Fresh when it gets here from
Julie Barrett
Monday, March 21, 2011
One thing I didn't mention last week was our detour into Homeowner Hell. As any homeowner will tell you, these trips are all to frequent and generally unplanned - as when I went to check the mail on Thursday and discovered the door was hanging open, This happens frequently around here. We live on a busy street and kids seem to think it's fun to walk along and open all of the mailboxes.
When I closed the door the box flew backward and landed on the sidewalk with a clatter. I discovered that the pole had a clean break, and apparently someone (though I don't know if it was the person who broke it or a passerby) was able to piece the pole back together. Looking from the house I couldn't tell anything was wrong.
The pole had been heavy duty plastic anchored in the ground with concrete. A later examination showed that it had been hit.
I dropped everything and went out to buy a new pole and some concrete. Of course, it wasn't the same type of pole. The big box home improvement center no longer carried that type. Paul found one on Friday and spent a vacation day (he'd planned to take it off anyway) doing the deed. I'm just glad this didn't happen in the summer, when the temps hover around 100F.
While he was slaving away outdoors, I decided to swap out my old keyboard for newer, less "clacky" model. Of course, that meant rerouting cords. While I was at it I decided to attack the dust bunnies under my desk and discovered ants. Oh, joy. There went my Friday.
While rerouting cords we discovered the network cable that runs to my computer was stretched to its limit, which meant when I moved the neatly wrapped (yeah, read that phrase again. "Neatly wrapped." In my house!) bundle of cables the router would shift position, which, in turn, caused the external antenna to fall from its perch. So we replaced the cable on Sunday.
That was when I discovered another casualty of the move to a new hosting company. The comment forms (which includes the contact form on the site - one way I get work) were all borked. It's not the hosting company's fault. When we moved the site I made the decision to also go from Asp.Net 2.0 to 4.0. I knew the job was dangerous when I took it, Of course, these things are NEVER easy, particularly since I'm trying to learn C# and decided to redo the forms from the ground up. Oh, they look almost identical (save the CAPTCHA), but they're all new and improved under the hood.
There went my weekend. I need to get back on another project today. A deadline looms.