The Beginning of the End
Of my time at Lindenwood, that is. Today was the first day of the last semester of my time at Lindenwood University. Having fulfilled all of the general requirements for graduation, as well as my religion major, last semester, this semester's primary purpose is to complete two courses for my English major, American Lit II and History of the English Language. Since I knew I was going to have at least one course spill over into this semester, last fall I picked up a philosophy minor, which meshes well enough into the religion major that I only needed to take three extra courses beyond the electives I had previously chosen in religion. One of those I took last fall, the remaining two I'm taking this fall — Aristotelean Logic and Medieval Philosophy.
Aristotelean Logic is an independent study my philosophy professor came up with as a substitute for normal logic. He thought I might especially enjoy this. In addition, because that left me with a light load, I'm doing another independent study with him just for fun: “Calvin and Aquinas.”
More on the courses themselves in the near future.
What I Need to Do to My Bug
With this guy's additions to his Volkswagen, I could get back and forth to where I need to go a lot faster. What do you think? Should I go ahead and add one to my Beetle?
Oh, and just imagine how well this would work as a solution for quieting those annoying drivers that always have that THUD-THUD-THUD of an overactive bass disturbing everyone sitting around them in traffic. A quick flip of a switch and I'd have their attention and their car might have a nice, blackish discoloration on it too.
DNS Woes Fixed
Well, I called Charter today and had the DNS issue elevated to level 2 support. After doing that, apparently they got right on the issue — I am able to access my sites via my Charter's DNS again. Although using Level 3's DNS servers on my home computer worked OK, I'm glad to be back on Charter's DNS, which seems to provide a bit snappier response.
Note: I think there was some confusion by those who read my last post. The problem was not one with my server or its DNS — those were operating normally the whole time down at the Planet's NOC in Dallas, Texas. The problem had to do with the DNS service that comes with my Charter High Speed cable internet access for my home. Charter's service would not refer my computer to the authoritative name server for the sites I host (my company's DNS). I have no idea why Charter's DNS would fail to work specifically on my site (most likely it also impacted other servers that I am not aware of), but that's apparently what happened.
DNS Woes
I've been quiet today because Charter's DNS has developed a peculiar problem: it fails to resolve the sites of just one server (so far as I can tell): mine. I can access every site I normally do except those I host and provide DNS services too. The server is up and running (confirmed via remote access I have to another computer, my server monitoring tools, as well as the help of Ed and others). While I could access the server via IP, I didn't feel like changing all of my programs so that they'd do the same for what I hope is a short outage.
Right now, I'm back thanks to a suggestion to try using the DNS servers 4.2.2.1 and 4.2.2.2 in lieu of Charter's ones that are normally fed to my computer via DHCP, and using those servers I can again access my sites.
It's a revolting development to be the only one unable to access your own site!
Burning Batteries
It seems that Apple announced a massive battery recall while I was out of town. This recall, related to the largest ever electronics recall Dell made concerning batteries a short time ago, is caused by defects in the Sony produced batteries used in various laptops over the past three years. While I've not noticed any of the issues that have been ascribed to these problems, my PowerBook has one of those batteries, according to the recall information.
Sometimes getting involved in a recall is just an issue of frustration, but I'm rather happy about it, actually. My battery still works great, but is showing a bit of age after running for almost two and a half years. That this will result in me getting a new battery is really a treat.
Whirlwind 36 Hours
Years ago, my family would go down to the Ozarks every fall around the beginning of September. After my grandparents died, however, that tradition sort of went by the wayside as other things came up. Last week, my mother suggested perhaps we should try to fit in a trip before my classes started back up on August 28. We watched the weather, and when yesterday looked rather promising, we set off on the 250 or so mile trek down to Table Rock Lake for a day. It was a fun time and also a nice test to see how the Beetle did on the highway. It started out the trip with only 600 miles on the trip gage and came back with nearly 1,200.
I'll post more tomorrow, hopefully.
