It had been so long since the last time and my memory was starting to fail me. How did I make it so long without being reminded of the destruction that occurred on this occasion before? Was I really that creative in assembling outfits that I could avoid it this long, or that uncivilized? Wasn’t the night of the last time unseasonably warm as well, foreboding the unexpected terror of that night? “No time to revisit that,” I thought, “since I need to hurry and make preparations!” This time, I didn’t want to lose loved ones or have families of socks divided at the wrath of the Laundry–nor did I want wrinkles scarring my clothing from the horrors of the Laundry Day the week before.

“I’ll return shortly, guys. Please stick together this time. Remember, the safest way to get through this with no mistakes is to use the Buddy System, wash the colors and whites together using detergent only (so we don’t accidentally bleach the colors), and to wait for me right here. I’ll be back in thirty-eight minutes exactly to transfer you to the dryer, and then another sixty minutes after that to quickly fold you and get you back to safety. Ready? TEAM!” I knew I had covered all that could be expected, and I proceeded to find something to eat; however, in the depths of my being I sensed that, should the unexpected occur again as it did on that very similar night of yore, all the preparations of the world could not resist the inevitable.

Everything went smoothly during the transitional stages of Checkpoint A. I drove across town to take care of some final preparations before returning to fold and retrieve my flock. At one point, on my way back to the Laundry, I needed to hop out of my faithful Jeep for a quick second. I left it running so its continued warmth could combat the now slightly-frigid, damp air (I did not bother to place my jacket upon my back for such a quick encounter with the elements). The air had changed–and so had my luck.

I returned to my vehicle, only to find that the door had somehow become locked. Was it someone out of the night? Had that manipulative lock bud tickled out of my funny bone an unfortunate nudge? “I just need to stay calm,” I thought. “After all, I always carry a spare key! This is no problem at all!” I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I reached into my pocket only to find that the holy, beat-up old pair of jeans I had put on just for the occasion had failed me. The pocket that previously provided a safe haven for my spare key had become the instrument for its doom. Indeed, this pair of Laundry Day jeans had acquired an additional hole–right in the pocket! I cried out, “No! How could you do this to me, my old friend?”

My pants replied, “I have only betrayed you as you had betrayed me, leaving me with the others you hardly wear anymore.”

My heart and mind quickly returned to my beloved facing the Laundry. I exclaimed, “Beware of the lint trap! It’s a trap!” What if I did not get back in time to save them from the wrinkles of agony? The mildew of despair? It surely was too far to walk, and with my jacket locked inside my over-heating Jeep, I would freeze to death if I tried. Oh, the terrible irony!

I had but minutes to safely retrieve my flock before their suffering commenced. I was trapped on the opposite side of town from the Laundry, and the opposite side of town from an evening meeting, and the only thing separating me from freedom was a thin pane of glass. Just then, just enough light descended from Heaven to illuminate the resting place of my spare key. I swooped it up, hopped in my Jeep, and raced against the clock, making it just in the nick of time. After folding, I gleefully galloped to Downtown for fellowship with my friends.

Accustomed to crazy adventures like these only while visiting big cities, I never before would have guessed the potential for one right here in my own back yard! And this, my friends, is a perfect example of my trademark way for a man to testify that he is, in fact, really called for marriage after all–in normal, day-to-day activities (like doing the laundry) he finds he simply cannot function without a helper to correct him, regardless of his level of sense or intelligence! (That is, of course, after God has revealed marriage for the man to be a part of His Purpose.)

Do you access a WordPress installation on a web server without HTTPS? If so, your passwords are sent in plaintext every time you login, register for accounts, add new users through the admin interface, and change user passwords.

Fortunately, there is a solution (actually, one of many) for WordPress fans to improve the sending of passwords over HTTP. The plugin is called Semisecure Login Reimagined.

Read the HOWTO here: http://pdub.net/2011/12/05/secure-wordpress-login-without-https/

http://www.freedomfromaddiction.org/site/Mike.html

Start: Maple Street, Potsdam, NY 0310 hours
Destination: Mount Arab, near Piercefield, NY at 44.203889, -74.584444 (near fire/ranger tower)
Return: Maple Street, Potsdam, NY before 1000 hours

Roster: Rajiv N., Omkar D., Krunal B., Wenjin H., Erin K., Pat W. (me)
Equipment: Water canteens, flash lights, fire starters, VX-7R ham radio

Phone tracking: iPhone, GPS Tracker (dependent upon cellular coverage)
Radio tracking: OpenTracker+ SMT, Yaesu VX-7R HT (experimental, alpha test)

Driving Map:

So, the folks over at IBM have a few new contests aimed at XML-, XQuery-, and DB2-related projects.  If you’re a U.S. citizen, you can check them out here:

http://antoniocangiano.com/2008/12/01/ibms-xml-challenge-lots-of-prizes-inside/

Hopefully I can find the time to work on a project for this.  I have a really good (and funny) idea for the porting contest ;-D.

Until next time, keep the home fires a burnin’, Sallie.

Ever since our shower faucet was leaking and caused both our bathroom walls and ceiling to grow mold and our drain to clog with mineral deposits, my roommate and I have been without a usable bathroom for over a week and have been referring to our campus’s gym facilities for bathing and going to the bathroom, awaiting even acknowledgment of the problem by our landlord.

