Category: General

It’s the perfect day to be playing the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack.

There are a number of changes for MeisterPlanet.com taking place right now. I’ve switched from POE Hosting to MJZ Hosting due in small part to the reduced monthly web hosting fees, but mostly because of the extra harddrive space that comes with their servers.

The increase from 600MB to 5,000 will reduce the stress of worrying about some of the oddball, large video and image files I’ve served from here on occasion. The 50GB of monthly traffic will help in that regard as well.

Since I would need to reconfigure the blogging software anyway, I decided it was time to move on from MovableType due to their new licensing issues with the release of version 3.0 of their software. I’ve chosen WordPress as my new journal backend, due both to positive word of mouth and the open GPL license the codebase is released under.

Too many things going on this week.

First the computer monitor blowing, forcing me to fall back on a tiny 15 backup monitor that wont display anything above 800×600. That means any single application takes over the entire desktop when run, making my usual multitasking a pain. Additionally, the refresh rate wont go above 60Hz, which really hurts my eyes after any considerable length of time.

So my online time is rather minimal this week until I get a replacement. Hopefully, a potential trip to Microcenter on Saturday will resolve this problem.

Then theres the process of replacing the front right brake caliper on the Fiero, along with the two rotors and pads. Even my bike is in the middle of a few repairs so I can take the doggies for their rides in the little kid carrier bike trailer we have.

Finally, most of the rest of my time is spent taking car of the Oscar. We think he got bit on his paw by a yellowjacket he was playing with outside, causing it to swell. That wouldnt be a problem, except that hes been licking and biting all the fir off, so weve had to put him on antibiotics as well as getting one of those collar cones around his neck. He looks like a fat satellite dish walking around, and requires a bit of help now and then eating and not getting the cone caught on things as he waddles by.

Busy, busy week …

This weekend was Its Better in Mentor Days, a weekend festival held by the Mentor, Ohio suburb every year about this time. Its like most such late-summer, early-fall small festivals, serving mostly as a place to ride on cheap portable amusement park rides run by barely showered guys with mullets, or to get food from one of the many grease-filled food vendor trailers lined up near what passes for a midway. A large tent serves as shelter for local businesses and politicians to sell themselves to passersby.

Usually, the easiest way to remember what weekend this particular event is held is to look at the weather forecast for September. Generally, it rains or even snows during that weekend, but this time it was relatively decent, though cold.

Every year there are tens of thousands of such festivals taking up weekends, run by small towns, local curches or even large organisations. The last of them marks the end of summer, something which makes me very sad indeed.

You can tell that this last monday was Labor Day here in northeast Ohio, because the weather turned into “fall-mode” almost the next day.

It’s been rainy, windy and cold here this entire week. It may be September, but after the rather lackluster summer we’ve had here near the Great Lakes, one could be forgiven for hoping summer wouldn’t have died quite so quickly.