Somewhat Daily Mutterings

"The Machine"

As promised, another scan of artwork from my "archives". This one is in pastel and pencil.

The Machine, 1987

Wiki Woes

I'm unfortunately having trouble finding a Wiki that fits all these criteria: a) not too complicated (one file is best), b) has reasonable default CSS classes and structure, and c) allows HTML tags without allowing dangerous tags.

UseModWiki, and its cousin OddMuseWiki came close, but failed on point b). Twiki would be great, but fails on point a). I think Kwiki might be the one that wins, but it's more of a framework than a one-script Wiki, and I therefore haven't installed it. Eventually, I'll give it a shot to see.

I fear that in order to have the features I need, I may end up writing my own Wiki in Ruby. I'm sure that would result in my maintaining two feature-incomplete varieties of Web-management software: my gemcast weblog engine, and a new Ruby-based Wiki engine.

Phear my WebLogic Admin Skillz - I'm Certified!

I found out last week that I've passed the BEA WebLogic 8.1 Administrator certification test, so bow down before my administrative skillz! :-)

It actually is somewhat cool that I finally have one certification to my credit, even though I tend to poo-poo certifications, in general. So call me a hypocrite.

Adding a Wiki to the samoht.com Mix

I've recently been considering the addition of a Wiki to my site in order to manage the non weblog-oriented content. It's kind of a pain to manage multiple pages with similar structure, and a Wiki makes that simple, with the addition of remotely-editable content (well, I have that now, via SSH, but I'd prefer something even simpler). I'll need a Wiki engine that allows for HTML in the content, as I'm not a Wiki purist, and I want some control over the presentation on my pages.

I'm on the hunt, so watch out for it.

Another Scan from My Sketchbooks

I was reminded, as I continued scanning my sketchbooks, that I once had a sort of fetish about drawing packages. By "packages", I mean packages wrapped in brown paper and tied up with twine. Really. Here's one:

Package, 1986

It's also around this time (and perhaps on this very drawing) that I started my "scribble" thing. It might be hard to tell in the above image, but there are light scribbles on this drawing, especially near the twine and the sides of the box. I don't know how it started, but it continued with future pieces, including my larger paintings and pastels.

Funny Sound Fixed

Over the last couple of weeks, my bike had started to sound a bit odd. It was louder than usual, and was backfiring a bit, but overall it wasn't consistent and I thought maybe I was just being oversensitive. Over the last week it seemed to get worse, so I put some real thought into it. I finally decided it must be an exhaust leak. I took it up to the dealership last Wednesday, and the service manager confirmed my guess and even showed me which header bolts were loose.

Wednesday evening I removed the fairing lower in order to just snug up the bolts a bit. Turns out I have virtually every size of metric socket except 12mm, which is exactly what the Beemer needs, so I couldn't actually do anything. I decided to go out and buy a new socket set and torque wrench for the job.

So, yesterday, I treated myself to a new Craftsman socket set (I've had my old one since I was about 14 years old), and a nice Craftsman torque wrench. I really treated myself on the wrench, since I went for the "micro tourque" model, which has a torque release, rather than just a torque meter (it would have been very hard to read a meter with the wrench upside-down and that close to the ground). Well, tools really make the difference, and I had the exhaust nuts snugged up quickly. I went ahead and re-torqued all of them for good measure.

I went out today for a ride around town, and sure enough the odd sounds and backfiring were gone. Score one for the weekend warrior!

First Art Collection Published

I mentioned in a previous post that I'd bought a Scanner and started scanning my artwork. I've completed the first "collection", from my high-school and early college days. It has been published to my .Mac site. Eventually I'll update my artwork page to reference the collections.

Robot, 1979