This experience has made us very fortunate because we have once again discovered our loves of swimming while sneaking a dip whenever we use the pool showers. We’ve enjoyed a normal swim for several visits now; however, one day, our naive vision of a perfect amphibious Utopia was suddenly shattered by the discovery of this little fellow who was not also a member of our supreme species:

My roommate dove to the very bottom of twelve leagues of sea at the deep end to scare him to the surface. When this little fellow saw my roommate quickly approaching, he let out a huge gasp–which proved to be his ultimate mistake. He subsequently had to rise after letting out all if his air supply in terror, where we flopped him out of the pool using my roommate’s flippers and scooped him up in a cup.

Afraid he might escape in the interim, we brought our new friend along to Wal*Mart while we bought preparations for his new living quarters. In a kind-of reverse-Stockholm Syndrome manner, we have fallen in love with our little captive.

We now get great thrill watching him hunt flies that we capture for him.

I am.
Neither my father nor my mother, but of both.
I am small
But like my brothers, I am my own.

I grow.
It’s a race against the clock, and I was made eager to grow.
I am alive
And like others in my race, taste human rights.

I dream.
Not in thought, but my heart beats the rhythm of the human spirit,
Freedom’s song.
The passion of humanity and individuality flows through my veins, it’s how I was made.

Ask why.
My mother could be unwilling to care for me, or might have been raped,
I do not know.
But I do know I’m not to blame.

Ask why.
My only protection from the world has turned on me.
Turn away
You won’t protect me from my kin, though I have no fighting chance.

Ask why!
I wish I could understand how the world could be so cruel as to blame me.
In this world
That promotes this and only this way out, I wish I wasn’t made guilty.

I cry.
I might be incapable physically, but I’d try.
The heart that
Is still in formation, oh how it can feel heartache.

I cry.
This is how it feels to be forsaken, and now I’ll never meet my first love, laugh with friends, or chance the American Dream.
I think little
But if only I’d been given the chance for after-thought, these are what I’d say.
Yes, if I had a voice before my death sentence, these are what I’d plea.

I die.
If only I was given the chance to forgive you and this world, then I could have tried.
But I die,
I die.

http://trixter.wordpress.com/2008/09/28/the-diskette-that-blew-trixters-mind/

Last week I had the exciting opportunity to fly out to Wichita, Kansas for three nights. The first thing I noticed while getting off the plane was how flat the terrain was all around me, with not a single hill anywhere in sight, and, of course, how windy it was as a result. The hotel I stayed at was fairly nice, with approximately eleven floors, three dining areas, and a number of interesting guest services. My room was also nice and very comfortable.

On my first night, I dined in one of the hotel eateries where I ate a delicious rib eye steak, my favorite cut of meat. The steak was perfectly prepared naked, medium-rare, and thick-cut (over one inch thick). Cut from Midwestern Aberdeen Angus (Black Angus), fresh and never frozen, it was the best rib eye I have ever eaten. In addition to being freshly cut, its succulent tastiness was helped by the fact that Midwestern cattle consume different minerals as they graze than Northeastern cattle do, which produces a flavor that some people prefer. Kansas definitely knows its beef.

On my second night I went out for fantastic barbecue with those that I was meeting in Wichita. We went to Two Brothers Barbecue, where I ordered a combination dinner that included shredded loin, Kansas City-style burnt tips, and pulled pork. It was a great taste of the best of barbecue from three different regions–Southern, Midwestern, and Northeastern styles, respectively. The meat was delicately smoked very well, and several different barbecue sauce condiments were available.

On my final night, I ate in the hotel’s sports bar eatery where I had a strip steak. It was also cut from Midwestern Aberdeen Angus and was very flavorful and tender, and fairly juicy, the way strip steak should be, and much unlike the average strip steak in the Northeast nowadays. Apparently, strip steaks used to be much better in our region back in the old days, but for some reason or another tend to be dryer and less appetizing these days.

My flights all ran very smoothly, and getting through security at the airports was so easy I cannot imagine why people are always complaining about it. It seemed that there were plenty of checkpoint aisles and personnel  to handle all the travelers in a timely manner, but maybe that is a more recent achievement at airports than it was in the past. One thing to note is that there are two airports in Chicago, and one is a lot nicer to have a long layover in than the other (one has sit-down restaurants, small shops, and entertainment opportunities, while the other has only small shops, McDonald’s, and a bar). I was offered a free round-trip flight if I volunteered to take a later flight and give up my seat on my way back, but because my ride had already left to meet me at the airport, I decided I couldn’t take it. Maybe next time.

Our new book, Running Xen: A Hands-On Guide to the Art of Virtualization (Prentice Hall, April 2008), had a very nice review posted on Slashdot today!

Following this posting, by 11:59 PM our book’s sales rank on Amazon.com peaked at number 3 in the top 100 books sold in the “Operating Systems” category and number 747 in all books sold on Amazon.com, which was a significant increase from our previous best rank of number 6772 in all books sold on Amazon.com.

Our book’s official website: http://runningxen.com

This was indeed a very pleasant surprise today! As always, to Him be all glory.