They’re Baaaack!

Well, I’m happy to announce that the massive photo archive is back online — all 27,000 photos. The link is now called PhotoHome, and is available from the menu. As it is in a DHCP environment, bookmarked files and folders from it may be broken from time to time, so be aware of that.

Enjoy!


Note [11/22]: I have solved the problem of linking the photos to the home box, so you shouldn’t have problems viewing the photos… most of the time. And, since I shoot with a Canon camera, the link has been retitled Canon Fodder. Enjoy!

Don’t Get Eliminated!

MXC (Most Extreme Elimination Challenge) has become one of my favorite shows on TV. Here’s the scoop.

Take a Japanese game show program (Takeshi’s Castle), replete with injuries and humiliating action, overdub in English (a la Iron Chef) and you’ve got MXC.

One of the my favorite things on TV nowadays. (The others are South Park and Enterprise, of course!)

New Deauxmayne

After many months of looking, and some heartache at what we thought was a missed opportunity last week, Becky and I have an accepted offer in our hands for a new house we want to buy.

It’s a great place — twice the size of our current house, more yard, more central to our offices, etc.

More on this as the process continues….

Conservative Hijinks

OK, I like the word “hijinks”… so sue me! 🙂

Two things of note as I watch the world go ’round.

First, Arnold Schwarzenegger was sworn in as the Governor of California today. That just sounds weird. Governor Schwarzenegger.

That whole election out there is almost like a joke with a never-ending punchline: A porn star, handicapped porn hustler, a publisher, Gary Coleman and Arnold Schwarzenegger (along with 100+ others) all walk into the Election Commissioner’s office….. Funny thing is that the folks in California will get the pleasure of living out the punchline on a daily basis.

Item number two… Today, Rush Limbaugh returned to the airwaves taking full responsibility for his actions. Kudos to Rush for his stand on his own actions — at least it wasn’t somehow a liberal plot with some sort of entrapment claimed. However, he’s still in deep waters in Florida for his drug buying/selling. Wait a minute…. Florida? Isn’t that where the President’s brother governs? Could he possibly influence the freeing of a staunch voice from the right during an election year in order to help his brother win re-election?

That almost sounds like another joke without a punchline….. Or, perhaps a punchline that the whole world would get to enjoy for four more years!

New Digs

It seems like every six months or so, I re-work this site, and put it on a new server. This point in time is no different! 🙂

First off, phydeaux-deauxmayne.net is a real domain, and is hosted on real servers, and anything in the blogspace that you create a shortcut or bookmark for really exists.

The photos are still offline — they’ll probably be back later in the week — and they will still be living here, so their bookmarks will be a little tenuous, just as they were.

So, who was brave enough to deal with me and let me have some space? Webdiggity. Matt was great, and got me set up in no time. I loaded MovableType up on his servers today, and 30 minutes later, phydeaux-deauxmayne was back.

Tonight, I added in all the old entries. This week will also see me restoring the formatting, links, photos in the entries, etc. A lot of work, but fun stuff. Sick, ain’t I?

Sio’s Baptism

This morning, Sio experienced believer’s baptism at her church. Darla and I were there, as well as Erin and her beau, Mike, and other family and friends.

It was great to share this experience with her and to see her take a big step on the path for the rest of her life.

Ya know, you raise your kids, hope you teach ’em good things, and pray that they saw the good, ignored the not-so-good, and applied what they learned.

In Sio’s case, I no longer have concern for her eternal life. That’s a cool feeling!

Halloween

Sio, Darla and I went Trick or Treating tonight. What a great night!

The weather was perfect. It had rained much of the afternoon, but broke in time for the candy gathering. The temperature cooperated, too — it was about 65 degrees outside. Just cool enough, without being too cold.

This was the first time Sio had been able to Trick or Treat in our neighborhood, and it is much larger than what she is accustomed to. There’s about 800 homes in the neighborhood, and she had designs on visiting them all. I told her that could take 10-12 hours, a challenge to which she responded she was ready!

In actuality, we spent just over two hours, hit about 100-150 homes, and had a great time. After leaving behind the candy she didn’t like — some of the best stuff, in my mind! — she still had enough to keep a small Central American country in candy for quite some time.

More Aurora

For the second day in a row, good ol’ Sol has burped in our direction, and the benefit is more aurora, more solar storms, and the potential for more. The sunspot complex from which this is coming is enormous. And, if that weren’t enough, there’s another large complex near this one that could start huring CME’s our direction at any time. Cool. I sure would love to see some aurora — that’s one of those celestial events that I’ve yet to observe.

On another front, I’ve started conversations with a hosting provider to start moving k4sso.org and this site to a more permanent location on the net. Also, I’m talking with this provider about a commerce site to start selling my photographic work. A little progress there would be really cool!

Aurora!

There was a huge aurora this morning around 3am thanks to the largest CME in 24 years. It was even visible down here in lowly Missouri.

Tonight, the news had photos shot just outside the city — I’m envious! Just waaaay to much light polution here to see something as pale as the aurora.

The ham folks are having a heydey with this one. The proploggers are full of activity. A couple of years ago, there was an X15, and it was pretty amazing! I came within about 50 miles of setting a new Au record for distance on 222Mhz when I worked western New York from here. Pretty cool….

It’s Been a Long Time

Yes, it has been a long time.

Nearly three months have gone by since I last typed in good ol’ PD. What’s kept me away? Work, work, and work. I have been pulling both long and odd shifts at the office, and I am physically drained from that. However, I’ll fill in the blanks and pages will magically appear to fill in the void.

I’m still bumping into pain and sorrow from Dad’s death last year. That’s been emotionally draining. I know I should be moving on, but I’m having a tough, tough time letting go. That’s probably not too unusual, I suppose.

Anyway, despite this dearth of activity on my part, I’ve noticed that several folks from IP’s I don’t recognize are coming in the front door and seeing this site. Welcome! My brother would call this place a cobweb site — too much lactivity lately. I’ll try to fill in the blanks of the last few months, and try not to pontificate too much.

Tonight? Cool camera stuff. My 105mm macro lens is back from Sigma. I bought it used from Creve Couer Camera (cool folks — ask for Taunya) just before the Jamaica trip last month, only to find out that this is one of the “infamous” Sigma lenses that needs to be rechipped before it will work fully with a Canon EOS 10D. In my case, I would get “Err 99” messages anytime I shot at any f/stop other than f/2.8 — what a pain! Anyway, I shipped it off a couple of weeks ago, and it’s back, rechipped, cleaned, and working great. I’ll be happy to get back to shooting macros again.

can·a·peel (noun) ˈkan-ə-pēl – A meal with a lot of variety, where each participant finds and cooks their own food.