Does giving up watching the NASCAR Truck Race so one’s spouse can watch the Olympic opening ceremony count?1
If so, then I am truly a great catch. I suppose I still have to get a card and flowers. As though the Daytona 500 on Valentine’s Day isn’t enough.
-k-
UPDATE: The Truck race rained out, and runs after the Nationwide race tonight. My selflessness has been rewarded.
1
As we celebrate Kansas Day again, all the words to Home on the Range, the Kansas state song:
VERSE 1
Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam,
where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the sky is not clouded all day.CHORUS
A home, a home where the deer and the antelope play,
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the sky is not clouded all day.VERSE 2
Oh, give me the gale of the Solomon vale,
Where life streams with buoyancy flow,
On the banks of the Beaver, where seldom if ever
Any poisonous herbage doth grow.VERSE 3
Oh, give me the land where the bright diamond sand
Throws its light from the glittering stream
Where glideth along the graceful white swan,
Like a maid in a heavenly dream.VERSE 4
I love the wild flowers in this bright land of ours;
I love too the wild curley’s scream,
The bluffs and white rocks and antelope flocks
That graze on the hillsides so green.VERSE 5
How often at night, when the heavens are bright
With the light of the glittering stars,
Have I stood here amazed and asked as I gazed
If their glory exceeds this of ours.VERSE 6
The air is so pure, the breezes so free,
The zephyrs so balmy and light,
I would not exchange my home here to range
Forever in azure so bright.
I’ve lived in a lot of places. I think I could live in and like a lot of other places. The Carolinas. Southern Virginia. Nebraska. Texas.
I’d absolutely love to live in Kansas again.
Happy Kansas Day! Providing one of the best lives this side of heaven since January 29, 1861.
-k-
H/T: The Kansas Sampler Foundation, for the excellent “All Things Kansas” blog, for the lyrics.Technorati Tags: Kansas Day
The tbbs web provider, the excellent and highly recommended Delaware-based hosting.com, performed some database maintenance in the wee small dark hours earlier today.
In spite of my receiving 5+ emails from them about the scheduled maintenance, I neglected to read any of them until I received the dreaded Database Connection Error message multiple times today, when I tried to access the blog.
A check with their knowledge base, a judicious change of mySQL db server IP, and we’re rolling along again.
My loyal though discerning 5-10 readers deserve proper service. hosting.com was on the ball; I dropped it.
Y’all come back now.
Thanks!
-k-
Following the Christmas Day Johnson-lighting horror, the TSA is pulling out all the stops to ensure our safety in the skies:
I applaud the efforts and vigilance of our public servants.
-k-
UPDATE: From what I’ve seen since, I think they aspire to be our pubic servants.
Happy New Year, y’all. Today was my first day back at $DAYJOB, and I’d frankly be hard pressed to say that we haven’t been stuck with a used year. This could be the year that I define a new $DAYJOB metric, or maybe two. The first is $DAYJOB TDS1, and the second would be $DAYJOB MIS2. Then, given the effort expended in the formalizing of these metrics, along with the needed data collection, it just may be easier to move to $DAYJOB++.
Anyhow, we’re now running the latest WordPress here in tbbsLand, WordPress 2.9.1. And, no WP’s automatic uppgrade didn’t work for me – again. But, the manual process is quick, and fairly effortless. And, yes, that includes a database backup, as well as full file backup, prior to upgrading.
Happy New Year! Y’all come back, now. I’ll try to be more attentive to this old waste of pixels.
-k-
I’m cold, wet, and tired. Two hours on the handle of a snow shovel is not my idea of fun. The dig, traipse across the street, dump, repeat ritual behind the aught-one Saturn, combined with some Midwest-learned knowledge of “rocking” a car broke it free, and I was able to head around the corner for beers and smokes`supplies. MLB tidied up my parking spot while I was out.
My back has survived fine, my arm is sore, and I was not-too-eagerly contemplating the prospect of another two hours to extricate MLB’s car Galumping through knee-deep snow means cold, wet feet, which are more bothersome to me than any physical aches and pains.
On my arrival back from the store, MLB informed me that an enterprising neighbor had ventured out to a local temp employment agency 7-11 and had engaged the services of a couple of workers, who for the entirely reasonable sum of $15/hour (cash preferred), will slick out the remainder of our snow, scoop out a path to the neighbor’s front door, and clean out the neighbor’s vacant parking spot before they return tomorrow. What a bargain! Several other neighbors have engaged the services of these gentlemen, and are now presumably comfortably warm and in front of the teevee.
-k-
As in still snowing, and clear up to your ass.
Lucky me, I get to scoop a path across the deck seen in the picture a few posts back. The satellite dish is atop the shed; we’ve lost the signal. Being snowbound and teevee-less is an intolerable combination. A light brooming off of the dish should restore service. Yet another reason we didn’t roof-mount the dish. If it were there, we’d have teevee reception back about spring thaw time, if it were up to me to tend to it.
-k-
Your forbearance is humbly requested, while I post yet another snow photo. This is a view out tbbs WorldHQ’s front door, which reveals my covered ’01 Saturn. We think MLB’s ’08 is under the pile mid-photo, and our neighbor’s VW is visible on the right.
There’s evidence there that a neighbourhood Good Samaritan, who presumably is equipped with a snow blower, has cleared some of the sidewalk out front. I’ll make it a point to treat this person to a few beers, or better yet, a shot of good single-barrel bourbon, if I can ascertain their identity.
The Big Dig starts tomorrow; the sidewalk leading to our front door is at the top of the list. Then the stretch of walk in front of our place. Then a path to the cars; there’s a grass strip between the curb and sidewalk. I never mind those parts too much. With snow of this depth, scooping paths on the driver’s side of the cars is necessary. And that’s the part that I don’t like; I have to traipse across the street to empty the shovel, the yard being full after the sidewalk scooping. Scoop, traipse, dump, repeat. Then, pushing the snow off the cars leaves another passel to be relocated across the street.
Our next door neighbors are off on a cruise and are due back on Monday, so I’m duty-bound to scoop the walks leading to their house, so they will have a clear path. They are good neighbors, quiet, attentive without nosiness, just like I like. So we help each other out.
So, all in all, tomorrow promises to be a day of more physical exertion than befits a confirmed couch potato. I have the single-barrel bourbon and Ben Gay to look forward to at the end of the efforts. Is that inspiration, or what?
-k-
I’ve inherited my Mom’s intolerance of clocks that aren’t right. I just now noticed that the timestamp on my last three posts is wrong; it’s the EDT, not EST, time.
So, I made a little adjustment to the time-stamping, after seeing this in WP settings for timezone:
Unfortunately, you have to manually update this for Daylight Savings Time. Lame, we know, but will be fixed in the future.
Roger the lame part.
-k-
UPDATE: After posting this, it originally appeared below the three chronologically previous posts. So, I had to manually update several timestamps. All’s right with the world. Lameness, however, is approaching unacceptability, as far as timestamps are concerned.
I spent part of Snow Day today upgrading this old blog to WordPress 2.9.
I’ve never been able to get the automatic WP upgrade to work; it seems to download the upgrade, it says “Done” in the dashboard status bar, but then nothing happens. Perhaps I’m either impatient, do not understand the process, or both.
So, I reverted to my tried and true manual update process, which worked flawlessly again. And that process is quick in its own right. So, I really spent a small part of the Snow Day upgrading.
The WordPress banner files on a taller pole today, the better to be seen above the snow.
Thanks, WordPress!
-k-
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