Category: reallyoldblog

I have been through quite a few airports in the last few months. I think that Detroit Metro is pretty cool. I have heard that it used to really suck. They have done a lot of work to it apparently. There is a tunnel that connects the terminals. The tunnel is dark, but has a light show on both sides of it, with music. It is really worth walking through it just to check it out. Somebody was thinking when they put that feature in. Also, in the main terminal, there is a very nice fountain that does some pretty cool things with water jets.

Also, I think that Memphis is a pretty nice airport. It is not really crowded (with the exception of Starbucks), and you can find a place to sit.

I was hoping that I would be able to finish up what I had to do in Jersey, but I couldn’t get the job done. I will have to go back. I have to navigate this crazy interchange when I go out there. I’m not sure how they came up with this crazy design.

I have been looking for blog software some more. I am going to have to roll my own to get what I want. That really sucks. I don’t want to do it. I don’t have time to do it.

So what’s wrong with Moveable Type? It is bloated perl code that doesn’t run good on old/cheap servers. I also don’t care for having to use their template system to modify the look and feel of the blog. I would really prefer to just edit files.

If it were not for wanting to have comments on the blog, I could have something reasonable written in an afternoon or so.

I made a quick trip out to Jersey Sunday, and came back home Monday night. It kind of wore me out. It takes most of the day to get to/from Newark from Moline.

Since I started working on Sunday morning this week, I am all messed up. It really feels like it should be Friday or something. I would really like to take Friday off, but I have a commitment at work and I won’t be able to.

I am still looking around for blog software. I just can’t seem to find what I want. I want something simple, preferably written in Ruby. It needs to be able to use a flat file database, or something simple like sqlite. I don’t need css support. I don’t need preview, although it is ok. I don’t need trackbacks, file upload, template support etc…. I do need comments. I don’t need a web based config utility. Search can be accomplished by using google.

I am starting to think that the only way I am going to get what I want is to roll my own. I just don’t have the time to do it right now.

Since I bought the land rover, I have been wondering where to go trail riding in Iowa. One thing that really sucks about Iowa is that most of the land is private, as opposed to western states, where most of the land is public. I haven’t found anyplace to go offroading yet. Northern Illinois is basically the same. When I was a kid growing up there I would just drive my truck out into someones field without asking. I am a little older now, and of course more respectful of private property. I hated living in Phoenix, but man there is a lot of off-roading opportunities in Arizona.

Iowa recently stopped subsidizing 89 octane 10% ethanol fuel. It was pretty cool, because you could by 89 octane gas for less than the 87 octane junk. Unfortunately the land rover wants premium, so I am stuck paying for the $3/gallon 93 octane stuff. Good thing that I don’t have far to drive to work.

I hope that everyone has the day off today. I ended up working yesterday to take care of a few things. Nobody was there, so the distraction level was minimal and I was actually able to get some things taken care of.

The Toyota salesman called me tonight to let me know that he had a 99 land cruiser with 40K miles on it come in. That is a bummer, I would have checked it out. 40K miles on a Toyota is a joke. That thing should run like it is brand new. However, I am sure that it would not come cheap.

I have no regrets buying the land rover. In terms of off-road capability, I think it kicks the land cruisers ass. Just crawl under each of them and compare what you see. The land cruiser is a typical Toyota design. The land rover is built like a tank.

We thought about driving up to Dyersville this weekend to go the field of dreams. We decided to wait until the corn is higher, probably the end of August or so. We didn’t do much this weekend. Just hung out and worked on the car.

I changed the spark plugs in the rover today. It was one of the easiest plug changes I have done. Unfortunately, the #7 plug was cross-threaded when it was installed. I could feel it starting to tighten when I was taking it out, so I stopped and put it back in.

Not sure what to do about it. The options are to have the head tapped and put a coil on the plug, or change the head, or just leave it. I plan on having this vehicle for a while, so I can’t just leave it. Changing the head looks like quite a job on this motor, so I don’t really want to do that either. So, looks like I need to get set up to tap the head and coil the plug. Kind of a bummer, but it happens.