Elburro: Donkey Talk

A Virtually Perfect World? · Nov 23, 10:11 PM

“The dollar is rising quickly in currency markets as first news spreads that a broadbased coalition of Democrats and Republicans has convicted George Bush in the impeachment trial….”

Read more ... (445 words.)

* * *

Back in the Saddle · Oct 30, 05:55 PM

Well, our roving donkey, who has bravely gone where all kinds of folks have been before seeking cheap webhosts, is now back in Pittsburgh. And I transfered the database without breaking (!). All that means is that you are now reading content courtesy of Pair Networks, and not a weird page saying, “Fatal Error! SQL call to somethingerother.php failed! Syntax error line 684 of somethingelse.php! Contact your network administrator.” (uh, that’s me) Basically, a Dead Donkey in the Middle of the Web until I could cajole a little help from the Good PhotoDoctor.

But that nightmare didn’t happen. Either I’m getting smarter or the software has improved.

So….the mind spins along. The “Boss” would like it if our $49/mo hosting bill went down to $29. I can do that easily by getting rid of SSL on our account. Which would cause two (non-producing) web stores to stop working. I could convert them to third party shopping carts: Mals (free and fairly configurable) or Americart (costs $, but insanely configurable). They certainly have their merits over database driven shopping carts where you add products over a web admin interface. Say you’ve got a belt that comes in 30 colors and 16 different sizes, and the real long sizes cost a little more or there’s quantity discounts. Whoa, try entering all those different combinations in osCommerce! Then say, you like your pre-existing html coding and don’t really want to learn how to make a database driven site look anywhere near as good by spending 150 hours searching through forums.

But we seem to be on a tangent of some sort. Some of us who are a little crazy kind of like fooling with that crap and the extra $20/mo gives us a cheap playpen to do it in. Which gets down to I might sign up for one-a-them grid hosts, just to fool around, and pay for it myself. Then the Boss is happy, and I’m only short about two good six-packs/month.

In the meantime, I have a prepaid year over at Dreamhost with a gazillian gigabytes of storage and bandwidth and unlimited mysql databases sitting empty.

Comment

* * *

Okay, like I've just moved, eh? · Oct 1, 06:42 PM

No, not to my last vacation spot but like this site, eh? The Donkey has been sucked into LA somewhere.

It all started with my boss. Huh? “my boss”? I don’t have no stinkin’ boss, dude. I’m like, self-employed. But as it turns out, in real life, there always seem to be bosses, no matter what you do.

It was last week some time:

“Hey, did you ever look at these hosting bills? $65/mo. Are you crazy?”

“Well, yeah, it’s a little high, but we get a lot of extras ‘n’ stuff. You wouldn’t want our site going down when a customer’s on it would you?”

“Well, Robin’s on Godaddy paying $4/mo and her site’s NEVER down.”

(A little aside here. I know Robin’s on Godaddy, because I built her site. It was excruciating. Not because of Robin – oh, okay, it was a little because of Robin – not because of the Godaddy network and her site constantly crashing – that was fine. It was trying to build a site on Godaddy with all their weird security configs. And it wasn’t that I minded their ftp timing out after 30 seconds, because there were too many other NIGHTMARE config problems to overcome that normal web hosts do, well, normally. Just google Godaddy hosting reviews and you’ll get a bunch of them. And it’s rarely about their network, which seems to be fine. It’s always something like, “jobs that should take 5 minutes take at least an hour, if you’re lucky”. That sums it up perfectly. Anyway, enough aside on that one.)

So, after about a week of searching, reading reviews and hanging out in forums, I found a cheap web host that seemed to have everything I needed. Longevity (since ’97), a shell account (I can’t function without a shell account), a lot of mysql databases (unlimited *but see below), healthy, fast, well-configed database, mail and web servers (actually, I don’t know any of that yet), redundant peering connections to several backbones (don’t know that either). But, suffice it to say, I decided to gamble on Dreamhost

So far though, I’ve only moved the Donkey there (with no database corruption during the migration!! Yip-a-ky-yay, mofo). I’m monitoring the uptime at this point, and slowness (if anyone notices showness, I’d appreciate a yell). And I’m attempting to learn more about their network. I’ve got an incredibly cheap year to fiddle with all this before moving my main sites over. As I was poking through the Dreamhost forums, I noticed a lot of posters had little $97 off new hosting years codes in their .sigs. Turns out, if you use their code, they get 10% of whatever you spend at Dreamhost forever, and 5% of anybody that the new signee gets to sign up.

