Sunday 31 January 2010 at 04:42 am
I started moving craigsteffen.net over to a new host over Christmas. It's taken a little longer than I expected but the process is almost done.
I pulled and tested an archive from the old server of all my old e-mails today. I also responded to a very nice question from the old web site's owner (it's a very small site, which is good) about why I left.
I dug into the new blog software and changed a few things. The image that you see at the top of the page is now one that I've generated. I've tweaked the template, but that still has a long way to go.
One problem I've had is that all my old blogger-generated entries came over onto the new site, but their photos are gone. Well, I have a partial solution to that. I don't know that I'll ever go through and fix all of the entries from the old blog that reside in the new blog. However all the old entries, with all the photos, are available in the month-by-month archives. If you're interested in seeing any of them, just go to the blogger archive directory of the old blog and you can navigate to any of the "archive" month pages in the right sidebar. Unfortunately, the single-entry direct links won't work any more, but the monthly summaries (including all the text and the photos) will be around for good.
Oh, and the beetle page is back, and I spent some time updating it.
No front page yet; that's next.
Saturday 30 January 2010 at 3:41 pm
We're snowed in today. Well, not really snowed in. But there's 8+ inches of fluffy white snow on the ground, and going anywhere in our fairly-low-clearance cars would be a challenge, so were' going to try very hard not to.
I seem to have found an interem solution for getting my old blog entries with photos back. I need to modify the templates so they're wide enough, copy over all the old images, and then go through each entry with old images and bring in the new ones. So it does involve going through each old entry that has pics, but I think that will be a reasonable way to go.
Possibly photos of snow later. And hopefully a few important entries in my blog restored by the end of the day.
Monday 18 January 2010 at 04:26 am
I had originally planned to blog daily this year. Hasn't happened. The usual keeping-several-plates spinning problem.
Now that quarterly reports are sent for work, will try to be better. I fired up an actual, honest-to-go ipod just now, and I will be installing itunes on the windows partiution of my laptop shortly. This is a first in my young liife.
Will be travelling a bit tomorrow. Rock Band will be played at the end of it. Oh yes, it will.
Tuesday 05 January 2010 at 12:03 pm
I believe the plan all along has been to retire the Space Shuttle fleet in 2010. Depending on NASA's plans and funding strategy, that may or may not happen, but at the moment, this calendar year will mark the last launches of the "Space Transportation System".
I've made vauge noises about going down to see a launch while there are still launches to see. Since it's now calendar year 2010, I guess I ought to get on the stick and plan that trip.
For planning purposes here is NASA's page with the schedule of rocket launches this year. The current schedule breaks down as follows:
STS-130: February
STS-131: March
STS-132: May
STS-134: July
STS-133: September
And that appears to be the lot. The last we heard, there was going to be a bump in NASA's budget. I don't know if that was to help extend the Shuttle's operational time, or perhaps contingent on NOT extending the Shuttle's time, or what. Since congressional budget stuff is going on right now, I'm sure those issues are being decided right now in Washington.
Sunday 03 January 2010 at 03:20 am
The new GPS comes home to roost:
I've also started a new chapter in my pilot's training. I started a home study course for the written portion of an instrument pilot rating. It's an interactive CD-ROM course with manuals and stuff.
The format is lecture video that plays with charts in the background, like this:
Don't know when I'll actually get to do flight training for the instrument, but this is a start.
Friday 01 January 2010 at 5:03 pm
Happy New year everyone!
I have a new web site and new blogging software. Yay! Now, since I haven't re-instated most of the pages, their Google page rank will begin to drop, so I need to get the pages back up soon.
I got an awesome present for Christmas; a console that will play NES and SNES games. I'm sitting on the couch, and R is playing Dragon Warrior. The cats are in attendance, happy to have us back after our long Christmas vacation. The Christmas tree is lit up in the other room.
I intend this year to be a year where I Get Stuff Done, and Get Caught Up With Things in my life. We'll see, but I'm eternally optimistic.
If nothing else, I have nintendo games to play, for the first time in like 10 years. Whoo!
