ShiftyEyed Bloggin’

So, I got bored and was playing with some linux software I'd used in the past called Alexandria. It's kind of cool.
So anyway, this is the page it generated.
I think it's kind of cool.

So I haven't updated this in awhile, so I figured I'd give out some pointers that I've updated my Gallery.¹

The new stuff is mostly in "Californian Exploits", but there's also some stuff one level up (Northampton and Vermont).

Most of those are shot with Chris' new EOS-20D, it's nice.

Other news is that I live in Vermont now (again).
This time it's a little more permenant, as I've driven the 3,200 miles from San Francisco to Montpelier.
So that's where I am.

1. http://gallery.shiftyeyed.net/ [back]

So, Chris and I decided we were going to go to Northampton again to take exterior pictures of our beloved Asylum with his new camera and lens.

We had a couple problems, though.

One of those problems was the fact that we got a somewhat late start on our festivities. The other was that he wanted to meet up with a friend for lunch.
This in and of itself is not a problem, the problem was trying to track down said friend upon arrival in Amherst.
So after lunch we sat around his dorm for a little bit, bs'ing and poking him in the belly, then realized it was fast becoming dark out and that dark lighting does not good pictures make.

We left and headed over to Northampton, and made our way to the ASylum.
Upon arrival we realized, sadly, that we'd only be able to take pictures of one building, and only one side of it. (The South Infirmary).
I took a series of photos, and then we went across the street and took pictures of what I'm assuming was one of the Staff Dormitory buildings (which doubled as a fall-out shelter).

We took pictures of that, and of a cop that was reading a book (his intention being to protect the buildings we were taking pictures of), then left.

Sad to say, not many of the pictures came out well, so Chris is going to back sometime (sans me *pout*) and take more pictures during the day, of the entire complex we hope.
We're not sure when it's to be demolished, but we think it's soon.

I really wish I could have gotten better pictures, but oh well.
Something else will come up I hope. Another beautiful old building.
Hopefully by then I'll have a nicer camera than my "Transformer."¹

Here is a link to the pictures I took of the South Infirmary.
Again, I really wish there'd been more time to take better shots.
*sigh*
- K

1. Chris calls my Nikon Coolpix e995 a "Transformer" because it's got a swivel lens. [back]

According to a Google presentation, the company is optimistic about unlimited storage capacities -Digg

read more | digg story

Newsvine, a site a lot like Digg.com, went live.

It seems to be a little more professional than Digg in it's tuning, and what articles it strives to serve.

Good stuff.

read more | digg story

So, entirely _not_ exciting is that a few nights ago, I collapsed!

I know this isn't technology but whatever. (I'll cross post this in my LJ¹ just for kicks)

So, it was Feb 26th, at around 17:30. Chris and I were called downstairs to have dinner. I had been lying down, not sleeping but not really awake either (I may have been reading), and as some of you may know, I have issues when I stand up. I get dizzy and headrush, things of that nature.

Anyway, I made it all the way downstairs apparently, but I only vaguely remember getting down there, or getting to the kitchen. I do not remember _at all_ anything that happened in the kitchen.
All I remember is hearing Chris' mom yell and feeling a sharp pain in my right arm. I came-to at some point and couldn't see anything, my vision was completely gone for a few minutes.
That slowly returned and I was greeted by the image of all three of them (Chris and his parents) hovering over me.

I was apparently out for about 45 seconds to a minute, and I got a gash on my right arm because it hit the counter. That seems like a really long time to me, but… not an expert.

Chris helped me up after a few minutes and helped me to the den, and I sat on the sofa for awhile. My vision started to go bright and blurry again but I didn't pass out a second time.
They gave me some sugary juice and then a little bit later I made my way to the dinner table and had some food.
They checked my blood pressure and such and we can't really figure out what was up.

My guesses are that it was either related to my blood pressure, my blood sugar, blood oxygen (The last thing I really remember was thinking that Chris' room smelled really strong of flowers, he had forgotten about an incense oil burner thing and it got really really powerful), or heat exhaustian (I also remember feeling very overheated upon getting up).

