Okay, I give...

I really enjoyed writing my own blog engine and dealing with the various security issues an app like that deals with.

I looked for canned solutions and didn't really like anything I found.

So I wrote my own engine. I really liked the features I was creating, and was working on some new features that I liked and that didn't quite exist elsewhere. These features were done and tested on my development server. When I went to push them onto my hosting service, GoDaddy, I found that their SQL Server doesn't seem to support the really nice XML Features that SQL Server has. After a mild pissing match with GoDaddy support, the result of which was this statement: "We're sorry we do not have an exhaustive list of functions supported by our shared SQL Server instances..." Without XML support that dumped a large pile of poo on my fancy schmancy Blogging Engine...

The search begins for alternatives:

I then found the publicly available API for Blogger that Google has created for developers. I played around with that quite a bit and got it working. But as I worked through implementing that API on my server I realized that I was spending a lot of time trying to replicate the functionality that was already in Blogspot (Google's public face for their Blogger application) all just to have the blog on my website.

Acquiescence...
So here we are. Below I've copied my blogs to Blogspot and will start updating this one. Also I'll be removing the Blog from www.ebertworld.com :(

This came down to having time to play with this kind of thing. I've got a lot of other project in mind that I need time for, plus family, plus there's always training for Ecuador too...

No time, No time, No time

[Originally posted: 6/14/2007]

Ugh, I don't have enough time to form coherent and cohesive thoughts. So here's what you get. Random, incoherent, cohesive thoughts thrown about like so much Crystal by wannabe rap starts...

• New York City friggin rocks! Those people are cool living in a cool city. I don't wanna move there or anything but it's a cool place.

• People in New York don't run into you walking on the sidewalk, they make an effort not to!
• their seeminly chaotic methods work. The subway works, the street number system works, Their government works, their philanthropy works, their civic pride works!
• Jet Blue is okay...
• Friends disappoint. Absolute friends disappoint absolutely.
• People in San Diego are either stupid, staggeringly self involved, or obscenely unaware that there are others on the planet.
• San Diego city government is paralyzed.
• I got a new camera, we got a new camera! A Nikon D40x. Man it's sweet! Yes, for the price it really does take better pictures.
• I'm sitting here sweating with the fan on at 10pm. Weird.
• I have too many interests. Photography, music, computers, cars, robots, woodworking, travel, hiking, mountaineering, cycling, camping, RV Travel etc etc etc...
• Mandi changed her own oil and helped rotate her tires this weekend, with minor supervision. And she liked it. Looking for our next Auto project.

oops, that's all the time I have for this installment.

Random Thoughts Monday...

[Originally posted: 5/14/2007]

Lessee...

• Uh, shopping at outdoor malls on sunny days is nice.........
• People who drive 65 in the fast lane then give me a dirty look when I pass them are stupid.
• I don't like stupid people.
• People who pounce on a new check out lane when it opens even though you are in front of them in line then when the checker points to you and says you were in front of them and then mumble under their breath that 'well they should pay attention' are fucking assholes.
• I hate fucking assholes.
• Making your own ringtones is cool.
• I want a Mac.
• I'm going to the driving range today.
• The survivor finale was predictable and kinda boring even though this was one of the BEST suvivor season ever.
• When my office mate leaves next week I'm going to steal his monitor and have 2 on my machine and that makes me cool.
• That is all for now.

Driving... Again....

[Originally Posted: 5/10/2007]

Is it really so hard to just drive while driving?

Is driving not complex enough for people that they absolutely MUST find something else to do with their spare time while driving? Makeup, phones, reading, getting high, yelling at kids, futzing around the car are all things I've seen people do while trying to kill me on the roads this week.

I just don't get it.

Horse Races

[Originally posted 8/10/2005]

Went to the horse races yesterday. I picked 7 of 9 winners. But I only won on two bets because I was playing exclusively exactas and trifectas and a couple of doubles. The only time I didn't pick the winner of the race was the two times I played doubles.

Stupid horses! :P

Nose Hair

[Originally posted 8/7/2005]

Sometimes I have a nose hair grow out of my nose and tickle me on the edge of my nostril. That really bugs me and I have to pull that nose hair out. Sometimes if don't pull fast enough it can really make my eyes water.

I hate that.

Mt. Whitney tried to kick my ass.... Pfftttttttt

[Originally posted 8/4/2005]

So no shit, there I was, hurtling down the eastern flanks of a frozen Mt. Whitney in the southern Sierra Range. Possibly exceeding 10, perhaps even 20, miles per hour ever urged onward and downward by Newton himself. The bowels of mother earth rumbling her unforgiving and unrelenting guffaws and smite. The very thing I came to conquer was turning this obliquely tilted table against me and she was preparing to call out check mate. I parried with my feet, I countered with my elbows, and I gave a Herculean effort to dig the hilt of my axe into this bulletproof ice. It was having none of it. The acceleration wasn’t lessened by any measure and my slide had more than a thousand vertical feet left with a disastrous ending in the offing if not curbed in some manner. It was at this moment that I chose to intervene in my fate and become a factor in this wholly terrifying event. I ended the efforts to punch the hilt of my axe into this impenetrable material. Slowly I brought the head of my tool to the opposite shoulder from the hand that grasped it. I began a controlled roll to my right. As I faced my nemesis I thrust the business end of my tool into it. Glancing blows at first, parried away by the ice like so much flotsam. But three or four good thrusts finally resulted in penetration. A full, deep, and satisfying penetration that instantly began to slow my descent from the crescendo it was nearing. I grasped my tool with all the strength left in my weakening hands and ever so slowly did I finally come to a stop. I was lying there breathing deep and hard, light headed from my efforts. Satisfaction filled me. I was alive and I was winning! I was beating this ice bitch at her own game! She attempted to flick me off of her skirts and I held fast to her frozen undergarments. This day was not my day to die, and the mountain came to realize that. So she did the only thing left to her. In my fight to stop my fall into the abyss, she had struck me several times hard on the hand that was trying to slow me. Struck me with her evil and frozen solid talons. She struck me with the only weapon she wielded that day. Stone hard, bulletproof ice. I absorbed her blows but not without a structural failure of my own. The fourth metacarpal in my right hand was fractured. But if this is the best she can do then I say HA! Double HA! In fact! A broken hand couldn’t stop me from using my tool to foil her plans and I was victorious!

All hail me! Mighty conqueror of frozen dihydrogen oxide!

80's Music

[Originally posted 8/3/2005]

The worst thing about listening to Dave, Shelley and Chainsaw is you have to listen to the music sometimes.

Journey? Sorry, no can do.

Cube Mates

[Originally posted: 8/2/2005]

Ah shit... The guy on the other side of my cube wall is using his speaker phone to check his voice mail again.

God that pisses me off.

STOP IT!!!

My first post.

This will probably get thrown away...