That said, I’ve spent a bunch of time optimizing the database on my webserver. I’m going to be launching some blogs over the next few days and I didn’t want to just dump all the tables into the same database – as I have been doing up until now. It hasn’t been much of a problem, but I’ve been starting to see some slight performance hits and I wanted to clean it up before I became a real PITA.

Now all of the various sites have their own database and tables have migrated over to it – which is just nicer for an admin perspective and helps streamline things a bit.

All I have to do now is make some changes to my backup scripts – since they’re all set up to expect a single database to backup instead of multiple ones. Shouldn’t be hard – but it’s just another thing to do. Good thing it’s still early.

While it’s stuff that doesn’t affect anyone but me and stuff that nobody would ever notice, it’s all good to get done.

FedEx officially declared that package missing. I called the vendor yesterday and started the refund process. I decided to be moderately productive today and dug out my car (fuck snow) and drove to the store to get one of the things that I bought but was lost. I would reveal what it is, but it’s a present – and I don’t want to ruin the surprise.

Anyway, that was my big “not being in the house” adventure. I figure I haven’t had one of those since Friday, so it was probably good to do.

Much of the rest of the day has revolved around Legos. Seriously. It’s pretty awesome.

Oh, and eating lots of stuff that I probably shouldn’t eat in excess – like donuts, soda and crackers.

Besides the snow thing, today hasn’t been that bad.

FedEx officially has no idea where my package is. I’m going to call again in the morning and see if they have any more information. If not, I’m going to contact the vendor and have them deal with FedEx. What a pain in the ass.

I have to work on Sunday, but don’t have anything to do on Monday since it’s a company holiday.

I’m watching Conan the Barbarian right now. Great stuff – though some parts of it are pretty bad…. like robotic vultures.

Anyhow – I need to juice myself up with sugar and caffeine if I expect to make it through tonight. I think I’ll start in on that currently.

I’m exhausted.

On top of the hellish day, I worked from home so that I could receive a package that needs to be signed for – but FedEx didn’t show. I so, totally, hate FedEx. It’s always like this – one shitty problem after the next. UPS treats me well. USPS is crap, but we all know it’s crap and they totally meet the expectations we have of them. FedEx is just a bucket of ass.

I’m just going to ride out until 0100 and then crash. Hard. If I have to roll out of bed before 9:30 tomorrow, I’m going to be angry.

I have a smallish “backlog” that I think I’m going to put a dent in tomorrow. I’m working from home because I have some packages arriving that require signatures – and I luckily don’t have any serious work planned for the afternoon.

On Friday I have work starting around 10 that’ll last into the wee hours of Saturday. Monday is a holiday and then I have 3 nights next week that’ll start around 7pm and last until about 7am. Then I’m working all day on Saturday. It’s a bit overwhelming and I’m not looking forward to it one bit.

In preparation, I’m staying up late tonight even though I’m exhausted. I need to push myself and shift my sleep schedule ahead of all of this overnight work. When it’s all boiled down, it’s really just a survival technique – because I simply could last long if I didn’t.

Now that my work area is a lot cleaner and there’s more room, I think I’m going to do some Lego stuff while I listen to music. I might throw on a movie, but I’m not sure what I”m in the mood for. I watched Kill Bill vol 2 earlier (watched vol 1 last night). Maybe Ghostbusters… though I might also be in the mood for Peacekeeper Wars… so we’ll see.

I think I’m done rambling now.

Speaking of Legos, I retrieved my old collection from my closet. Some of the Legos in there are easily over 20 years old and a bit on the grimy side. I looked up some ways to clean them and apparently the washing machine works. I ran some cycles with some bricks and got moderate results. I’m going to try a few in the dishwasher as soon as the current cycle (with actual dishes) is complete and see how that works out. Some people have reported bricks melting, so I’m not using anything that’s too small or made of softer plastics in this test run. Hopefully nothing gets ruined.

Outside of Legoland, I received a new set of foam for my Pelican case. With my larger dome port, I had to reorder everything for travel and there was no real way to do so given the original configuration I had cut out – hence the new foam insert. I spent a while plotting everything out (maybe an hour and a half), but everything is nice and tight and fits well. I’m really happy with how it all turned out and how it looks. If/when I get another strobe or more dome port bodies (the connectors between the dome port itself and the camera housing), I might need to make some additional room, but I also might be able to pack that stuff in a carry-on (love my new camera roller!) or figure stuff out. it shouldn’t be too bad.

