aubreyturner.org

I’d been hearing that the new Battlestar Galactica series is good, so I decided to start by putting the miniseries in my queue on Netflix.  I finally got around to watching it last night, and have to admit that I’m hooked now.  The miniseries is three hours, and since I started late my intent was to watch an hour and then pick it up again today.  That didn’t happen.  After the first hour I said to myself, “I should turn this off now,” but did nothing.  After the second hour I said to myself, “I really should turn this off now,” but kept watching.  As soon as it was over I put the first season in my queue and moved it to the top. 

For those who haven’t seen it, I won’t say much about what happens.  But I do have to comment about the ending.  All I could say was “Frack, no!  Not Boomer!”

Now I just have to avoid all spoilers until I catch up.  The second season will be out later this month, and it’s also in my queue.  I should finish the first season just in time to get the second when it comes out.

Has anyone else noticed how the drive between Raton, NM and Texline, TX just seems to go on and on and on and on?  About the only thing that breaks the monotony is the occasional moment of sheer terror as you come over a hill to be confronted by some impatient asshole who is passing in a no-passing zone.

Anyhow, this wasn’t intended to be about U.S. 87.  Before leaving for Colorado I took a bit of time to refamiliarize myself with the carry laws in Colorado and New Mexico.  The last I had seen was that CO was honoring Texas CHLs, while NM did not (although they had car carry).  I was pleasantly surprised to learn that as of 11/30/2005 Texas CHLs were valid in New Mexico.  However, I was unpleasantly surprised to learn about the restrictions on carry in NM.  Specifically, their law forbids carrying firearms in any establishment that is licensed to “dispense” alcohol.  The current interpretation of that law is that this includes convenience stores.  So Texans beware.  I made it a point to avoid stopping for gas in New Mexico and only stopped at the McDonalds in Raton for a bathroom break and to get some coffee (fast food joints being the only place I could think of that wouldn’t risk running into the convenience store problem).

The other restriction that I find interesting is that they allow a person to conceal only one handgun at a time (i.e. no backup).  You can have as many as you want in your vehicle, though.  It’s just once you get out that the restriction applies.

A few months back I stopped at the local Sonic for breakfast and ordered coffee to go with it.  The coffee was nasty.  I suspect I could have drained some of the oil out of my truck’s engine and strained it through a moldy sweat-sock and it would have been better than this coffee.  Hoping that it was just an aberration I gave them another try a few weeks later and found them to be no better. 

In an episode of hope springing eternally, I tried the coffee at a Sonic in Amarillo yesterday morning.  Gack. 

While it’s only a two-location sample, I can only conclude that Sonic’s coffee is supposed to taste like it does.  Maybe the person in charge of getting coffee for Sonic is a tea drinker or something.  I can’t see how anyone who actually likes coffee would serve something that hideous.

Heck, as much as people go on about McDonald’s food, at least their coffee is coffee-like.

There’s something about travel that makes me procrastinate unpacking when I return.  So after getting in from Amarillo yesterday afternoon, I walked the dog (who was a bundle of energy after being pent up in the back seat of the Avalanche for 6 hours), stopped for dinner at Sonic, and then settled in at the computer to check up on my neglected email.  Someone sent me an email asking if I was going to be continuing the gun show listings in 2006.  I had been intending to do so, but kept putting it off.

I started checking websites and adding listings, but the way it’s set up it’s kind of a PITA to add new listings.  The form has 10 items to fill in for each show.  I started fiddling with the setup and changed some of the entry fields to drop-down lists that were prepopulated with the promoters names, URLs, and phone numbers.  This was better, but still not great, since the entries weren’t linked in any way (i.e. it was up to me to make sure I didn’t pick one promoter’s phone number and another’s URL for the same entry). 

The idea of linking the information together reminded me of a new feature I’d read about in Expression Engine 1.4:  Related Entries.  This allows you to link an individual field in one weblog entry to an entry in another weblog.  Now a weblog in EE isn’t necessarily what we think of as a weblog.  It doesn’t have to be a “diary” sort of thing.  It’s really just a container for a set of records.  EE provides a standard set of fields and you can also define your own. 

I upgraded to EE 1.4 and started by creating a new “weblog” for gunshow promoters, which contained the promoter’s name, URL, and phone number.  I changed the “promoter” field in the gunshow weblog to point to the promoter weblog and modified the gunshow weblog templates to get their information from the related entry.  Now instead of filling in three entry fields, I can select one entry from a drop-down on the EE publishing form.

The issue of gunshow locations was a bit more messy than the promoter’s basic information.  In many cases a promoter has their own webpage for a given location, so I try to link to that (e.g. Bob Norman and High Caliber both use Will Rogers, and each has a separate URL, based on which promoter is running the given show).  I created another weblog for the locations and created entries for each valid combination of venue+promoter.

Finally, I changed the ending date for each show to take advantage of the new date type fields provided by EE 1.4, which allowed me to remove the custom PHP code I had been using to display the date.

All the above was accomplished in about three hours.  I didn’t set out to upgrade the EE installation and redo everything.  I just sort of got sucked in.  But at least it was a pleasant diversion to having to unpack.

