When I said I’d be happy to water your garden while I was cat sitting for you, I was not volunteering to be attacked by your hose. I swear, that thing was rigged to drench whoever turned on the water.
Grrr.
Category: Crankypantsing
While Waiting in Limbo
I think my web host may help with upgrading, but I don\’t have time to mess with it right this minute. But if things go wacky, that’s probably why.
In the meantime, my teeth have finally (mostly) stopped hurting. I had a filling replaced (minor) and a broken molar repaired (major) on Friday, both on the same side. They didn’t hurt too badly after the Novocain wore off, but on Saturday they hurt like hell. Even on Tuesday morning, as I was trying to eat room temperature oatmeal, they hurt. Hrmf. Then, at some point Tuesday afternoon, I realized they weren’t hurting. Huzzah! I guess it just took a few days for the nerves to calm down.
I’m still getting occasional twinges and brief moments of throbbing, but nothing like it was. Both teeth are still really sensitive to cold, which is a bummer, but definitely an improvement. Hopefully that’ll go away, too, and preferably before Popsicle season is over!
It Just Keeps Getting Better
And by better, I of course mean worse. Much, much worse.
The Esther blog, which I upgraded successfully last weekend, is now broken. It’s apparently something to do with the database, which totally does not surprise me, but if that’s what it is I don’t understand why it worked for a couple of days. Very weird!
Looking at the database, and assuming I’m interpreting it correctly, there seems to be the same problem with the comments table that I had when trying to upgrade the main blog. And, of course, I can’t restore from a backup on the server, because the oldest available backup is Monday’s, and that was already corrupted. WTF?! Whatever happened happened between Saturday and Monday.
That isn’t a huge deal, I guess, since that blog just functions to let interested people know when there are new letters. I figured folks could subscribe to the RSS feed and it would make it easy for anyone interested in following along to know when there was new content. Which is a long way of saying, I can start over from scratch there without any problem. Assuming I can get WordPress to work out of the box. I didn’t have much luck with that the last time I tried it.
The crap with the main blog is even more annoying. I’m back where I started from, with what seems to be a more or less functional install of WPv2.6. I need to upgrade to WPv2.8.1. If I try to do it all over again, I’ll just recreate the mess I made on Monday morning. I have no idea how to proceed. I asked tech support if I could just upload the v2.8.1 files to my directory, then have them do the database upgrade. I’m betting they tell me “Hell, no!” Really, though, it would save them (and me, obviously) a bunch of time, trouble, and confusion.
All that said, since the upgrade of the Esther blog has now gone kerplooie, I’m at a total loss as to what to do. Even if we get the new version of WordPress up and running, will the database become corrupted after the fact?
Okaythen
We’re back where we started from, which is way better than losing the whole shebang, but kind of annoying nonetheless.
I’m not sure what I’m going to do, because WordPress really does need to be upgraded. This version is horribly insecure. But if I try to upgrade again, I’ll be back in the same mess I was in yesterday. Grrrr. At this point, if tech support can’t help me figure it out, I’m half tempted to install a fresh copy of WordPress on another subdomain, import everything into it, then wipe this one out completely and start over from scratch. Then, import everything back into this installation. What a pain in the ass! There has to be a better way to do this, but I’ll be damned if I can figure it out.
New Letters to Esther
Three new letters. It’s been awhile since I’ve done any new letters, but I had to wait until I got a new scanner. Which I have. And which is zippy and super neato-nifty! It may, in fact, be too much scanner for me.
September 22, 1921 from Bertha
September 22, 1921 from Luella Glendening
September 24, 1921 from Mrs. Craig to Miss Hiatt
The letter from Luella is long, but there is an interesting (to me, anyway) bit toward the end about evangelical preachers and how they seem to always target women. A nice little bit of patriarchy blaming.
Also! And this is way more exciting to me than new scanners. I had to upgrade the Esther blog, onna counta some of the files were corrupted (or it was hacked?). So, I took a deep breath, bit the bullet, and upgraded. It did not take the five minutes promised by the good, delusional folks at WordPress, but at about 20 minutes, the ordeal was not so much of an ordeal. In fact, it was downright easy, with no broken databases! This means that I may (may!) soon feel up to the challenge of upgrading this blog. Not today, though. I have a headache and that might actually cause my brain to implodiate.
ETA 13 Jul 2009:
Well scratch that! It seems like the Esther blog has mysteriously gone dead (“Error establishing a database connection”). I looked at the database, and it has the same error that this one did (duplicate key in the comments_approved table). I don’t know enough about MySQL databases or about interpreting error logs to know whether or not that’s the problem, and right now, it’s not a priority, so I’m not going to waste a lot of time messing with it. But, what I am is worried about that the fact that it was working fine after upgrading, and then it became corrupted. Does this mean that, if I do succeed in upgrading the main blog, that it will then become corrupted, too? What a pain in the ass!
ETA 18 Jul 2009:
I went ahead and ditched the Esther blog, and just pointed all the “What’s New” links to the Esther category here. I don’t know why on earth I didn’t think of that in the first place!