Beyond that, there’s not a lot going on. I still need to do a systems check on all of my photo, diving and underwater photo gear, but I should be able to get through all of that next week. I might grab a tank for a day or bring the regs into the dive shop for a quick test, but I doubt there’ll be any problems. We leave in a month for the Bahamas, so there’s still a bit of time left to get everything in order.

Beboop.

At 14:15 on 1/7/09, I placed an order for a piece of gear. This was through a company in New York (B&H). They had a free shipping option and I took it. They ended up shipping it UPS Ground. That package is arriving today. I’ll likely get it before 2:00, which will bring the total turn-around to under 48 hours. That’s fucking awesome.

At 22:00 on 1/6/09, I placed an order with Amazon. Again, I took the free shipping, which ended up being USPS. They’re shipping it from Springfield, MA. If you were to drive from Springfield to Boston in your car, it would only take one and a half hours. Despite the fact that you can spit to where the package was shipped to from here, the estimated delivery for it is 1/15/09.

That’s a 9 day turn around for one and a half hours worth of driving. Seriously.

…all while a package ordered late the following day has already arrived from a location that’s over twice as far away.

I’m glad I don’t desperately need either package before the weekend, but it amazes me the disparity between USPS and any other “real” shipping carrier.

I initially set it up on a 300G disk that I had laying around – but after a random amount of time it’d make a single loud click and then the disk would hang. Time Machine just sat there, waiting and there was no way to gracefully kill it – I just had to turn off power to the external enclosure. I swapped that out with a much smaller 80G HD that I had laying around and it’s just large enough to backup with some meaningful file system exclusions (such as my music and download folders for starters).

In my rummaging I found the above Dilbert comic that I cut out when I read it. It’s dated 8/17/97. I’m good at holding onto things – such as all those HDs I have laying around (but it turned out useful tonight!). The colors look nowhere as close to vibrant as they do in the image above – but 11+ years on newsprint with no real effort to preserve them will do that to most things I wager.

With my desk organized, I have some Legos to unpack and organize – which is actually one of the catalysts for all of this cleaning in the first place. I’m surprised that it’s only a bit past 10 and I’ll still have a couple of hours left to futz around before crashing – which is always nice.

Productivity + Relaxation = Win

We’ll be spending a week in the Bahamas diving with Stuart Cove. Most people have heard of Stuart Cove or at least seen their work, even if they’re not familiar with the name.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been getting equipment all sorted and squared away. A lot of that has been camera and diving gear. We still need to buy a bit more luggage – which is just one more thing that I’d rather not have to buy or ultimately find a home for when not in use, but it is what it is.

Sometime this week I’ll be setting up all my underwater gear and making sure everything is in tip-top condition. I’ll also have to do the same with all of the dive gear – maybe do that this weekend. I should also give the dive shop a call and see if they have any pool sessions scheduled just to put a few things through their paces. We’re not leaving for another 5 weeks, but I want to make sure that if any problems are encountered that there’s enough time to get them rectified before the trip.

On top of that, if I focus on being in the Caribbean, I’m not focussed on the snow and 40 degree weather.

Xmas was fine. Did the requisite running around – up to Corinne’s family on xmas, down to my father’s the day after. Then a weekend of trying to recover. That was followed by a 3-day week of work that I’m technically still in – though I’m working from home today.

I had to bring Corinne to the doctor’s for a follow-up for her hand today. It required that I woke up earlier than I would have in any other situation, which was a bit painful, but I managed. I very well might visit nap land a bit later.

I’ve been doing a lot of photo-related stuff lately. Much of it is simply playing with my new cam and getting the most out of it. Unfortunately, I haven’t done a lot of “real” shooting because the weather has been a bucket of ass – and I hate going outside in the winter on top of that. I do so much less shooting when it gets cold out – it’s sad. I really wish I lived somewhere warmer.

On top of that, I’ve been doing a bunch of reading and research for some underwater shooting topics. We’re headed to the Bahamas in Feb and my gear list is going to be on the larger side. I need to buy a roller bag that I can carry on. My current photo backpack is nice, but it’s just not big enough for all of the stuff I’m going to need to bring for both topside and underwater shooting. I’m probably making a trip on Friday to a camera store to check out one of the bags that I’m interested in.

That more-or-less wraps things up. I’ll leave you with two fun (even if they’re not “good”) pictures of my cats that I took while playing with my new fisheye lens.

Doctor Lovington	Sabine