Back in 5...

I was starting a profound entry on where I've been and why, as well as a fawning ode to the motorcycle, when I realized it's 50 degrees and sunny outside in the middle of February, and I decided I was crazy to be wasting time on a blog entry. Gotta go ride, and I'll catch this up when the weather turns foul (it will , soon. This is still February in Montana.)

Rocketboom

The future of blogs (for the talented or good looking). The rest of us probably have better faces for writing.

Back in the saddle again...

We went to Lewis & Clark Caverns last weekend, and on the way home, we happened to stop at the Harley shop in Belgrade. To make the long story short, we now own a pair of Sportsters. Cele got a blue 883L and I got this 1200 custom.

I got my first motorcycle thirty years ago, and have enjoyed them ever since. This is my fourth bike and my first Harley. If I was a smart ass, I'd say my first ride on a Harley was everything I'd expected it to be from the stories I grew up with. I made it 28 miles down the highway and it crapped out on me. 7:30 Sunday night and I was stranded on the interstate with $11,000 worth of brand new scrap iron. It turned out to be an unplugged stator - the electrical system was running on the battery until it died because it wasn't charging. The dealership was very good about driving out and picking up the bike and fixing it, and tomorrow they are delivering it (Belgrade is 160 miles away). I've been riding Cele's, and it is a sweet ride. I can't wait to get mine back. Oh, and the caverns were fun to, even if it did turn into an expensive trip.

Bad Web Hosting Co. - Round 2

I finally got my blog back up and running this week end after the oafs at Fatcow thoroughly screwed it up in their server upgrade several months ago. I wasn't alone, and fortunately was able to glean some clues to the fix from the problems of others. I called their help desk when my site disappeared immediately after their upgrade, and at least they got my home page up and running, but the pages with php scripts returned errors. I called them back about this and their cracker jack tech department asked for a list of php pages. They then "fixed" the problem by actually going into those pages and DELETING THE PHP FROM MY PAGES! I went in the next day, and all my php was GONE from the code. I was pissed, but actually too busy to stop and fight with them at the time - in the wake of my dad dying, we've been house hunting for my mother plus selling her house in Dillon, 255 miles away, plus getting her moved here after we closed on a condo in May, so fighting with an invisible, incompetent tech support crew had to be low priority.

Now I'm back, and I'm rested and ready. There isn't really much I can do to them except tell everyone who'll listen, FATCOW SUCKS. Their tech support is incompetent at best and flat out dishonest at worst. This is my second bad experience with a web hosting company - anyone who recognizes the name Feature Price knows what I mean. So, with a month left on my account at FatCowSucks, I'm in the hunt for another web host. Third times the charm, and I'm open to recommendations.

Terry Helmts

Over the last 15 years, I knew Terry as a customer, an employee, a friend, and a mentor. He was a part of the foundation the Tropical Shop was built on, and he was the best computer/LAN/WAN troubleshooter I've ever known. And he was only 37 when he died in his sleep. Thank you for everything, Terry. We'll always have Carrot Top.

Clovis L. Birdsill

My father died November 7, 2004 at 1:30 pm. I was sitting facing him, looking directly at him when he drew his last breath. It was the first time I ever saw someone die. He was there, then he wasn't. I've waited to write about it because it has been a time of great sadness, and I thought maybe a little time would buffer that to make this easier. It hasn't. I am getting tears in my eyes even now as I think back about that day. I have been exploring Buddhism the last few years, largely because I knew this day was coming, and I hoped to have some answers prepared as a salve. I can't say I got the answers, but the concepts strike a chord I appreciate.

Heard at work...

"... as that machine begins its death blossom, it's going to puke a stack dump."

How can you not love the poetry of the geek workplace?

Coming Soon!

Thanks in equal parts to the admiration for the cool way Todd Dominey blended the Flash golf course tour into the PGA website, and the desire to add another tool to my arsenal, I've bitten the bullet and ordered Flash. Another toy in the box, oh boy! Gotta go now - I think I heard the UPS truck...

Back from Alaska, and it was great. I got some of the Glacier splendor I wanted, though not as much as I expected. There were two big fires around Fairbanks, and the smoke was so bad in Denali the first two days that I wasn't really sure if Alaska even had mountains. Then a day of rain washed things out and left the rest of our stay beautiful.

The thumbnail is from one of the Alaskan cultural events we stumbled on - the Northern Exposure factor I was hoping for, if you will. The story goes like this: Twenty years ago, the Alaska Railroad built a bridge across the Nenana river at the town of Ferry. Ferry was called that because the river ran through the town, and without a bridge, the ferry was indespensible. The townsfolk of Ferry were therefore elated at the new ARR bridge, and soon began using it as their own. The folks at the railroad saw an inherent danger in this, and in an effort to disuade the towns folks, embedded nails in the ties on the bridge to make automobile passage impossible. The Ferry folks in turn placed boards over the nails and continued using the bridge. As the efforts escalated, the railroad finally got a court injunction, and the folks of Ferry lost the use of the bridge for good. As a protest, every year since then (nineteen so far) on 4th of July, the citizens of Ferry (all 29 of them) line up along the tracks and moon the passenger trains of the Alaska Railroad as they pass through town. Ya gotta love traditions.

Nine days and counting until I'm on my way to a 4th in Fairbanks. A vacation is past due. It's been over a year since my birthday in N'awlins, and I'm ready. We're taking a train through Denali, or at least through as much of it as possible. It sounds great. I've never been there, so I can only imagine what it'll be like. I'm hoping for an overdose of Glacier grandeur sprinkled with a little Northern Exposure.