So far I have to say that I’ve been fairly pleased with each new release of Expression Engine.  Each time I upgrade I find that I end up removing bits of the custom code that I had originally added to do something that EE’s creators hadn’t planned.  And the upgrades have been fairly painless in that all it takes is uploading the new files and running an upgrade script.  The only breakages I’ve had were in places where my custom code conflicted with the new EE feature that replaced it.

On Tuesday we all piled into my truck and went off into a National Forest area to do some shooting. 

Here’s my niece, Elizabeth (12), with the Cricket .22:

And here’s Jessica (10) with the Cricket (even as small as it is, it’s still a little too big for her):

Finally, my sister gives my Para Carry a try:

(The angle of the photos makes it look like we were shooting downhill, but there was a small hill off to the right that we were using for a backstop.)

Yes, there is hope for the next generation.

This whole Christmas thing snuck up on me while I wasn’t looking.  I only really hit me on Monday that Christmas is Sunday and that I have to leave for Colorado on Friday.  So I’ve got a bunch of things to do before I go.  I’ll be visiting my sister for an agnostic interpretation of a Christian version of a pagan holiday…

Anyhow, I’m going to be out of pocket until the beginning of 2006.  Until then, Merry Christmas (or non-denominational, seasonal-appropriate greetings for the easily offended) and Happy New Year!

The Keller City Council decided last night to send the library issue to the voters, as per the petition that was submitted.

I’m glad to see this happening, since I thought that the council’s previous approach was a bit high-handed (and had a bit of back-room dealing odor about it).  Now I want to know why the cost seems so high.  I know that construction costs are going up (due to energy costs, higher demand, and exchange rates), but $8.5 million for a 37,000 sq.ft. building seems really excessive to me. 

Here’s what library supporters need to do between now and May 13, 2006 if they want me to even consider supporting a new library:

• Publish the plans for the new library (including all new equipment).
• Explain what is driving the cost (including what other alternatives were considered, and why those alternatives were unsuitable).
• Provide an exact cost for the impact on our tax rate of the bond issuance.
• Provide details on ongoing maintenance and support costs, along with an accurate assessment of the impact on the tax rate.
• Resist the urge to demonize those who have questions and concerns about the library (including those who don’t support a new library).
• Explain why the library has to be in Town Center.  What other sites were considered?  Why weren’t other sites considered, if none?
• Why was expanding the existing library not an option?  (I know that it won’t support a second floor, so I want to hear sound reasons why the library can’t be expanded, other than it would encroach on park land.)
• Provide proof (preferrably in the form of an impartial, third-party study) that the library would drive sales in Town Center.  In lieu of an impartial study, real-world results from another, similar city would be helpful.  But pie-in-the-sky guesstimates are unacceptable, since any shortfall in proposed sales-tax revenues would have to be made up out of our property taxes.

The onus is on the supporters to provide compelling, and factual, reasons for a new/expanded library.  I’ll be watching and waiting.

More info:
Star-Telegram article on last night’s meeting.

Previous posts:
The Arrogance Is Mindboggling
Library ‘O Doom
The Library Thing

I’ve been working late the past few days in an attempt to get some things finished before I leave on vacation.  I had intended to tune into the Keller City Council meeting on TV so I could get some work done while waiting for the library discussion (turns out now that they didn’t have a discussion since they passed a resolution to have a vote).

When I went to my on-screen Fios program guide I couldn’t find it, though.  Which was odd because I distinctly remember it being there.  So I pulled out the latest printed guide, which didn’t have it, either.  Just to make sure I wasn’t going nuts, I found the PDF of the first guide I got, and there it was:

Why did Verizon remove the local access channel?  Did they decide they didn’t need it anymore, since they’re no longer required to get a franchise agreement with the city?  (It certainly wasn’t to reuse the channel for something else, since those channels are now blank.)

Oh well, not a big deal.  It just seemed odd at the time, since it was the first time I’d ever actually wanted to watch that channel.

I was talking to a friend of mine this afternoon who was thinking of going to Brazil to visit a former coworker of ours.  He was using Travelocity to look for flights and came across something weird.  He lives in Grapevine, but has family in Chicago, so he was evaluating both Chicago (ORD) and DFW as departure points.  If you try to book from Chicago (ORD) to Sao Paulo (GRU), you can get fares as low as $525 with one stop, which happened to be at DFW when he searched (subsequent searches show several other options for stops, with DFW being included).  However, if you book out of DFW to GRU the direct fare is $1024.  What’s odd about it is that it appears that the direct flight is simply the second leg of the ORD-GRU flight.  It sure seems like a huge premium to pay for a direct flight.

In fact, looking on AA.com, the best price from DFW to GRU right now is $705 for a flight with two stops (DFW-ATL-MIA-GRU)*.  I can’t help but think that the Wright Amendment has something to do this.  One of the common complaints about DFW is that flights are often more expensive there because it’s the only choice for long-haul flights due to the Wright Amendment. 

* The criteria he used when searching:  1 adult fare, flexible dates between 2/1/06 and 2/20/06, ten night stay

Sorry for the lack of updates.  I got hit by some sort of bug last week, such that I was barely able to put together a coherent sentence until sometime Friday afternoon. 

Unfortunately, this means that I’m behind on a prototype I was planning to deliver by last Friday.  The upside is that there is a little bit of slack in the schedule, so it won’t impact the overall project.  But I’m probably going to be in coffee-swilling, keyboard-pounding mode for most of this week.  Normal crap will resume once I’m caught up.