My blood pressure has been doing interesting things, I think. I'm no expert, and I'm not sure what "normal" is…

• February 26th:
• 18:00 — 180 / 71 P:80
• 23:00 — 107 / 67 P:72
• February 27th:
• 16:30 — 104 / 65 P:92
• Februrary 28th:
• 02:00 — 121 / 65 P:39

Ah well, good times I guess. Heh.

In other, yet related news… I got my cold again. The one that almost turned in to bronchitis.
One of Chris' friends at the university gave it to him, and he gave it to me. This is the third or possibly fourth time I've had it this season… I'm so done with having it :-\
My temperature's been dropping well bellow what's normal for me.

Oh well.
- K

1. http://kvidell.livejournal.com [back]

I'm a little pissed off now¹…
That said, on to the post.

A couple weeks ago I suffered a little downtime, for a reason that I actually to be particularly entertaining given what my previous entry was.

So, after I did my blog update, and everything was happy, I went on with life and didn't think anything of the blog again until the next morning.
Chris had signed in to do some checking up on some e-mail issues I guess, and noticed that the One-Click Installs now had an "Update or Remove" option that wasn't there before, and he thus noticed that my blog, for whatever reason, was needing an "Update."
I insisted that I had already updated my blog the night before and that it would not need another one.
But, he insisted that DreamHost was infallible, and so I said "Okay" and he went ahead with the update.
This broke things real good like. I went in and looked and for some reason had three backup folders, instead of 2 like I should have had, and after experimenting, had decided for myself that the SQL DB had crapped itself for whatever reason.
So I started pinging e-mails off of the DreamHost Support Hippies (And I say "hippies" in the most affectionate way possible, I assure you) and they determined that my SQL DB was actually fine, and that the problem actually existed in my plugins.
They moved the plugin folder so that the WordPress install would deactivate them, then told me I could go through and one by one, reactivate them and see which one the problem was.
For whatever reasone, I was able to reactivate them with no issue or… explosion, and things are running fine now.

And now, on to the second bit of the title!

While in Vermont, I've been playing with Chris' new toy: a Canon EOS-20D².

This thing is a sexy, sexy little piece of equipment.
It's a true Digital SLR, so it actually feels like a camera when you push the shutter button, as opposed to… a small speaker making "the shutter sound" uppon snapping the image.
It's AF is nice, but I usually shoot in MF anyway, I just like it better… and the general featureset of the camera is very nice.

I haven't gotten to play with it a whole lot yet, but I'm getting used to how the settings interact (exposure, shutter speed, aperture, ISO.. etc..) and happily getting used to _not_ using the LCD display for framing my shots. The viewfinder is much nicer, I just can't use it on my camera.³

Some of the stuff I've shot with the 20D can be found here.

Good times.
- K

1. I was writing this entry a moment ago, and for some reason decided it would be a good idea to center-click on the tab that had my blog editor in it… thus losing everything I'd written. Yay me. [back]
2. DPReview Page for Canon EOS-20D [back]
3. My Nikon e995 isn't a true SLR, so the viewfinder on it is _next_ to the lens, and I don't feel like processing the offset in my brain, so I just use the stupid LCD for that. [back]

Okay, two things here.
Firstly, I'm not going to do my sub-headers anymore unless I really need to for some reason. I'm just too damn lazy for it most of the time, and I don't really care.
I know they look pretty in most of the RSS Aggregators out there (It looked great for me in Liferea, and looks great in Thunderbird (Which, btw, is an excellent feed aggregator, I recomend it to anyone who uses it already for their e-mail (which it also does well.))), but damnit… I'm lazy.

Second: My webhost¹ rocks some pretty serious shit, and they've wowed me again.

They have this section of the site/panel called "One Click Installs." And it's just that, one click installs.
On this page, I can tell it what software I want to install (And I have a neat selection… I've used it for phpBB, Gallery, and this very blog. Also, MediaWiki and Mambo are options, along with some stuff I'll never use, so I don't bother remembering it's there), I choose it's radio button, then it asks me in a form bellow that about the MySQL db I want to use for it.
It allows me to select from all of the already existing DBs, or lets me create a new one from a few simple form options, then I hit install.
It then asks where I want to install to. I can pick from any of the existing domains and subdomains, create a new subdomain, and/or tell it a directory within a domain to install to.
This is all on the same, very small page.