So, a prepaid year there was like, $119 and I got $97 off, so I got a year for $22. Plenty of time to see if it’s a decent host or a cesspool.
If it turns out decent, The Boss will be happy. If it turns out to be a “I told you so”, then I’m more than vindicated in pretty much any of my decisions for probably 4 months or so. So it’s win-win, eh?

Oh, the * on the “unlimited” MySQL databases. Let’s throw in the 500 gigs of “storage space” and the terrabyte per month of bandwidth too. We all know that nobody ever needs that much “unlimited” crap. And if you do happen to be using that on a shared server, you won’t be on that shared server too long. Trust me.

Anyway, enough for now. I’ve already got a title for my next post, “Adventures with pine on the new host”. Ta da.

Comment [6]

* * *

And then there's always a Psycho Deer · Jun 10, 08:16 AM

Which is probably what the Kennesaw police were thinking when Andrew called in the complaint. According to him, a “crazy rabid deer” had jumped over the fence in his backyard and was attacking his dog. He needed the police to shoot it immediately.

Um, hmmm….at this point they were probably remembering that a short time ago he called in asking if he could shoot deer “eating flowers on my own property. We’re supposed to own guns here, so I’m sure it’s fine, but I’m checking with you first.”

At that time, the cop had replied, “sure, you can shoot them, and then we can cuff and chain you and drag you down to the station to face charges for discharging a firearm inside city limits. You’ll face a heavy fine and probably do jail time, but don’t let that stop you.”

So, most likely with tongues planted firmly in cheeks, first one cruiser showed up, then a second and then a third. After an hour or so with all three cruisers still out there, we neighbors started venturing over thinking something juicy had happened, like a domestic dispute or a Hatfield/McCoy thing, or maybe even a break-in. Tom had broken out a six-pack.

From what we could surmise, if the deer had been in Andrew’s backyard, it was outside the fence at this point, but it wasn’t going anywhere and the police were confering amongst themselves as to what they should do. Eventually, they decided on a plan of action and it was to return to the station. “We think your dog was barking and the deer thought its young were in danger. We’ve never heard of a deer with rabies. We advise you to keep your dog inside until this blows over”.

Well, after they left, Andrew was in danger of blowing over, so I told to him the story of a former neighbor and his wife who had only lived in our cul-de-sac about 6 months. According to the former neighbor’s wife Trish, her George had shot a neighbor’s dog who was menacing her and their surrounding neighbors were so incensed (at George) that they were forced to move out and ended up in our cul-de-sac. On top of that, George was fined $10,000. She didn’t say anything about attorney’s fees, but they must have been substantial, leaving George sullen and resentful. After six months in our cul-de-sac, things apparently hadn’t gotten any better and they divorced and moved out.

Andrew seemed to cool down to a slow simmer after that, and Tom, who was on his third beer, suggested we have a cul-de-sac party on July 4. “Lots of beer and no kids…” That sounded like a plan, so we all returned to our homes and back to normal life.

A couple of days later, I was sipping coffee on the back deck, enjoying the cool air and looking down to see if our herd of deer were wandering through the gully below munching on leaves.

I didn’t see the herd, but I did see one deer, which was very strange. They never walk around alone. The deer was rapidly moving back and forth under a tree. I couldn’t see what it was doing through the leaves, but the tree was shaking violently. Then, I noticed at the other end of the tree was a big raccoon. It kept charging under the tree and getting thrown back. It would regroup and charge back in. A raccoon fighting a deer? This kept up for over an hour and I finally had to go back inside. From the looks of it, the raccoon was getting the worst of the confrontation.

But, a deer attacking a raccoon? I Googled “rabid deer” and discovered that any warm-blooded mammel can get rabies. It was pretty uncommon among white tailed deer, and averaged 0-2 per year in the entire United States. Rabid or psycho, the thing was acting nuts. I had new sympathy for Andrew, and I resolved to tell him that at least I didn’t think he was crazy. I also thought I would tell him about my own “deer solution” to keep them from eating the plants. I buy coyote urine and keep it in covered containers all over the property. We don’t have deer eating our plants any more. On the other hand maybe I’d better be quiet. What repels one animal may attract another and Andrew’s favorite cat was carried away by a coyote. Uh, oh.

Comment [2]

* * *

Stuck inside of Jackson with the Billings Blues Again? · May 31, 10:29 AM

Maybe. Just don’t throw me in the briar patch. (warning for anyone still visiting this site who doesn’t like travelogues, you probably won’t like this one either).

