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» First post from the new digs. Currently connected to the Net via an external USB wireless adapter (.. thanks to Dirk). Connection strength fluctuates between 'Very Good' and 'Excellent' .. depending whether the doors are open. (DSL router in an adjacent room.) I uninstalled the networking software that came on the CD that accompanied the adapter. Works fine/better without.
First Post from the New Digs
Met some of the neighbors today. They helped me pick my first avocado. Fruit trees galore. Made some yummy puttanesca last night for my first meal here.
Most striking is how quiet it is. You hear nothing but the sound of the wind blowing thru the big avocado trees, rustling their leaves.
Gets surprisingly chilly at night. Owls hoot & screech. (Well, something out there is screeching.) Coyotes howl. Lots of wildlife, especially at night.
Tears of Gratitude
Almost cried leaving the old place. Walked the entire length of the interior, letting my fingertips brush against the inside walls, as I said a little prayer (.. after everything had been removed, just before I closed the door and shut it for the last time) .. thanking God .. for the gift of being able to stay at that magical place .. a place of refuge & protection for me.
[ Everybody who came over would say things like, "Wow, this is a really-nice place." Tell me about it. I took a bunch of photos few days before we left. To show the Bug when he gets older. Should he forget. ]
Felt like God picked me up and dropped me there. Wasnt looking for it. Didnt ask for it. Heck, I didnt even know a place like that existed. Just seemed to happen into it.
Even if I could afford a place like that (.. which I cant), I couldnt buy one, cuz you cant find a place like that anymore. They dont make 'em .. homes with 50 years of love poured into them. Developers love to get ahold of properties like that, bulldoze them to the ground, and build multiple home$ on them. (But that's another story.)
Anyway, my point is .. when people repeatedly make false accusations about you, it's helpful to have reputable folks (such as a retired judge & his wife) close by .. people who can step forward as witnesses and say, "That's a bunch of baloney." And if that place happens to be a refuge of beauty, so much the better.
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» I'm tired. Been tired for a week. Woke sore this morning. Muscles ache. Had to sleep all night .. just to rest enough to know how whupped I really am. Advil helps. Takes the edge off. Better living thru chemistry. Every day the Advil-eating seems to start a little earlier.
Moving Suks
My first thought after waking » Another day of box-slinging to look forward to. Might as well get after it .. cuz if I lay here another 10 minutes, I might not be able to move.
That's the trick with moving » keep moving. Keep plodding. Perpetual motion. Slow but steady.
Almost done. Home stretch. Few more days (.. hopefully). I could sleep for a week.
There's always more junk than you remember you had. And you always need one more day to move it all. (Oh, I think the Advil's starting to wear off.)
My secret to moving? » Ziplock bags. Ziplock heavy-duty freezer bags are your friends. All sizes, but especially the gallon-size. Makes it easy to gather up all those loose ends. Plus it's nice to be able to SEE INSIDE (..which you cant do with a box).
And you can never have a dumpster that's "too big" .. to throw out all your junk .. or too many boxes, especially the small ones.
Most people have a hard time throwing stuff away. But I can tell you that you dont really need it. If fact, it's just weighing you down (.. servicing it, both physically & psychically). The stuff we own starts to own us.
Happy Father's Day to Me
For Father's day the Bug gave me a 1-inch by 2-inch laminated card .. attached to a key-chain .. that read (in his own handwriting) »
I love you, bab. You are the best dad. Hape fathers da.
Hape = happy. The d's are backward in the first 'dad'. =) Too precious. May be the most precious thing I own. He printed his name on the reverse side.
I've never seen him on Father's day .. ever. (Nor Christmas.) Could be worse, I guess .. for him.
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» This is the first entry I've ever written without (sans) an Internet connection. Feels weird. We're moving, so the ISP account was cancelled. Later I will find a connection and post this.
Move #26
Early last night I was wandering the neighborhood, laptop in hand .. checking the strength of the various wireless signals I found there.