About 10 minutes later, usually less (it's never taken me more than 5 for this e-mail), I get a "Succesfully installed [software] to [place I told it to install to]!" e-mail, and I can navigate to it and do the final setup (usually telling it what users to add and stuff like that if applicable.).

But something I noticed from the start and always wanted/wondered about is this: What happens when the software is updated?
Because, that's inevitable. And I don't want to have to backup my databases and what have you to do an update from the panel…
Well, the question has been answered without me having to poke at them with a stick and find out.

I signed in to my panel today to see what was new, and loe and behold: "Update your 1click installs with… 1 (more) click!"
Thank you jesus.
That said, my blog and gallery have been updated to their latest versions with a simple click per each and waiting about 45 seconds.

DreamHost, I love yew.
- Kev

Oh! By the way, actually.
Go here: http://www.rubyonrails.org/screencasts
Check out the first two videos, they're _awesome_.
It makes me want to get back in to webdev, those are emaculate. Pure and simple.
Ruby rocks. (so far).
Not sure how I feel about Ajaxx though, any thoughts?

1. http://www.dreamhost.com [back]

I was cleaning up my bookmarks and when I ran into this link. It's gotta be pretty old, I saw a floppy drive!
But it made me smile, I thought you guys may enjoy it too.

read more | digg story

VTA Bus Operator
_{Confidentiality? Crap.}
So, I'm supposed to be all super quiet about this one… suffice to say that I found a lot of the questions in the test(s) to be humorous, especially the personality questionaire.

The other people there were friendly as well, and the Proctor was… a Proctor, oh well.

I think I did pretty well.
Not much to be said really… It was just a test.

Morgan Center
_{Autism and Other Developmental Personality Disorders}
Though, mostly Autism from what I can tell.

The Morgan Center is a facility that took up residence in my old Elementary school, Benjamin Cory Ele. in San Jose, CA.
Last time I was there, it was still a K -> 2 (Kindergarten through 2nd Grade) school, but today when I went it was very different.

The campus is surrounded by a sort of cold, damp feeling, mostly caused by the new 3 and 6 foot tall chain-link fences surrounding various portions of the school that was previously left open so students could wander at will.
I parked my car behind the old day-care center and walked up to the office. I was greeted by a nice woman in the office who asked me if I needed any help.
I explained to her that eleven years ago, I was a student at Cory and that I had spent some time in Vermont, and upon arrival found the school to be in it's current state, and just asked her if she could explain it to me at all.
She said that Cory as I knew it had vacated early last year due to a lack of students in the area and funding, and that the Morgan Center had purchased the land and buildings from the school distrct, and was performing their own renovations to it.
She explained that the students they teach at their school were not only developmentally challenged, but also behaviorally as well, because this school was mostly seen as a last resort. No other school in the area really has an advanced Special Education Needs department, so they have to be sent to one place.

Luckily they get sent to what seems to be a rather nice place now.
I asked her if they were looking for any help, and she said that they're always taking applications. She asked me if I had any previous experience in the field, and I sadly declined but added that I've been thinking for quite awhile about going to school for it, and pursuing a Docterate in the field.
This kind of got her to do a double take and she started to dig through her drawers to find the applications and job description.
She made copies of them for me and we talked a little bit more about what they do.

Lucky for me I'd just gotten done with the VTA test, so I was still in my nice clothes (Slacks, button-down dress shirt).
The only thing I really don't qualify for on the job description is I'm not CPR Certified, but I think that's easy enough to remedy, I'll be looking in to it.

I'd really rather prefer to help out there, and make a little less money, than drive a bus for VTA. At least this way if I do end up wanting to go to school for it, my feet will already be damp, and I'll know a little bit about what I'm getting in to.

Ah… good times, yes?
- Kev