I have used several CMS’s over the years, from my time at Cisco with their internally developed system, and again starting in 2009 or so when I started working with WordPress and later Joomla! They are wonderful tools, but they do have some drawbacks. First the positives. Someone who is technically minded can setup a WordPress site, add a custom template, and have a pretty decent site in an...
A little over a year ago, we moved from our “edge of civilization” house in Tucson to Chandler, a much more standard suburban setting. For the most part it has been a pretty good experience. But there has been a soft underbelly. We live next door to a house with a just graduated high school baseball player (presumably he is playing ball in college as well) who seems to love having...
A while back, while we were on a trip, my wife dropped her 13″ MacBook pro. It was not the first time she dropped it, but it was enough to kill it. (it was a short distance on to a carpeted floor in the hotel). She got home and I did some diagnosis. The hard drive wasn’t recognized. I used all my tools, and assumed that it was just a bad HD, and that we could replace it easily enough...
While I am not a religious watcher of The Daily Show, I do take in 2 or 3 episodes a week captured on the Tivo, and I have long enjoyed it. Jon Stewart does a phenomenal job of entertaining, while actually achieving some semblance of journalistic integrity (mixed in with a healthy dollop of humor, there are many insightful perspectives). Jon had been out on a sabbatical to direct a film in Egypt...
A post I entered earlier got flagged by a friend’s work internet filter. I have been blocked! How awesome is that. He gets this when he tries to surf to this site: Clicked the link to read your post… while here at KT. Here’s what I got: Your requested URL has been blocked by the Global Threat Intelligence Reputation System. The URL is listed with a reputation that is not allowed...
A while back I commented on the disappointment I experienced with my Bose QuietComfort 2’s broke (plastic fatigue) and the AWESOME support that got me a new set of better headphones for << 1/2 price. I work in a cubicle farm. My cube is about 10′ from my boss, who is also in a cube, and I am up against an engineer’s cube who like to hum. Fortunately the Bose headphones are...
Early in August, I had my 30th high school reunion. It was a blast, but I made a decision to not worry about my calories that week. I came back to a foot that bugged me and kept me from any serious exercise. I was careful about what I ate, but I didn’t track it meticulously. Some splurges, some good days, some less good. I have been dreading the scale, but this morning I stepped on it in...
I have been getting back into regular cycling to get back into some semblance of shape (other than pear). I have become pretty comfortable riding 25+ miles on Saturday and Sunday, and to and from work a couple times a week (~ 21 miles round trip). Yesterday, I wanted to try a new route. I knew it would be longer than my 25+ miles, but not how much. Turns out that the canals to Elliot Road, then...
I have been doing a lot of reading of history, deep into European history from the middle ages to present, as well as a pretty deep dive into US history. Sparked by a conversation with a colleague in Europe who was showing me where many historical events happened in Frankfurt-Mainz during a day of sightseeing on a trip last year. It reminded me that I knew very little about actual European...