Back Tomorrow

Sorry, but I guess Friday's post will have to become Saturday's post. I spent my “blogging time” working on getting some fixes and improvements to SAFARI ready. Hopefully I'll do an upgrade tomorrow of the site.

Hitting the High Points

Coming Home Again: Dad was discharged this afternoon from Barnes-Jewish St. Peters Hospital with a fairly clean bill of health. He'll need to go back in a few weeks to get his gullbladder removed, probably at BJC sister hospital Missouri Baptist, and they may also do something about his heart condition. An apparently amazing doc at Mo-Bap is looking into the case. The cardiologist that scared my dad at the beginning of the week by saying it was urgent that something be done for the heart, and not the gullbladder, changed his mind yesterday and said they probably didn't have to do anything in that department after all. Continued prayers for him are still needed, he isn't out of this stretch yet, but is progressing!

Music to My Ears: I finished my music reorganization project — a good nighttime project over the past week — which included the replacement of about 200 Ogg Vorbis files with AAC files (for iPod compatibility), the replacement of several dozen 96 kbps MP3 files from 1999 also with AAC files, and the elimination of almost all 128 kbps MP3 files in favor of AAC's as well. That was about 300 tracks to re-rip.

Plus, I ripped some CD's that I had bought for between $2-$7 at a big sale at Family Christian Stores this summer. I picked up Twila Paris' True North, Chris Rice's Smell the Color Nine and Past the Edges, Phillips Craig & Dean's Let My Words Be Few and Streams (a collection featuring, among other things, an excellent song from Sixpence None the Richer). The prices were much better than normal, needless to say. Even now, I barely put a dent into the iPod's hard disk, but at least all of my music will actually be playable and decent sounding now.

Coming topics on asisaid Music will include something on Evanescence. Kevin noted that for some reason he was connecting me with them, but I've never mentioned them on asisaid prior to the Challenge. I want to fix this, so I'll take a look at this interesting band. I'll also be doing one or more posts on Sixpence None the Richer — sort of a delinquent eulogy on this exceptional duo of Leigh Nash and Matt Slocum (and the others that joined and left the band over its history) that dissolved last March. If you aren't familiar with this C.S. Lewis-inspired band, I'll provide a few pointers on how to get a good taste of Sixpence without much effort. I may also do mini-reviews of Michael W. Smith's new Healing Rain and Steven Curtis Chapman's All Things New — both excellent, don't wait for me to recommend them, get them now if you are looking for a new CD or CD's.

Colorless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously: Or maybe they don't. But more quotes and other questions will return to the asisaid Challenge in the coming days. I need to go back and see if anyone answered any of the pending questions and re-tally the score. Then expect to be frazzled, even more so than those sleeping ideas.

Rain

It was a rainy day. Actually, it has been a rainy week. The Missouri River looks like it is nearing its banks, and the Mississippi River is swelling downtown. I wonder if this is a foreboding sign for the spring to come?

Mulling

I'm mulling over the stuff I mentioned yesterday. I might write something more about that tomorrow.

A bit of an update on Dad. Things are progressing, I think. They've got the gallbladder stabilized until his heart can take surgery again, but the heart issue remains. Things are looking good that a transfer might happen to a hospital with a world-renowned heart doctor that just happens to be in the area. This doctor is reviewing the case to decide if he wants to take it on. Its a long road ahead for Dad, I think, but if he can get in the hands of a doctor of this man's caliber, I think that might help lead to a solution.

Sadness

It is weird, having spent the better part of the last fourteen days back and forth between the hospital (yay for the flexibility of consulting work), I guess you might expect one to be a bit depressed. Yet, I've been a bit too dazed from the rushing about and all that's happened to really get to that point — and I'm not really there yet. Quite to the contrary, I think things are finally progressing for Dad, albeit slowly, and that makes me feel hopeful.

