Year: 2004

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Search Engine Wars

a9.com is a search engine that searches Google, Google Images, Inside the Boook (Amazon), Gurunet and more. a9.com lets you make comments on the search results and helps you remember things about your searching so that once you’ve found something you don’t immediately lose it again.

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Progress

Sometimes my coding feels like I’m walking through a swamp. I just can’t type as fast I as I think and design. None-the-less, I’ve made progress on my European client today.

Time to switch gears to some brief marketing followed by work for my local client.

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Seeking the NT Password

I seem to be getting a lot of traffic from people looking for information about Austrumi.

If you are having trouble finding “nt_pass” in the GUI quit looking because its not there. As you boot, before you get to the GUI (xwindows I think), press the space bar then type “nt_pass” (without the quotes) and press enter. You may or may not see the boot prompt as you do this. After you do that you will get a menu instead of the GUI.

Here are some discussion forums for Austrumi.

Another invaluable resource is the Ultimate Boot CD ( windows version here ).

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Fire Damage

So, my family pulls a quick on me. They convince me that Tommy and I need to clean the trash cans out of the downstairs. I direct Tommy from the bed while watching a little tube. Sarah nonchalantly says, “Mom needs you to see what Molly has done.” So I casually start heading upstairs only to hear Sarah shout “hurry!” I bolt up stairs and there to my surprise is the sun. No that wouldn’t make sense. I know! I had a heart attack bolting up the stairs and I’m seeing the light. But it’s so hot. Shoot. I’m going to Hell! Wait a minute the smoke alarms are going off. OH! That’s my cake!

I am staring into a single flame. It stands about 4-5 inches high, covers the surface of something akin to the palm of my hand, and emanates from the 5 millimeter stubs of what at one point must have been 35 birthday candles. The plastic decorations on the cake that resemble balloons or 5 juggling balls have partially melted. My wife’s eyebrows are singed and a river of green wax flows like lava across the top of cake and dribbles to the wood floors. I make the hastiest wish ever (should a half naked blonde 23 year old and her fully naked twin sister show up on my doorstep I’ll know I should have put a little more thought into it before blowing out the candles) and blow the flame in the direction of my wife’s face fortunately extinguishing the fire before it grew too close and no wax splattered! It was quite a moment.

I have had it explained to me in no uncertain terms that all future cakes for me will have two candles on it. I optimistically hope that one day I’ll see a third.

Thank you my loving family for a wonderful birthday! (and please forgive the twins)

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Last Meals

When we lived in New Jersey (for me that was 8th grade – 10th grade), we were in a brand new neighborhood built on an old farm. The house we lived in, a two story Jamestown, had an older house behind it with an even older dog. The dog was caged in the corner of a yard with the old wire fence that surrounded the yard as two of the cage walls. Either the same wire of the fence or chicken wire was used to make the other two walls. It had a rotting dog house and about enough space for the dog to lay stretched out…not even enough space for the dog to walk about. If I recall correctly the dog’s name was Timothy (or at least now it is for the sake of this story).

Timothy was getting along in his years and not looking so hot. He was certainly did not receive much TLC.

There are some things I love. Animals, and at this time particularly birds, were way up on my list. Food probably came before animals. Our breakfast window faced Timothy’s house. We had a bird feeder outside that window and I kept it filled with a custom mix that I’d hand make from the feed store on Main Street. I’d ride my bike down to Main Street and buy some candy from the crankly lady in the ugly mold green candy store. Then I’d ride to a Andy Ward’s house and spend some time. Then it was off to the feed store and home.

The neighborhood had a cat that enjoyed my birds more than I and many a bird had its last meal while I had my breakfast. At this point in my life I had never experienced allergies but I rapidly developed an allergy to cats. That psychological reaction has long since gone.

My folks love to cook a fancy meal. One night my mother cooks venison (could have been lamb) and my father, my brother and I force it down and lie to her about how good it was. When she leaves the room my father looks up at us, collects our meat, and says, “Timothy needs a good meal.” The dog loved that food! Never had we seen it so perky! It died the next day.

Don’t eat my mother’s venison!