christopher’s lives (v5.3)

just when i think i have it just the way i want it, it does something new…
for some reason, it is posting everything with a timestamp that is 7 hours late, so, if it says an event happened at 7pm, it actually happened at noon… and, since it wraps everything up at around midnight and posts the digest for the day, some events from one day aren’t showing up until the next… very annoying…
on the digest for the 20th, i fixed the times manually, but entries from that night still showed up in the digest for the 21st… rather than cut and paste and then fix the times manually on the 21st, i am just making this post to let people know it is all screwed up… this post will be a sticky and stay at the top of the list - when the issue is fixed, i will let it drop from the top…
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UPDATE - sept 28th

the problem is still there and i have had no reply from the author, so, i just now went back and manually fixed all the daily posts from the last week (the titles have had “[fixed]” added to them)… i am hoping that something will change - perhaps when the new version comes out or i don’t know what… until then, i will complain loudly :P
(click that link if you want to know the details…)
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UPDATE - october 6th

for some reason, the post for oct3 came out perfect, even covering the cross over past midnight… why would it suddenly do it flawlessly right in the middle of posts it did wrong??? i am very confused…
anyway, there is still no word from the guy who wrote it - he hasn’t posted at his message board where questions are asked since sept27… so, i have been going back every few days and hand-editing the posts… and complaining :P

as mentioned in this post, i am making big changes around here…
and some of them are working better than others… i am endeavoring to make regular posts of a favorite photo and there have been a small handful of those, but the big thing i am trying to work out that isn’t working so well is this whole “LifeStream” thing… for those who haven’t heard the term a lifestream is just a feed or list or aggregation of everything i do online, so to speak… i am trying to get a set-up that will post a daily lifestream every night… you can see a few examples on the blog already - it has the twitters i’ve made, links i’ve added to del.icio.us, items i’ve shared in google reader, pics i’ve posted to flickr or twitpic, etc… i just haven’t found the perfect arrangement…
the best i’ve seen is the layout here - the oddly named Profilactic… the main thing being that it properly displays items from all the sites i use and it even shows the pics i post… BUT, there is no way to put it on my site that i can find… they do have a wordpress plugin, but it looks very different than the way it displays on their site… most importantly, it doesn’t show the pics… (temporary example here, if it’s working…)

so, for the moment, i am sticking with the lifestream that you see already being used on the site…
however, i am still testing some things with it - there is no way to do an on-demand post (!!!!), so i have to make changes and then wait until it auto-posts to see how it looks… that REALLY sucks… plus, it keeps double posting each time and i have no idea why… and, it is just far from perfect… if i could get profilactic to post the pics, i’d probably use that…
though, i cannot figure out a way to get it to post the day’s stuff every night (i may have to learn to do cron jobs), so, i would be setting a lifestream page as the homepage, rather than the home page being the main page of the blog… though, i do hate using external services to provide content on my site…
anyway, you will also notice i’ve still been using the twitter update, so those posts are also there and there is often repeated info in the two kinds of posts… and, of course, the right sidebar has a lot of this info, but i’m not removing those widgets until i get the lifestream thing figured out…

anyway, it will all level out eventually and hopefully i will find some ideal solutions… until then, the site will probably be cluttered and confusing… (kinda’ like this hurriedly written post :P )

[this post will be bumped up to the top every day for the next week or so, but it was originally posted august 18, 2008... if you have read this announcement already, just scroll down to see new posts...]

beginning asap, my blog is going to get updated a lot more frequently - i am going to start aggregating my twitter, flickr, etc. into this one spot…

two things have triggered this:
one - finding out that twitter is not keeping a long-term archive of my posts… and they weren’t searchable anyway… if only i had started archiving long ago :(
and two - having a dslr and being able to view the pics on my psp and now realizing i can upload to flickr from my psp (and flickr will then post them to my blog), i think i will start finally using flickr more… i hope…

but, my blog has never been a frequent-update kinda’ place… this has always mostly been just a place to put links to everything and all my contact info… so, for the last five or more years, i have used the service offered by changedetection.com to notify, via email, those who wanted to be notified when something changed on the site even before it was a blog… this has been handy for the less-tech-saavy in my life who don’t use rss, etc. to keep updated… well, since the blog will be updated daily (i have already turned on the service to daily make a blog post containing all the day’s twitters), i am going to discontinue the use of the changedetection.com service… i know this will be a bummer for some, but there is no sense in having an email go out every day…
the real problem is that changedetection is anonymous… i don’t know who is subscribed to me… so, i will leave the service up for a few days and hopefully you will read this post…

