I clicked on the magic little “Upgrade to v2.2” button next to my WordPress installation in Dreamhost’s control panel. Now, ordinarily, I rather like their little “One-click Installs,” as they’re pretty convenient and do all the grunt work for you of setting up databases, extracting archives, etc. But not today. When I logged in last night, I noticed that WordPress 2.2 was released, adding some new gizmos and gadgets, and more importantly, promising to be ever faster on page loads.

So why not? I’ll upgrade!

Login to panel.dreamhost.com, open my One-click Installs, and click (once 😉) on the upgrade button. The next page pops up and says they’ll perform the upgrade within 5-10 minutes, but I should be aware that any customizations to plugins or skins may need to be reinstated.

Wait. What? Dammit!

So, so far I’ve noticed that my random quote thingy is gone, I’ll have to track that down and get it reinstated… now I’m just hoping that I won’t find that all my plugin customizations have been reverted, too. Maybe its time to redesign this site a bit, in honor of summer and having free time 🙂

Not sure if you can see it, but those are icicles on the vertical caliper:

And that is bad. Fortunately Chris & Justin are in Madison shutting things down as I write this, so that the above-ground pipes don’t freeze and burst tonight and tomorrow in the freak freezing temperatures.

Forget fad dieting. I’m pretty sure I just lost at least a pound by getting my haircut. As many of you are probably aware, it’s about friggin’ time.

Anyhow, back to my guitar and books for a spring break blissfully low on internet utilization 🙂

The timeless joys of childhood
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

Life always seems so much simpler at Gramma’s house.

True story: the fountain lives again.

Those not currently located in Madison can take this for April Foolery all they want, but I swear to you it’s true 🙂 Wait until you get back and check it out, or go look at the FountainCam!

David & I did a whole bunch of cleanup work Thursday afternoon getting all the leaves and dirt and crud out of the South (caliper) end. Filled three 80-lb salt bags to the brim with decaying leaf matter. Yuck. Then somehow Jared & Jeni convinced me I looked fine afterward and needn’t change before going to supper?

Anyway, before leaving we started the 10,000 gallon reservoir filling, a process which Tim estimated at 24-36 hours. Checking back at 8pm confirmed that it took in excess of 3 hours 😉

I stopped the PLC to prevent it from starting up at what it thought would be 7am, so that we wouldn’t burn out the pumps with too little water. Then this afternoon I finally had a chance to remote in, set the clock, bypass the switch I accidentally left off down in the tunnel, and away we go! Apparently, the PLC holds its clock stopped at 00:00 01/01/1988 until you program it for the first time. Clever trick to make sure you don’t screw things up like I almost did: it held itself “in reset” waiting for the clock to be correctly programmed. Very handy. (I say “for the first time”, because we just installed our newly-repaired power supply module on Thursday, and the clock truly had never been run before!)

Now on to spring break!

This is something even the non-nerds should be aware of. For 3 minutes of your time, you can catch up on an interesting and disturbing trend in industry, where the companies that develop your computer are working together to develop technology which does not trust you, the owner & user of the machine…

The animation is rather well done except for a couple typos and odd uses of English, and presents its message in a very non-technical manner. Please take a minute and watch it.

Kudos to Scott for finding this originally.

Friday

Kaisa came to visit!

Supper at Atlanta Bread Co

Dave came to visit!

UW MadHatters concert: Me, Kaisa, Stefanie, Dave, and Jared. Overture Center (gorgeous.) by the Capitol. Parking way too far away and making the girls walk in the mist 🙁 (Sorry! I hear that is bad for the hair, and Kaisa’s shoes…). Opening act magician and juggler; both good, the latter hilarious. Awesome concert, that I will definitely be getting the DVD recording of. Wow was it great. I’m sad that they have so many amazingly talented seniors leaving this year, especially the guy that sang “I’ll Be” (Edwin McCain) and I think “Hey Girl” (O.A.R.) and their phenomenally talented vocal instrumentalist, who sings an amazing trumpet and trombone.

Guitar “practice” after the show. Three guitars, four people (though one of you, and I’m not going to name names, needs to play with us some more… it’s the only way to learn 🙂 ) Basically involved playing around and talking, and then being amazed by the musical aptitude of one David G. Dreyer, who can pick up a song by hearing it for just a few minutes. Why do you have to live so far away Dave??

Saturday

Going to bed at 3am. Oops. Hope you were ok for work, Stef!

Dave leaves to visit parents.

Pancake breakfast with Kaisa.

Some cleaning, not much productivity.

Kaisa goes home.

Hang out with Jared, out for a burger at the Nitty

Buy my first 6-pack

Cards with Dave, Pat, Jared, and Jon. Jared claims his Guinness from a bottle (brilliant!) makes him play better.

Stay up til 3 for no particularly good reason, watch some ATHF at Jon’s suggestion

Sunday

Wake up and call Dave to make sure he comes back and gets his ID badge, apartment keys, guitar pick, guitar tuner, guitar chord book, and shirt that he forgot Saturday night

Some work around the apartment

Head in to campus at 1, talk to parents en route

Mail in first contribution to Roth IRA

Enter 3605 EH at 1:30pm

Leave 3605 EH for 1.5 hours to have supper at Ian’s with Jared

Back in 3605 EH until 11:00, when Josh and Jeni bring me some late-night snacks. Nearly lock myself out of EH, except for a fortunate pressure pocket in the wheelchair ramp that holds the door open.

Back in 3605 EH until 2:45am.

Home to finish last problem from book that I forgot to bring 13 hours ago

Pass out at 4:30am

Except for the last part there on Sunday, it was an Excellent weekend!

Uggh…
Originally uploaded by CCmcGeek.

We’ll just say it’s been a long day in 3605 Engineering. I got there at 1:30 and only left for about an hour and a half to grab supper with Jared. Thank God for Jared’s supper interlude and Josh and Jeni randomly bringing me some late-night sustenance in the form of Doritos, or I would long-since be insane. Now back to the apartment to finish up the last problem and type up some calculations for another project. Good morning everyone.

On second thought, I should not draft a post with that title this late at night. Too much happens in 21 years to condense over a sleep- and C#-fogged brain.

The short story is: I turned 21 on Tuesday. I don’t feel radically different, but it is nice to not have any outdated, age-delimited legal requirements in the way of life any more. Thanks a bunch to those friends who took me out Tuesday night! I owe you all one 🙂 If you’re not up to anything else, how does Saturday sound? Dave- you’re sticking around ’til Sunday, right? Oh, and btw, do you read this blog? lol

A good night to all… I’ll try to post some sort of inspirational 21-year review tomorrow, but given the amount of work & meetings I have scheduled, that might not work out… I’ll do my best.