A Faux News Observation
As I mentioned, I am (probably) finished with physical therapy. Thank goodness! I don’t mind the sessions themselves. They’ve been educational and helpful. The waiting room, though, pisses me right the hell off. Even when I’m right on time, instead of 10-15 minutes early, I’ve had to wait, and every time, the television in the waiting room has been tuned to Fox News.
There are a lot of things in this world that I’ll more-or-less gracefully endure, but I’d rather Faux News weren’t one of them. While waiting for yesterday’s PT session, it struck me that the super-hyper banter between the talking heads reminded me a bit of listening to the Bob & Tom show (something I grew out of when I was, oh, 15-16 years old). When a supposed news show sounds like a morning radio show that relies heavily on toilet humor, that should be a clue that it’s time to turn the channel.
Note to Coworker (and a political rant)
Dear Miss Busypants,
Please refrain from grunting an unprovoked “Morning,” at me, as you walk past. If I’d spoken to you first, I could perhaps understand why you’d respond as if you were irritated, or as if you couldn’t be bothered. But I didn’t. I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business, so why the hell did you have to say anything, if it was going to be a grumpy-assed grumble in my general direction? You can take your cranky “Morning” and piss off.
Alsotoo, would you like to talk about stress? The Indiana house and senate are required to pass a budget by midnight TONIGHT, otherwise, the state government will shut down. I could come in to work tomorrow to find out that I don’t have a job, so if anyone has something to be grumpy about, it’s me. Not, Miss Busypants McGrumpersons. She has made it clear, every time someone pisses her off, that she could retire at any time. Must be nice.
Oh, and the best part about this stupid budget nonsense? The state house and senate had come to a tentative compromise about the budget IN APRIL. Governor Daniels trashed it, by demanding that funding for the most at-risk public schools be cut. Yeah. That would be the same Mitch Daniels who was director of the Office of Management and Budget, under BushCo II. You remember, the guy who promised that the Iraq war would cost only $50-60 billion? The same war that has, to date, cost approximately $682 billion. And we elected this bozo as governor twice! What the hell is wrong with people in my state?
This Is Not a Post About Michael Jackson
I’ve watched a too much bad television this weekend, and now I’m all cranky.
First, Bridezillas: The show is, frankly, horrifying, and not only because of the over-the-top, craptacular, childish behavior of the brides in question. In every episode I’ve seen, someone–or several someones–reminds the bride-to-be that this is “her day.” I’m sorry, but where I come from, it takes two people to get married. Has something changed? And worse, the “It’s your day,” crap is always said in a way that’s meant to excuse the bride’s horrible, abusive behavior.
Second, Raising Sextuplets: I don’t know if this one has started airing or not, but the promos piss me right the hell off. The voice-over introduces the mom, then the dad, then goes on to state that the mom is “raising sextuplets.” What the hell is the dad doing?! And really, after the Gosselin fiasco, do we need another reality show that pimps out people’s babies? I expect life is weird enough for kids from high-number multiple births, without taking away their privacy, on top of everything else.
Note to Coworker
Dear Miss BusyPants,
Since you are constantly complaining that you have too much work and too many responsibilities, I am at a loss to explain why you have suddenly taken it upon yourself to track down and (re)label all of our unit’s book trucks. And, most importantly, why are you interested in which trucks are in my cubicle? It’s really none of your business, and I’m pretty sure you have better things to do than A) bother me, or B) spend 45 minutes flittering around the department, distracting everyone while you determine who has which truck(s).
In short, I realize that you think you should be in charge of the universe, but you aren’t, so please go back to your cubicle and stop bothering everyone. And by “everyone,” I mean me.
Thank you.
Coral Bells
This was a Lensbaby shot, with a +4 macro attachment.
Did I mention the big, horrible computer crash here? Well, Cracktop crashed. Or, rather, the start files for his OS were permanently corrupted, which meant I couldn’t boot into Windows, so I had to wipe everything and reinstall from scratch. Good times. It could be worse, though. I only lost eight music files (!), a couple of weeks’ worth of email, and my calendar.
It took a couple of days, but I think I’ve pretty much got everything back up and running. I’m sure there are some small, unitasker programs I’ve forgotten about, but printers/scanners aside (and that’s a topic I’m still mulling over) the bulk of the software and hardware I use is re-installed. It took me most of the day yesterday just to re-download the Adobe software I use, onna counta IU’s server is crazy slow. And since the’ve broken everything up into separate parts, I had to babysit the downloads. Have I mentioned that I’m not the princess of patience? Aieee!
As for my scanner, since I still don’t know whether or not that was at the root of the crash, I’m not going to reinstall it, period. I just don’t trust it, so I’m going to buy a new one this weekend. I’m thinking about getting another all-in-one combo, only this time, a Canon Pixma, since I’m super happy with how long Canon inks can sit dormant without drying out. That should do nicely for occasional color printing, for arting purposes.
For boring old document printing, though, I’m thinking about also getting a monochrome laser printer. They’re uber cheap these days, as is the toner. Seriously. Monochrome printers are comparable in price to decent inkjet printers. Cartridges for the one I’m looking at are around $50, which is cheaper than most inkjet ink, and laser toner lasts a lot longer. It just doesn’t make sense to use an inkjet printer for plain old document printing any more.
red paper boat 