Yet, I've felt a profound sadness today. I had a dream last night that reminded me of something that I had shoved to the back of my mind — nothing big, really. I take that back — I shouldn't say it isn't big, just not the thing that needs to be dealt with at this moment. But it snowballed and made me think deeper and deeper about things, and it, well, has made me rather depressed today. It's funny how things like that work. The things that should make one depressed don't always and much more distant things may in fact do just that.

I'm not sure why I'm writing this, but there you are. I'll try to write something more cheerful tomorrow.

A Bunch of Questions

Ed did this questionnaire meme, so I guess I better do it. Ed never ever uses memes, so this one must be worthwhile. Mark did it as well, and I followed his link back to the source to get the full thing, omitting only the last (nasty) question. Leave your answers below or post a link to them if you make it a blog post (trackback functionality is still unavailable).

Three names you go by:
Tim, Timothy, Ryan (good for being incognito, you don't get to use it).

Three screennames you have:
trbutler, uninet, asisaid

Three things you like about yourself:
This is tough — well…
I am curious and love learning things… and not any one kind of thing.
I am (at least somewhat) caring and empathetic, although I'm not always good at expressing it.
I like getting things done early.

Three things you dislike/hate about yourself:
I am a lazy procrastinator
I far too good at breaking the 10th commandment — I covet.
I wallow in doubt and indecision.
I frequently put my foot in my mouth.
I'm not always good at resisting temptation.
I get too prideful at times.
Oops, I'm going overboard!

Three parts of your heritage:
Austro-German, British, French.

Three things that scare you:
Growing old alone (I'm not nearing “old,” but I know I'll be there eventually), completely failing in my goals, dying (not death — it's the process that is the hard part).

Three of your everyday essentials:
Good food, talking to friends and/or family, prayer (I should do more of the latter, but that doesn't mean it isn't an essential).

Three things you are wearing right now:
T-Shirt (received as Christmas gift — normally I wear polo/golf shirts), shorts, watch.

Three of your favorite bands/artists:
In no particular order:
Christian-Pop - Michael W. Smith, Steven Curtis Chapman, Nichole Nordeman
Christian-CCM - Michael W. Smith, Twila Paris, John Tesh
Pop/Rock - Sixpence None the Richer, Jewel, Sarah McLachlan
Alt/New Age - Evanescence, Engima, Loreena McKinnett
Classical - Bach, Beethoven, Handel
Miscellaneous - John Williams, Glenn Miller, Aaron Copland

Three of your favorite songs at present:
This can change quite frequently, but presently…
Missing - Evanescence
Healing Rain - Michael W. Smith
Moving On - Sixpence None the Richer

Three things you want in a relationship (love is a given):
Honesty/Openness/Connectedness… good conversations, anticipation of each other's thoughts, etc.
Warmth and Humor
A mix of common and non-common interests; plenty of common that can be enjoyed together, non-common to keep thinks interesting and encourage new interests.

Two truths and a lie:
I love the Ozarks.
I love God.
I have won five marathons and can lift 300 lbs without breaking a sweat.

Three physical things about the opposite sex that appeals to you:
Black hair (not a “hard and fast” rule — exceptions abound.)
Sparkly eyes (most often blue, but same disclaimer goes on color as above)
Contagious smile (hopefully with accompanying sense of humor and wit)

Shared interests, intellectual curiosity, etc., would be more important…

Three things you just can't do:
Steal
Show more than a “hometown loyalty” kind of interest in sports
Live without God.

Three of your favorite hobbies:
Reading
Tinkering with gadgets, computers, etc.
Debating

Three things you want to do really badly right now:
Stop visiting the hospital (and, logically extending this, having the reason to visit), then take a week off in the Ozarks.

Finish organizing my hard disk and re-ripping CD's (as mentioned last night).

Finish this questionnaire.

Three careers you're considering:
That seems to suggest excluding present “hats one is wearing”?
Professor of Religion, with dash of Philosophy… throw in some English too. Humanities in general, really.
Writer outside of computer field — preferably both journalistic/non-fiction stuff and fiction.
Politician.

