Life, Kids, Technology & that move to another continent
scott I have today off for Martin Luther King day! In the past I have worked at companies that didn’t give this as a day off so I am happy to have an extra day to relax. This is especially good since next Saturday I have to be at work in New Jersey for probably 18+ hours for some disaster recovery drills. Not fun but it doesn’t happen that often so it should hopefully go ok.
I am not sure what I am going to do today. I hopefully with think of something!
My site is now live with WordPress. They typepad version of the site still exists for now at http://powerz.typepad.com/. I am still tweaking some of the plugin’s for my WordPress install, but so far things are working ok. The hardest problem is getting my Feedburner RSS feeds to be the default feed for my blog when you click on the RSS icon.
I am still trying to find a better theme than the one I have, but for now it will do. More updates as I tweak the site.
I have talked about it a ton of times over several years but I am finally taking the leap and moving my blog to WordPress. I have been very happy with Typepad over the years but the flexibility of WordPress is bringing me over. I tried to build an instance of Moveable Type to port my blog into but I had issues with it on two different hosting providers. WordPress was easy to setup, almost too easy since I started and stopped working on a site at least a half a dozen times. I finally found and configured all of the widgets I wanted that I have with Typepad. I also found decent themes that make the site look good.
As I write this my hosting provider Lunar Pages is making some minor DNS changes so I they can host the DNS for my powerz.org domain yet I can continue to host my mail elsewhere. That will enable the URL I currently point to Typepad to point to my hosting account with all my other domain names. Actually since I am writing this entry on my WordPress site, by the time you read this I will already be running on the new site.
The good news for me is if I change my mind or end up not being happy with my choice to move to WordPress, I can always move back to Typepad. I paid for the service through the beginning of November. I know bad timing on my part, but I will wait till the Fall to cancel just in case I get cold feet.
One noticeable downside of my new setup is I see a bit of sluggishness with my site loading. I am not sure if it is the server my account is on, or if it is just wordpress being slow?
I just finished watching the latest episode of Battlestar Galactica. All I can say is wow, some deep stuff. I know it is a Science Fiction show but it is also probably one of the best drama’s on TV. I can’t wait to see how everything plays out before the series ends. Some stuff that happened tonight I kinda guessed at. The hinted at Ellen being a cylon since we first meet her, but all the backstory that looks like it comes with that revelation was unexpected.
I am not going to recap the show. I am just glad the wait for new episodes was worth it. Lets see how the last 9 go!
And I blink and it is Monday again. I didn't worry since I took a deep breath and the day was over, just like that. I had meetings scheduled for almost the entire day (again). Thankfully some stuff got cut short (slightly) and I was able to pass off one meeting so I didn't have to go. That gave me time to get a small portion of the work I have done today. At least the most pressing stuff was done, right?
I used my new Targus rolling laptop bag for the 2nd time today, first time to my office. I miss my nice Tumi messenger bag, but with the amount of stuff I am lugging to work now a days it has been suggested by medical pro's not to carry that much so I am trying out the wheeled option. I have mixed thoughts on it, so I am not sure if the messenger bag will collect too much dust. I will try the roller out for a few more weeks before I pass judgement.
For dinner tonight I bought some Maco Shark to grill up on the George Forman. The verdict, I will pass on it in the future. It didn't settle well in my stomach and the Swordfish I have been having has tasted allot better to me. I am going to try to steam up some king crab legs as my first attempt at steaming sometime later in the week. I am liking the sea food recently. I know crab legs are expensive but they are cheaper to make on my own than goto a restaurant!
Nothing else major happening today. I am trying to do a bit of online shopping while finishing up some stuff for work and then off to bed.
I decided to play around with my WordPress configuration again today. I am still a customer of Typepad, but since I already have a hosted web account on Lunarpages I have had an instance of WordPress sitting around for a few months. For the longest time I have toyed with using WordPress or hosting my own Moveable Type install vs Typead. I always keep going back to Typepad because it has most of the features I want and it is just simple to use and manage. Recently I have been contenplating cutting costs and things like two hosting accounts (Typepad & Lunarpages) seems like it might be excessive. So today I decided to search through the assortment of WordPress plugin’s and see if I could get my WordPress site to look as good or better than my Typepad site. So far I think it is dam close. Is it better than my Typepad site, I don’t know. Is it good enough to save $89 a year, maybe.
I loaded up the WordPress site with the latest backup of my blog. I will continue to tweak the site and see if it is worth it to point my URL to it. The big dilemma is that all the archive links will break when moving between Typepad and WordPress. That means all the google links won’t work. For that reason I am still pondering what I want to do.
Off to a comedy club in the snow!
Today I worked from an office I don’t normally work out of. I had several meetings up there, as well as lunch plans so it made sense to be nomadic somewhere other than my normal office. A day that started out only having a handful of meetings turned into a completely packed day filled with stuff going on an minor issues cropping up all over the place. I was barely able to get out after 5, and was only able to do that because I was riddling off emails on the blackberry on the train.
After work I headed down to hang out with Mike, Stanley, Ben and others for a few rounds before heading home to relax after a long week.
When I got home from the taping of the Daily Show last night I returned to a box containing my new Blackberry Curve 8310. Since I started my new job in September I have been lazy in researching how to order one. Over the holidays I finally broke down and realized I needed one to stay up to date with the contestant barrage of mail I get. So now I once again have to carry two phones, since I won’t give up my personal number. It has been almost 8 months since I had a Blackberry I used every day. I almost didn’t miss it.
I have a slightly newer model Curve from what I used at Redcats. The only major difference I see is that this new one has GPS built in, and is a titanium color. I am still trying to figure out what applications I want for it.
Tonight I went to a taping of the Daily Show With John Stewart. Jayson, Scott, Nick, and I braved the freezing cold and rain for about 3 hours to see the taping. John Stewart is really funny and I love the Daily Show so I jumped at the chance to go when Jayson said he got tickets. It was allot of waiting for about 45 minutes of watching, but I wouldn’t have missed it.
In order to make it there in time to stand in line I had to do a few conference calls from Jayson’s office in the afternoon. That was a bit cramped but I was able to get all the work I needed done and still make the taping so things worked out.