My accountant gets suspicious when I write in “went to Jackson Hole, WY on business trip”, so I had to write at least one order and talk to at least one commercial real estate agent. The rest of the time was spent picture-takin’. Afraid to bring the digital camera I use for business (river, hiking accidents, bears) I went with an old consumer-type Nikon with Kodak film that my Mom gave me. The lens pretty much sucks, But then I pretty much suck too. Still, trying to make grainy images look like something in Photoshop can be frustrating, even for me.

And naturally, all the best photographs presented themselves either when I didn’t have the camera out or when it was out of film.

Flying into Jackson Hole would have been one. At first it looked like the pilot was about to land on some flat lands next to the Grand Tetons, but as we got lower, you could see a tiny landing strip. And tiny it was. The whole airport was tiny. The two bald eagles sitting on a branch next to their nest overlooking the Snake River was another; it was an “out of film” moment after I’d spent my last shots on a moose further upstream. Then there was my Close Encounter of the Moose Kind back at the Lodge, different moose, much closer, no camera, but I’ll get to that.

The first night at the Teton Mountain Lodge
was not fun. The air conditioning wasn’t working and they said, “just open the windows, it gets down to 40 at night”. I don’t know about the 40 degrees, but the heat stayed right inside the room and I didn’t sleep at all. The next day, when I complained, they immediately upgraded us (at no extra cost) to a suite of rooms, including living room, fully stocked kitchen and large outdoor deck. After the move, my stay was incredible.

The next evening, sitting out on the deck, Elaine said she saw “a large animal” running around the side of the lodge. Springing out of the room without the camera, I sprinted around the side of the hotel, and then stopped short and tip-toed because I realized that a famished bear or a rabid wolf could also be considered “large animals”. I stopped and scanned the area and then in the dusk I saw the moose that had waded out into the little manmade pond next to the lodge.

I crept closer (we don’t get a lot of moose in Kennesaw) and he eyed me suspiciously. When I got to the bank, I sat down. He kept drinking and looking over at me. I was having a great time watching until he decided to walk out of the water, and happened to choose the exact bank I was sitting on. Remembering that some moose will savagely kick humans that pester them, I stood up and backed away slowly. He seemed to be eyeing me more in curiosity than anger, so I wasn’t really worried. When he got about 10 feet away, he veered off back up the mountain, and I went back to the hotel.

The first couple of days we hung around Teton Village and Jackson, taking care of some biz stuff. There was an Elk Festival in Jackson over the weekend. Boy Scouts go up into the Tetons every year to gather up shed elk antlers and they auction them off to people like me, except that I don’t do antler jewelry. Most of it was going for around $12/lb and business was brisk for them. Then they take a lot of the proceeds and donate it for elk preservation. I figure that means they send trucks up into the Tetons with thousands of bales of hay so that the elk stay in their protected environment rather than straying up into Montana where they’ll get shot or hit by trucks.

One thing about Jackson Hole, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of cultural activities. A couple of neat bars, the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar
and the Mangy Moose Saloon
Fortunately we had the last two American Idol shows to watch. And I hate to admit it, but I spent around 4 hours calling in to vote for Taylor Hicks. Oh, the shame.

Originally we planned to drive up the hundred miles or so through Yellowstone and go across the border into Montana. It looks short on a map, but driving it is another thing entirely. It’s windy roads, it’s driving slow to avoid hitting wildlife, and all this stuff you have to keep stopping to look at. And another thing, it’s very tiring. Although there is a lot of re-growth after the ‘88 fire, there’s still miles and miles of total devastation to drive through. It gets to you after awhile. Anyway, I kind of combined the Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone and the Snake River in this one

The buffalo
in the Tetons were one of our favorite stops and we went up there quite a bit. The closest they got was the time when a herd decided to switch sides of the highway right when we came through. Naturally there was no film in the camera, but it was neat watching the big creatures slowly brush up against our car as they searched for a better cut of grass.

Lastly, I need to point out a very dangerous piece of software, Photostory3
It turns normally intelligent people into wannabe directors
Oh the horror.

Comment [5]

* * *

A Virtually Perfect World? · Nov 23, 10:11 PM

“The dollar is rising quickly in currency markets as first news spreads that a broadbased coalition of Democrats and Republicans has convicted George Bush in the impeachment trial….” Read more ... (445 words.) * * *

Back in the Saddle · Oct 30, 05:55 PM

Okay, like I've just moved, eh? · Oct 1, 06:42 PM

And then there's always a Psycho Deer · Jun 10, 08:16 AM

Stuck inside of Jackson with the Billings Blues Again? · May 31, 10:29 AM

“The dollar is rising quickly in currency markets as first news spreads that a broadbased coalition of Democrats and Republicans has convicted George Bush in the impeachment trial….”

Read more ... (445 words.)

* * *