Reality Me

Blog

  • Shopping Pain

    Took the wife and ten year old shopping during lunch to prepare for my little girl’s upcoming Costa Rican adventure. Now my left ear feels like someone is doing brain surgery through it. Coincidence?

  • Trade Wars

    I feel like the odds are stacked against me. Apparently I’m the guy no one wants to see win.

  • A Conversation With My 12 Year Old Self

    This currently has 309 views and is guaranteed to be the next big viral video on the web. I wish I had his forethought 20 years ago!

    Update: Today, 24 hours later: 1,254,053 views.

  • From the mouths of babes

    Evan, 7 years old, talking to Mom: "I thought Daddy and I were still cleaning the garage today. I’m his best helper."

    I love that boy so much!

  • Happy Independence Day!

    American FlagToday is July 4th. In the United States, this day commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Independence which declared America’s independence from Great Britain. Today is supposed to be a patriotic holiday celebrating our country. People will celebrate by taking to the lakes for boating and swimming, and having cookouts and family gatherings.

    As I ponder the meaning of this day, my thoughts drift to SOPA, ACTA, and CISPA, to AT&T and Comcast, to our youth who seem to be the most fearful generation, to our politicians who seem to have forgotten their role is to represent the people, and to the corporations who have usurped power from the people. Each of these threaten our liberties as we know them. September 11, 2001 terrorists attacked this country. Terrorism is a violent means to bring about change. We said we would not allow the terrorist to change us but they won. I have not known independence like I grew up with since September 11, 2001. Now, instead of being confident in our individual independence and freedoms allotted to the people, I feel we struggle each day to maintain those certain unalienable Rights referenced in the Declaration of Independence. And although I am at political odds with the Tea Party and the GOP, as I re-read the Declaration of Independence, I wonder if our government has not lost its way.

    when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism

    [Source, Archives.gov, The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription]

    This brings to mind the Bush tax cuts, the corporate hold on Congress, and the one percenters. As the middle class is beat down, more power falls into few hands and we move more toward a Despotic nation. I feel my voice falls on deaf ears when I communicate with my elected officials. Wwhen your voice is not heard, and votes in legislation fall contrary to what the resounding public appear to favor, how can one feel the words of the Declaration of Independence reflect today’s society?

    Today is a patriotic day. It is a day to be celebrated. It should also be a day of reflection. Re-read (or read for the first time), the Declaration of Independence. It won’t take long to read. Read it and reflect upon your life and your government. (And if you don’t want to do that, here are some pictures of women in American flag swimsuits.)

  • RIP Plazes.com

    Every so often I get an email like this:

    Hi djuggler,

    Just a quick reminder that Plazes.com is going out of service on July 1.

    After that, your personal Plazes data (including your account info) will be erased. So why not move your plazes to Nokia Maps today? Simply visit Plazes.com and follow the easy instructions.

    If you have any questions, please contact Nokia Support.

    Kind regards

    Your Plazes Team

    I don’t even remember being a part of plazes.com but sure enough, I have an account albeit very unused.

  • At the barber shop

  • Gawker, Gizmodo and related sites break in Chrome and Firefox

    I have basically given up trying to read any Gawker Media sites. Most of the time, they look like the picture below in both Firefox and Chrome. How do you read a Gawker Media site like Gawker.com or Gizmodo.com? Use Internet Explorer and that’s just not acceptable.

  • Good Pledge

  • No sign of letting up

    This has been a long hard day. Unfortunately, it needs to continue well into the night. Maybe on Sunday he can rest.

  • How to be alone

    This is a beautiful poem by filmmaker, Andrea Dorfman (FB), and poet/singer/songwriter, Tanya Davis (FB). I encourage you to watch the entire video. Consider watching it alone.

  • WordPress 3.4 limited to 90 menu items

    I’m working on a WordPress site. The site is to have roughly 106 pages all accessible via the WordPress menu system so that the enduser can add and remove pages from the menu as they like. Unfortunately, WordPress currently only allows 90 nodes (ie. 90 menu items) per menu. I have not figured out if this is a memory limitation, a hard coded limitation, or a setting yet. This must be overcome!

    Reference:

    Possible solutions:

    • Use add descendants as submenu items plugin
    • Check error logs and make sure max post vars was not exceeded. If so, increase in either .htaccess or php.ini
    • See if suhosin.post.max_vars and suhosin.request.max_vars are used with Dreamhost

  • Changing the behavior of WordPress’ Publish button

    A long unrealized goal of mine has been to change the behavior of WordPress’ publish button when adding a new post. Today, I’ll spend a little time examining the underlying code.

    obert- and pixolin in Freenode’s #wordpress gave me good pointers to the WordPress forum and the WordPress hook directory.

    I narrowed it down to two functions: wp_insert_post() and wp_publish_post(). Turns out that the correct function is wp_insert_post(). The only thing that wp_publish_post() does is to transition the status. Looks like I should be able to alter wp_insert_post() in my functions.php file and achieve my goal.

    Got it!

    Relevant references:

  • Interviewing

    In 1998, I began working for myself. Thirteen years later, on Oct 4, 2011, I left the basement, put on clothes (had to buy a wardrobe actually), and rejoined corporate America to work 8-5 in Cubeville (think Dilbert) with the understanding I could maintain a little freelance on the side to support my existing clients. Although I am a full-time, benefited employee, I am technically classified as an LDA (Long Duration Appointment) which basically means I am on a three year contract which renews annually. Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing for my position to reclassify it from LDA to a regular employee. The catch? Outside candidates have applied so if today’s interview goes poorly, or the other candidates’ interviews go exceptionally well, I may find myself out of work and trying to re-establish my consulting career. Am I nervous? Oh yes, totally wigged out.

  • Stranded

    Before I was of age to drive, I worked at a bus company "cleaning" the buses. I really learned to drive the buses (everything from 21 seater buses to full size city buses) including sliding them around in the snow for fun. I also drove the cars of the employees of the bus company and the surrounding businesses as they would pay us to wash their vehicles.

    In high school, I learned to drive in a station wagon then had the pleasure of rebuilding a Triumph Spitfire.

    In college I walked and used the bus for 3 years then bought a Dodge D50 pickup which was estimated to have a year’s life left in it. I made it last 5 years.

    My first brand new vehicle was a 1995 (purchase date Nov 1994) Jeep Wrangler. It ran until a few weeks ago when the head gasket developed a horrid leak and it now sits in the driveway awaiting evaluation and repair. The engine may be beyond repair.

    My wife’s first brand new vehicle was a 1995 Dodge Neon. It ran until a couple of weeks ago when it finally just died on the Interstate and was towed to the house. It is either a) a timing belt problem which is internal to the engine and makes the car scrap metal, b) a head gasket repair similar to the Jeep, or c) (hopefully!) a bad water pump.

    We’ve been through other cars including an Aerostar, a red Ford thing that I cannot recall the name of, a motorcycle, and of course our current primary mode of transportation, a Dodge Grand Caravan.

    Today, the Caravan decided it no longer wanted to shift gears. The diagnosis? A transmission rebuild and the family eats ramen noodles for the rest of the month.

    A family of 7, with 6 people still at the house, 5 of driving age, 3 with licenses and a 4th taking his driving test today, goes from 3 cars to zero in a matter of weeks. Knoxville really needs better public transportation! And I need a full-time mechanic at the house!