Lots of them. Only one was unsecured, but it's signal was too weak to sustain a connection.
So I started knocking on doors & ringing doorbells. You know .. like the neighbor who comes looking for a cup of sugar.
"Excuse me. I live right over there and we're moving next week, so our internet was canceled. Do you happen to have a wireless connection I could piggy-back on for a few days?"
Everybody seemed eager to help, but nobody could remember where they put their WEP password. I finally gave up waiting while they looked.
One guy said he gave his password to his neighbor. He called her to ask if she still had it, but she wasnt home, so he left a message. Lets hope.
Guess I could just run a 100-foot length of CAT5 network cabling over the fence from the neighbor's house. But I'm not that desperate. (Yet.)
None of the connections were very strong. And even the ones identified as 'good' (while standing in front of their house) .. would fluctuate.
Anyway, it feels weird to write this with no internet connection. I will not be able to search for and add related graphics & images. With writing, I've found .. you need to stay in practice .. to keep the gears oiled. Or they start to rust. So writing seems more important than posting. But an audience always adds the thrill of exposure.
Guinness Book of Records
I have moved (so far) 25 times since my 18th birthday. I grew up in the same house my whole life .. but after that » on the move. A rolling stone gathers no moss. This will be move 26.
Do you know anyone who has made more moves (.. since turning 18)? Nobody I know does.
I'm gonna call the folks at Guinness. Perhaps I qualify for an entry in their book of records. The Dog may have me beat, but the only 'Guinness' he cares about flows out of a chrome tap.
Every time I move, I gain more admiration for Gandhi .. who, when he died, had only 7 possessions. A bowl, a robe, a holy book, pair of sandals, bifocals and a couple other things.
Julie would limit her belongings to the things she could carry in 1 trip with her convertible VW bug (.. I thot that was cool) .. 'til she got that couch .. that green couch she loves.
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» If you review the Intro to PHP at w3schools, you'll find Javascript listed as one of the items there under the heading » What You Should Already Know. That's interesting .. cuz you dont need to know Javascript in order to learn PHP.
Time is Right to Learn JavaScript
I know .. cuz I've been learning PHP, and I dont know JavaScript. (Rather, I know about JavaScript .. specifically its dot.syntax - from general.to.specific)
[ Note the converse is not true. PHP is not listed as a prerequisite for learning JavaScript. (Only item listed is HTML. Heck, not even CSS.) ]
PHP code is executed on the web server. JavaScript, on the other hand, is executed on your local machine (.. in your browser). Two totally different environments.
Most web people, I'd imagine, learn Javascript (browser scripting) before they learn PHP (server-side scripting).
This seems to be the natural progression of things. In other words » first HTML (page structure & conent) » then CSS (presentation & styling) » JavaScript (behavior) » PHP/MySQL (server-side mojo).
Recently I've been learning HTML5. The longer I look, the bigger HTML5 seems. From what I can see, it promises to be a major step forward for the Web.
The main reason for its geeky coolness (by far) is the new HTML5 API's. (I count 31 of them.) As Erik says, HTML5 means » more power to the browser as a programming platform.
And the language HTML5 uses to exercise this power? .. that's right » JavaScript.
In HTML 4, for example, you need to specify JavaScript as the language inside the script tag (i.e. » <script type="text/javascript"> ). In HTML 5, on the other hand, you neednt specify (rather merely » <script> ) .. cuz JavaScript is assumed (.. as the default scripting language for an HTML5 web page).
So it's clear, even from my limited vantage point .. as a non-professional web-hacker .. that the time for learning JavaScript has arrived.
» First post from the new digs. Currently connected to the Net via an external USB wireless adapter (.. thanks to Dirk). Connection strength fluctuates between 'Very Good' and 'Excellent' .. depending whether the doors are open. (DSL router in an adjacent room.) I uninstalled the networking software that came on the CD that accompanied the adapter. Works fine/better without.
First Post from the New Digs
Moving Suks
Happy Father's Day to Me