i look forward to my blog becoming something that gets updated regularly, and to using flickr more - i have quite a few photos i want to show off :) and there will be a few tweaks to the sidebars of the site, and i may even bring back the chatbox so people can comment in general on the site, rather than commenting on a specific post or photo or whatever… and i will probably integrate dashwire to some extent, maybe this shozu thingy i’ve been playing with…

either way, big changes are a-comin’… maybe i’ll change the version number of my blog to 5.1 :P

[posted from my mint metallic green Moto Q9c]

even i get tired of sifting through so many of my photos, hoping to bump into a good one, so i finally made a “best of” folder…

you can peruse it here…

it is the stuff i think is best, not just sentimental value…
i have long wanted to separate the “photography” from the “snapshots” but can never think of a way to work that out in a way i like, so, i did this instead… i also changed my flickr badge over there on the right to only show pics from this set and added a direct link to it in my “all my online stuff” section on the side bar (which also has undergone a major change itself, in case you hadn’t noticed)…

as i say in the collection, i need to seriously whittle down - it was put together kind of hurriedly… here is the description on the set “i really need to whittle these down… maybe HALF this many… anyway, these are arranged from newest to oldest - as time has gone by, i have learned a bit more about photography techniques and have gotten better cameras, so i say the newer stuff is the best of the best, but, your taste may vary…”

anyway, the changes to my various online stuff continues…

ok, i get this question a lot and i have never really used my blog for posting stuff about my personal life, but, i’m going to make an exception and give the short version…

yes, i am living in alamogordo, i moved here in october to help take care of dad when they put him on hospice…  and he died on december 16…  and now i am living with mom, helping her…  i have every intention of moving back the abq and bringing her with me…  but, that isn’t going to happen any time soon…  she has a lot of medical catching up to do, so, there are a lot of doctor visits and such, plus, she just isn’t ready to move yet…

a gal named terra, and her 2-year-old son are living with us…  she was the best nurse with dad when he was in the hospital for a few days a week or so before he died…  she did a lot of above and beyond stuff, even coming to the house to help with him…  she moved in with us shortly after dad died - she helps me with mom, she helps me with a lot of stuff, and she had a few disasters hit her, so living here is very helpful to her as well…

i am very involved with calvary chapel alamogordo here, including hosting the proverbs devotion at the church, every weekday morning at 6am…

i miss home very much and my friends and church and disc golf and real coffee shops and my apartment, etc. etc., but, i have to be here for mom right now…

and, yes, as of march 24, 2008, my divorce from mary is final…

i have tweaked a few things here on the site…  if you look over at the side bar, you will see i have added links to every place i have an online presence, such as netflix, pandora, del.icio.us, and twitter…
twitter is a fantastic way to keep up with me - it is sort of a ‘micro-blog’ service where, a few times a day, i make a post from my cell phone, sometimes with a pic, briefly telling you what i am doing at that moment - or a scripture that spoke to me, or a quote i liked, or whatever…  no, it won’t give you major details of things in my life, but, if you keep an eye on it, it certainly gives you little snapshots and sort of a wireframe of what my life right now is like…  the feed is on my sidebar, you can subscribe to the feed via rss, or, you can sign up with twitter yourself and get the updates to your phone, live, and you can make posts and we can get glimpses INTO EACH OTHER’S LIVES…
wouldn’t that be cool?  i think so :)

anyway, that is the quick version…

i have really come to dislike talking on the phone, but i do email sometimes, i text message, and of course, i keep up with a few people on twitter, and they with me…  so, your choices for actually having a conversation are kind of few…  you could still trying calling and see if i answer, but, even when in the mood, i am one busy dude…

so, look at the sidebar on the right, you will see all my contact info and, below that, some links to find me if you have a playstation 3 or see how rarely i update my photos on flickr or see what movies i’ve been watching lately on my netflix profile and what i thought of them, my taste in music on last.fm and pandora, some links i think are interesting on del.icio.us and, a little lower, see live updates to my twitter…

that should keep you busy awhile :P Read the rest of this entry »