Three places you want to go on vacation:
I've already mentioned the Ozarks a few times, so, let's do some others:

Grand tour of the East Coast (start in Canada, maybe, and sweep all the way down to D.C. — spend majority of time there).
Europe - Germany/Italy/Greece, etc.
Holy Land

Three kids names:
Uhm… that's tough. I'm just going to skip it.

Three things you want to do before you die:
To avoid sounding cliched, I'm going to avoid a few obvious and quite true answers.
Write some things of substance.
Get better at seeing God at work.
Read as much as possible.

Rip'n

Today was a quiet day. I went to visit dad, but he was pretty sleepy. The doctor had him up all night drinking a saline solution for a test they did today. I spent the rest of the day taking it easy. Tonight I worked some more on cleaning up my hard disk (I've gone from 39 gigs free to 75 [of 160 GB total on the disk]) and reripping my CD's that were either in Ogg Vorbis format, and therefore incompatible with the iPod, or in 96 Kbps MP3 format. The latter were ripped in 1999 or early 2000 and it was time to up the bitrate and switch to a better format. So I did.

Johnny English

I watched Johnny English tonight (with Rowan Atkinson of “Mr. Bean”). It was quite a bit like I expected — completely ridiculous. Sometimes that's exactly the kind of film you need to see, ya know? Don't expect a long blog post on this — there isn't all that much significance to it. But, if you like Atkinson's brand of humor, you'll enjoy this film. I know Christopher posted on this film in 2003, but I cannot seem to locate that post. At any rate, it was a good movie for ninety-nine cents at the drug store. I made my throat hurt from laughing.

All Things New

you make all things new you make all things new
come redeem and come transform
come renew and come restore
you make all things new
you make all things new
and forever we will watch and worship you
now and forever you are making all things new
—Steven Curtis Chapman, All Things New

The end of the year puts us just moments from a new beginning. I have big hopes for 2005, we'll see if they come true. 2004 has been an interesting, if not always great year. On the other hand, there were plenty of highlights this year too. Did you have a favorite event of the year this past year?

See you in 2005!

Cracked... Sort of

My server was attacked via a php vulnerability today. I had overlooked that I was still running 4.3.9, which can be broken into by the Santy worm. As it turns out, I was instead attacked by the “Anti-Santy Worm” (ASW), which doesn't seem to be wide spread enough to come up in Google yet. The ASW was only ability to obtain nobody privileges on the server, which — best as I can tell — allowed it to do nothing other than replicate. The server was not rooted, fortunately, if it had… well, I don't want to think about that. Ya know what I mean?

Again, its still somewhat speculation at the moment, as I've found my mind too muddled to read Perl fluently today, but I think it looks like a worm that actually tries to repair the vulnerabilities it finds on phpBB boards (the main mode of attack for the Santy worm) rather than doing anything destructive. Interesting, but disturbing that it was able to execute itself on the server, even with virtually no privileges — I thought I'd taken care of such things. Now I've upgraded to the latest Apache 1.x and PHP 4.x which is suppose to fix these problems (note, that like most production servers, this one does not run Apache 2.x or PHP 5.x yet).

Unfortunately, I've killed all of the WordPress blogs on the server in the process. I'm recompiling Apache again in hopes of fixing that. If not, I think I'll just jump off a cliff — that's the easiest solution.

I can't take any more this week. My mind is too muddled. Well, I shouldn't say that, but I have found that for the last day or two I've been having a hard time bringing words to mind at times. I need a few uneventful days. Just a few.

Update (2004/12/30 11:33 PM): It seems I fixed the problem. I didn't upgrade Zend Optimizer after doing the PHP update necessary to secure things. The latest PHP was incompatible with the older version of Zend I was using. Now things work again, hopefully in a much more secure fashion.