawamba

Well, the InMotion transfer is now in motion, as it were. I’ve copied the old site to the new host and have informed NetworkSolutions of the new DNS server addresses. Now it’s up to the Propagation Gods to start directing people to the new server. The hardest part of the transfer, IMO, is the e-mail part. Not only do I use Pagefillers e-mail, but so do my parents and my sister. This enables them to have a stable e-mail address regardless of ISP. It’s also a stable e-mail address regardless of webhost, but the propagation time is Hell for the e-mails. Some will get picked up by Sharp and some by InMotion. Hopefully, all e-mails will be accounted for in the end.

Pegasus should handle things well – I use it now and have convinced dad to use it too, so it should be easy for us, relatively speaking. Amy, IIRC, uses Outlook. I have NO clue about Outlook myself, and have to rely on online tutorials to walk her through things. I’ve told her to give me a call should my directions suck – which they might well do – and I’ll do what I can to walk her through. If anyone out there is really familiar with Outlook (from Office2K, I *think* – possibly ’97) that I can go to with questions, just e-mail me or make a comment after this post. (As the Network Administrator for my HS, I refuse to let Outlook or Outlook Express in my building. Could that be why we have so few virus problems? Well, I think that’s one reason. Our obsolete technology helps too. :-))

So, are there any other features of this new webhost? Well, it has 5x the storage space of the old one. It has an SMTP server. (We’ve all been relying on our ISP’s SMTP servers for the past year and a bit.) It can handle php database (which I don’t have, but might eventually). It has tech people who actually respond – that’s a plus!

How will you know when things are fully propagated? Well, I did what I did last time. I updated the front page of my site! And the REAL shame of things is that the *last* time I updated my site was when I switched from Yahoo to Sharp. Whoops! The new site is titled “New Webhost Part Deux!” and tells a story about the latest move. It also has links to this LiveJournal. And promises that things will be different in 2004. Heh. (Now don’t come visiting on Jan 1 2004 expecting a new page – I’ll be in Orlando then! So Jan 4, 2004 – that’s the date to watch out for.)

Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: “Dr. Jazz” by The Bonzo Dog Band

Darn, it’s a shame I’m not up to “C” in my music listening. I could use the Chenille Sisters “Howlin’ At The Moon” playing right now. Yes, I’m watching the Lunar Eclipse from my seat in my den. Leo’s watching too – but I think he’s more interested in his reflection in the window and the Venetian blinds cord.

I still remember the solar eclipse that we watched while I was teaching at Eaton. I took my students outside and we made pinholes in 3×5″ cards in order to view the eclipse. And the coolest thing was the leaves of the trees acting like little pinhole cameras. There were millions of little crescents on the sidewalk and grass. It was fascinating. Lunar eclipses are a bit safer to look at, I will admit. 🙂

In other news, I’m finally giving up on Sharp Web Services. They’ve been my webhost for over a year, but their e-mail hosting has been the biggest problem. They continually play with their spam filters (or something) and all of my (and dad’s) yahoogroups e-mails are bounced. And their tech support is nonexistant. It’s a real shame as the company is based in Columbus – it’s nice to support Ohio businesses (seeing as how I live in Ohio). But I’d prefer not to support second rate Ohio businesses.

So, I’m going to try InMotion Hosting now. I’ve even been called by one of their tech folks to say their going to start on my setup already. Cool! Hopefully the transfer will go smoothly. My folks and sister rely on the e-mail, and Robert Smith? hosts the Doctor Who Ratings Guide on Pagefillers. So it’s not just me that’s affected by this move. Here’s hoping it’s a smooth move!

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: “All Together Now” by The Beatles