Monday Madness on Tuesday: Money and Other Things
1. Would you shave your head for any amount of money? If yes, how much?
I'm not sure. I'd really dislike shaving my head, although it wouldn't be really what I'd call suffering. A few thousand, maybe?
2. What “whacky” thing might you do for a large sum of money?
Run around while holding scissors? I don't know. The person offering the large sum of money has to do the hard work of thinking of the ridiculous thing I am suppose to do.
3. What do you think is a “large sum of money?”
Depends on the context. If someone comes up to me and says they earned a “large sum of money” this year at their job, I would expect the number to have six digits. If someone said it was “my lucky day” and they were going to give me a “large sum of money” I would expect that would be a five digit number. If buying a computer costs a “large sum of money,” I would be thinking above $2,000, but likely under $3,500. If dinner was going to cost me a “large sum of money,” I'd expect the price to be between $18-$25/person.
4. Do you watch “reality” tv shows?
No.
5. If so, which do you watch and in what order do you prefer them? If not, are there any you may consider watching?
If I was going to watch one, I might watch one of the talent-focused ones or the “Amazing Race,” which I always hear very good things about.
6. Which reality show have you thought about participating in? Why?
None. If I had a talent worth entering, I might consider one of the talent related shows. I would not consider doing “Survivor,” “Fear Factor” or anything like it.
7. Share one thing you would like to do in life but have not yet done….. think about why you haven't done it and share if you wish.
Sheesh, there are a lot of things. I'd like to learn to play an instrument. I have not done it because it simply requires such a large time commitment.
Disabling Comments
For the first time in asisaid's four and a half year run I have been forced to disable comments on a post. It seems that blogspammers, which previously have either been unsuccessful with my spam filter or ignored me altogether, really liked this one post — I had to delete three spams in three days. Hence, I closed the comments on that post.
I hope it is an isolated incident.
Chariot Unslowed
“So like an empty coffee cup in June,
The winds of time blow me away too soon,
And so I tremble, question as I fade,
What does a life once lived do as a shade?
As weary sands do shift from dune to dune,
My melody is rift for a new tune.
The clock strikes now, why not tomorrow?
Its sound leaves me with naught but sorrow.”
The people pass, their heavy bags in tow,
As if the winds ne’er rain out a show,
“To shame! To shame! A shade have I become
To me full unawares – whilst beats life’s drum?
Please stop, oh death worn drum! Bring on the lyre!
Extend the wick where burns the fearsome fire!
The clock strikes now, why not tomorrow?
Its sound leaves me with naught but sorrow.”
“A little here I swung at hopes of glory,
Far more I gave to live in money’s story,
I conquered many things, enlarged my realm,
A master of my life I steered the helm!”
What waits for you, old questioner, what port?
What’s left? What mark is left of your great court?
“The clock strikes now, why not tomorrow?
Its sound leaves me with naught but sorrow.
“From days came weeks, from weeks came years misled,
A promise for the next, unkept, unsaid.
Unnoticed for some greater good, I stayed
Upon the safer path I had long strayed,
Further moving myself from my hoped goals,
Ignoring them brought me to greater tolls.
The clock strikes now, why not tomorrow?
Its sound leaves me with naught but sorrow.”
The chimes vibrate the ‘bandoned coffee cup,
It rolls along where he had hoped to sup,
A mix of blinded force and choice did lead,
To this a finished act, unopened deed.
Planned not to fault the thing, the point was missed,
And left to cry once more behind the mist,
“The clock strikes now, why not tomorrow?
Its sound leaves me with naught but sorrow.”
Leopard's TextEdit to Support ODF
I'm not sure how legit this is, but one supposed Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard beta tester has posted a screenshot of Leopard's version of TextEdit (roughly analogous to Windows's WordPad) that supports OpenDocument Format. See here.
Very interesting — I wonder, assuming this is legit, what else Apple might be up to with ODF?
