Archive: January 2007

I wish everyone a happy 2007. Personally, I look forward to an un-eventful year. No medical issues, please.

This is also to inform my audience that my interbaun.com email address will be shut down. Use gmail instead, please.

Gotta keep giving spam a moving target.

Just learned that the 6 month old granddaughter of one of the staff at the liquor store has been diagnosed with leukemia. Although there is a high rate of cure (or remission?) for cases like this, it must be horrible for the parents and grandparents. Very sad.

On a more positive note, my daughter-in-law, Angela, is applying to volunteer at the Cross Cancer Institute. I am to write a letter of reference. 

Had the most adventurous bag changing session today. Got out out the bath tub half an hour after gut activity, and as I was drying off, it had the gall to spout all over the bathroom.

Just when I cleaned everything, including myself, it started again before I could get a new bag on.

Sheisse...

I know it's better than the alternative (6 feet under) but it's not much fun.

OK, done venting!

What can I say, watching this brings back many bad memories.

Do we really need "entertainment" this bad?

IMDB: imdb.com

Once again, The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. The winners are:

• Coffee (n.): the person upon whom one coughs.
• Flabbergasted (adj.): appalled over how much weight you have gained.
• Abdicate (v.): to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
• Esplanade (v.): to attempt an explanation while drunk.
• Willy-nilly (adj.): impotent.
• Negligent (adj.): describes a condition in which you absent-mindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
• Lymph (v.): to walk with a lisp.
• Gargoyle (n.): olive-flavored mouthwash.
• Flatulence (n.): emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
• Balderdash (n.): a rapidly receding hairline.
• Testicle (n.): a humorous question on an exam.
• Rectitude (n.): the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
• Pokemon (n): a Rastafarian proctologist.
• Oyster (n.): a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
• Frisbeetarianism (n.): (back by popular demand). The belief that, when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
• Circumvent (n.): an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

The Washington Post's Style Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year's winners:

• Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
• Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
• Giraffiti (n): Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
• Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
• Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
• Hipatitis (n): Terminal coolness.
• Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
• Karmageddon (n): It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
• Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
• Glibido (v): All talk and no action.
• Dopeler Effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
• Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
• Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
• Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

Cookies (the computer kind) are a bitch to program. Setting cookies in both PHP and JavaScript for the same application only complicates things.

What really does not help is setting them with one name, and trying to read them with a different (i.e. wrong) name. Wasted several hours tracking that one down today...

For a limited time (it's a test site, so things change...), check test.danen.org/secure and play with the "customize" settings.

The note to self is to check the names of variables...

Maureen Janson of NALS just sent this note to the Yahoo Lilium group:

It is with a sad heart that I am letting everyone know that Gene Fox passed away on January 13th at the hospital. He had had a massive heart attack.

Gene was past president of the North American Lily Society. He was a very good lily grower especially of Martagon lilies.

He will be missed by many people.

Maureen

Gene (Eugene) authored a book on Martagons last year and was a great inspiration and encouragement to myself and many others.

Gene's book can be ordered online . 

An update from a week ago.

I spoke with Francis a few minutes and learned that they are slowly lowering the medication for little Julia. They want to get her ready to go out of ICU.

Made a CD with some inspirational songs for Francis to pass on to her 22-year old stepson, Julia's dad.

<rant>
Internet Explorer sucks big time. Just look at fields 1,2, and 4. Why in the world are they yellow?
</rant>

I'm starting a new category for Web Development. I have recently started working with JavaScript for work, so I am doing a lot of research.

I find that the more I look, the more I realize I have to learn. All this new "stuff" is on the one hand daunting, yet on the other hand very exciting. At age 57, this old dog can surely learn a few new tricks.

On October 30th last year, I reported a disturbing, threatening phone call.

Today I found out that the suspect making the call, has been apprehended by the FBI and charged with terrorism. He has been denied bail and remains in custody.

He victimized Northlands' staff from September 9th to December 11th, 2006 with 18 reported threatening calls.

This information came to us via the Edmonton Police Service.

jQuery is a JavaScript library that has great potential to make websites more attractive. If you want to see some funky stuff, check these demos.

I'm thinking of using a "collapsible menu" for the next overhaul of the blog. See dev.danen.org for an example. The benefits are that a page does not have to be reloaded when you open or close a section. Should speed things up when lines are busy. Community Chaplaincy also has a nice example of displaying selected sections of content.

If you are a web developer, you need to check this out!

We have a new menu for the blog site. Click on categories or archives to see the menu slider in action.

Now I need to clean up the display of the blog entries.

I like to do some more overall cleaning up. Will see if I have some time. 

The blog site is about to get a new look. The initial version will be a bit rough because I need to review the formatting of the blog text. Please be patient.

If you see VERY strange stuff, you may send screenshots to gdanen.spam at gmail dot com. Please use "rants and raves" as the subject line. 

Not really Rest & Relaxation, but everything seems to work now. Had a bit of a problem with the sliding menu earlier, but it seems to be fixed now.

Phil, notice the "geek" category. Stop reading...

Display resolution has come up. Seems like anything less than 1024x768 is ancient history. See browser statistics for more info.

Also, some people are seeing the dark green as black. Likely due to brightness and/or contrast settings on their monitor, but I would like feedback.