A Dixie Carpetbagger

I’m still around.  I’ve just been stuck in my house, with tons of classwork to do… mostly SQL work.

On the plus side, I now understand this comic.

I’ve always been cluttered and unorganized.  I’ve attempted to correct this by writing myself notes on Post-it pads (my monitor eventually ended up looking like a mangy sunflower), notes (I have a 6″ pile on my desk now, waiting to be sorted), pocket calendars (found one the other day from 2007, neatly labeled with to-do lists and appointments… all forgotten), and normal calendaring software (Mozilla Sunbird is great, until you try to use it to keep track of ongoing projects).

In desperation, I hit wikipedia, looking for calendaring software that could handle my needs.  None of the newer packages suited my needs.  Then I saw a simple, unassuming package named Chandler on the list.  Looking into the program, I found out it’s a derivative of the old Lotus Agenda scheduler.  Seeing as the integrated engineering program I used in my old job used a form of Agenda for its scheduler, I knew I had a match.

The program is a small download, easy to use, has a great array of tools, and it is flexible.  Need to make yourself a note?  Just type one into the menu bar, it’ll be on the top of your to-do list.  Need to share a list of tasks with your team?  Simply make a calendar of all the tasks, assign it to its own group, export that group to the Chandler Hub, then email your team a link to subscribe to that group… all within Chandler itself.

Worried about losing your calendar?  Try this program.  I set up my hub account, and now, every few minutes (and at every shutdown), the program backs up everything except my trash.  Need to keep track of work, school, personal, and family calendars?  No sweat, you can share any, all, or no calendars with anybody.

The only downside is that the program takes forever to start, due to the fact that it syncs all calendars at startup, and the backup at shutdown can be a long wait… but that may be because I have 2500 notes and counting.  Also, this is an open source program, and the main programmer has left the project.  So, no support, few updates, and little documentation.  But it’s free, and useful.

Watch the Youtube video linked above, and the 4 part series that details use and features.  It takes about 2 minutes for the narrator to set up and distribute plans for a cookout, from “hey, honey, you wanna grill this weekend” to “hey, here’s how you get to my place.”  All in one program.

(FTC note: I was not paid to do this testimonial.  I just really like the program.  Plus, it’s a FOSS project, I doubt they pay their programmers.)

Look, Senator LePew LeMieux… I’ve unsubscribed from your newsletter four times already.  I don’t want any news from you except to hear that you’re no longer my Senator.  I’m not kidding, being coy, or playing hard to get– I don’t want to get email from you.  PERIOD.

I’m not buying your conversion to fiscal conservatism… remember, you’re “a Charlie Crist Republican,” and he’s not exactly a spendthrift.  You’re Charlie’s handpicked seat warmer, and in January of next year, you’ll be gone.  Might want to see if Marco Rubio wants any customizations made to the chair you’re sitting in… it’ll be his chair come 2011.

The one thing you could do to merit a smile on my face is to publicly announce you’re resigning, and that you’ve appointed Chuck Baldwin to your seat.  Shy of that, stop sending me emails.

Every other region has blog meets.  Why not the South/Southeast?

Too spread out, or what?  Not enough bloggers in the area?  (Heck, it seems like if you threw a rock in Indiana or the Midwest, you’d hit a gun blogger…)

I don’t drink.  Seen too many people destroy themselves to ever try drugs.  Don’t chase skirts (no male in the family has, since great-grandpa taught us the secret of courting a woman).  I’ve even given up most of my guilty food pleasures.

But a man’s gotta have some vices, and I like a cigar or a pipe every now and then.  Which will be much more expensive soon.  (sigh)  Well, looks like I’m gonna have to start making the ’shine, like Gramps did.  Maybe grown my own tobacco.

I try hard to keep my libertarianism in check, but it’s becoming harder and harder…

(H/T Sebastian)

Cops get all the nice goodies.  Class 3 firearms, souped-up cars, they can wear aviators and nobody minds, they get to drive chariots…

Wait, what?

What I just linked is possibly one of the funniest stories I’ve ever read.  What’s even funnier is that the chariots are real.

Hmm… I have an old Briggs & Stratton 16 HP mower engine… and wheels… and some cabling… (begins scribbling) hmm, put a captain’s chair in for safety and comfort…  some paint, some lights… a Dixie horn’s a must… maybe a sona si latine loqueris bumper sticker… (puts on mirrored aviators and rushes out, plans in hand, mumbling)

Recedite, plebes! Gero rem imperialem!  Cur rides? Ridiculum non sum!  Nitimur in vetitum semper cupimusque negata… homines, quo plura habent, eo ampliora cupiunt.

(H/T Gun Free Zone)

Thirty rounds good, forty rounds… better.  (Four times the legal limit better, in some areas.)

(H/T Uncle)

Found out why WordPress had been acting so screwy.  Apparently, the 2.9 upgrade messed with an old portion of the code… that handled timekeeping and scheduling.  Combine this with the fact that Wordpress assigns each scheduled post a unique cronjob…

So, in essence, every scheduled post has a timer that looks at the UNIX time, counts down to zero, and then publishes the post.  Unless you just piddled with the timekeeping code, in which case, each timer never reaches zero.  This means that the timer goes away (having passed the time it was set to execute), leaving a post with a publish date set to FUTURE.

The plugin I added takes care of this two ways.  It fixes the code, so that the timer actually executes, and it has a SQL query that looks for posts with a status of “scheduled/missed schedule” and a post time that has passed, and then posts them.  Belt and suspenders.

Awesome: just made the Dean’s List.  For the first semester I’ve been at my university.

Not so awesome: I’m not at class right now, because I can’t get out to the main road.  Because the county decided that the hill with a small sinkhole would be an awesome place to scavenge gravel from.

Now the hill has a large sinkhole.  I miss having a four wheel drive vehicle.  (sigh)