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These Days....

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 06 March 2024

Hits: 361

Joomla, far from a stellar migration, things have changed, have to be updated, in for a graphical and otherwise makeover. 

The old modules, working fine on the old installation, no longer working, there are no "updated"modules and so I'm finding other modules that work in varying degrees - most are not what I'm looking for, trial and error is still the only way and this is time consuming. FTP'ing files, installations, dropping new databases & tables, a lot of shit that I'd taken pains to forget about and now am having to remember and upgrade.

Don't get me wrong, the site is long overdue for a makeover, but there's something about having change forced upon you vs finding it out and seeking it for oneself.

And all the old modules, still, despite numerous de-installations, remnants clutter the file server, find, delete, try another, try again....

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So these are the things keeping me busy, problems with form, not content. And as my mind rather leans into problems before creativity the blogging's a little behind...not that much has happened.

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Chess, as of late my game has shown some trifling improvements, I'm no longer level 3, I could beat it with too great a regularity. Now I'm on level 4, and instead of winning I'm (generally) finding myself a move behind. Or, in other words, losing. Play and play again and sooner - or later - I'll get it. One problem - (not really, not in the scheme of things or in the world of Trump, Russia & Israel) - is that there are 8 levels. But chess has some 3000 points available - meaning there could be a 400 point spread in the levels - that's a big difference. It would be easier - handier for me at least - if there was a more graduated climb in progress...

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and BB, a longtime local, coffee with. An older lady (nearly 80) but proper Nelson resident, moved to the Valley from the US in the early 70's escaping the draft, communes, free love, farm, hippie-dippy life-style, an original founding father ("mother") of the town as it is today. She's published a small book of poetry, sold it out, limited runs, we're out for coffee simply to get better acquainted, these first residents, think Dag, M****** from the Thrift Shop, Stormy, all these people, they're the reason it's such a cool town. They wrote the constitution, the charter, they're the feminists and activists and she's still writing letters, books, volunteering at the radio station, ....

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The stories, they're all episodic, short, the train is frequently derailed or shunted onto other tracks, all taking the tangents of "Grandpa Simpson" "In the year...when I was .... my true love...except for my professor..." all the various segways, detours, tangent and skirting, short anecdotes, the long ones trailing off and vanish with irrelevance, nothing is  arrived to directly, you need a conversational map. I've made it onto her mailing list, in which daily she lets me know what she's been up to, doing, she's time on her hands and is filling it as best she can.

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And the car, that paperweight of winter, that Albatross I have to cut from my neck to make room for another. Parked for 2 months up on ...., accruing snow, filling with winter...I have to move it. I check the mail, my monthly routine, there's a warning, 2nd notice. So I go up and move it, 3 expired tickets cemented to the windshield with ice, all in the past week, once they find you they don't stop, keep the tickets coming, threats of towing...where does it say "72 Hour Parking" but apparently that's a rule that doesn't need writing down.

Miracle of miracles the car starts and I move it a few blocks away. 

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The weather, snow, winter come in March, crisp mornings, or bitterly cold. And snow, the first foot melting, the second largely staying as does the third, but the sun has warmed and melted a lot, the air is cold but the snow is still vanishing...

Word has it - through customers, that the restaurant is opening Friday. I'm not going back, but I need a job ASAP.