Have you ever had an experience that makes you question reality?
You know… like those those science fiction stories where aliens are creating a world
just for one person.
Or maybe that you’re lying a tup somewhere with everything you see and feel
is a simulation al la The Matrix?
I remember seeing old Twilight Zone episodes where the central character looks out one window to see the sun and looks out the other to see a rainy day.

I had one of those today.
I was driving on the freeway where several ramps were come together.
I needed to merge right into fast, merging traffic so I was watching
the van in front of me merge right and watching in the passenger side mirror
a dirty, blue pickup coming up fast on the right.
I decided to let him zoom by and I’d merge in behind him.
I saw him in the mirror getting closer.
The van ahead of me had merged over and there was room for him
to go by.
So I looked to the right to see the pickup to find my place to merge
and he was gone!!!!
I mean totally missing.
In the 4 lanes of traffic around me, there was not a dirty, blue pickup
anywhere.
The only place I saw him was in my passenger side mirror but he
was not there in real life.

Do, Do, Do, Do. (Imagine the Twilight Zone theme).

Well, maybe there was a glitch in the reality simulation program.
I’m just not sure. We’ll see how the rest of the day goes.

Our cat Moon (really Moonlight, but that’s only for formal occasions) disappeared
a few days ago. All of our cats are indoor/outdoor cats but Moon is the only one who spends
most of her time outdoors. The other cats spend most of their time lounging around the
house like proper, spoiled cats.

But, like I said, Moon disappeared. Gone for three or four days. We called. We looked.
No Moon. A saddness began to grow in the house.

Then, yesterday, there was Moon sitting in the house. A little thinner and with a
large wound on her side.
We surmise is that she got wounded and she hid to get better.
All of our cats hide under a bed when they are sick or hurt.
The wound is bad enough that we’re glad she didn’t die under a bed somewhere.

She spent the night at the vet’s and we’re getting her back today.
I have no idea what wounded her (coyote, racoon, nail on a fence, …) but
the vet has it stitched up and drained and we’ll get our cat back today.

It was another year and another Halloween.
The
pictures
show that we again carved pumpkins, gave out candy and had a good time.
This year we had the family over (the kids and their families) to carve pumpkins
so everyone had a hand in creating the Halloween spirit.

This isn’t a dead blog. I’ve just been off doing other things.
But I have piles of pictures to get up and comments to make so this week I will be putting up a
new entry every day. Most of them will be from the past but it’s time to catch up.

Today I ran 15 miles to get ready for the
Disneyworld Marathon
that’s in early January.
I have a lot of training to do to get ready for that race.
But, you can see from the pictures that it was a beautiful fall day
here in the Willamette Valley. The rain even held off for the run.

One of many educational catalogs we receive included a very educational item:

Nothing gives kids (and adults) the giggles more than the subjects of farts and poops.
This adorable plush bear and two fun books turn taboo subjects into natural,
healthy converstaions… with loads of laughs.
Li’l Stinker Bear has a wireless remote thta causes him to produce
six different “gassy” sounds, and his cheeks light up as he “blushes” after each
funny deed!
3 AA batteries included. 12″ high.
The Gas We Pass, the Story of Farts book playfully teaches kids
about the simple science of flatulence (human and animal);
Everyone Poops lightheartedly shows kids who are potty training
that they’re not alone — because every living creature poops!
Both are colorfullyillustrated 28-page hardcover books.
Ages 3+.

We never had stuff like this when I was a kid.

Just some headlines on this day:

• US poverty rate rose to 12.7 percent in 2004
• Global weapons sales rise to highest level since 2000
• US consumer confidence rebounds in August
• US refining capacity bottleneck boosts oil prices
• US GDP increased at solid pace in second quarter
• Fed’s August meeting highlighted risk of inflation

I can’t tell whether it’s good news or bad news.

Last night, I took my son to a college meeting (tables for 35 colleges and many, many interested students).
The event was held in the
Governor Hotel
here in Portland, Oregon.
This is an old hotel in downtown Portland that was built and decorated before
all hotels became bottom-line oriented, international corporation assets.
This building has artwork built into the walls.
It is beautiful.

The place where I work has an enclosed courtyard in between two of the buildings.
Normally, once can have lunch out in the sun.
But, every now and then, the birds move in.
This is not like a Hitchcock movie. This is more like a nursery.

Each year there are ducks that move in to have some ducklings.
While this is going on, the courtyard is closed and we get to watch them through the windows.
Our latest birds are two barn owls.
They seem to be small ones that are learning to fly and who have decided that our
nice enclosed, landscaped area is perfect for getting their wings.

So, for the moment, we cannot lunch in the sun.

The
pictures
from the second day of the triathlon are up.
It was a perfect day for running — the sky was overcast and it stayed in the 60s to low seventies the whole event. The sun finally came out just as everyone was finished.

My wife’s
business
has a vendor’s booth at the
Blue Lake Triathlon and Duathlon
event this weekend.
Since it was close to home,
the family was signed up to setup and man the booth.
So, this weekend, I’ve been selling athletic products.
I have some
pictures
of us and the event.

This last weekend I went to my spouse’s reunion but that was just an excuse to go to LA and visit
Disneyland.
Many
pictures are available.

One of the pleasures of having children, is someday being a grandparent.
So, to the left is a picture of my several month old grand-daughter.
At least all the ladies with “feelings” about these things are sure it’s a girl.
I look forward to meeting her in February.

I recently changed the MPA on my server from sendmail to postfix.
The only problem I had was configuring my mail relay — my relay requires me to log
in. How to do this in postfix? The answer is not obvious and not explained.
In coming SMTP connections are covered extensivily but not out going.

After many hours of Googling, I came across
Daniel Mettler‘s

Postfix outgoing/outbound SMTP authentication for smtp.hispeed.ch/cablecom.c
.
Here he gives the secret which I shamelessly copy here for my own future edification.

Add to your /etc/postfix/main.cf file:

relayhost = mail.your-relay.net
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_mechanism_filter = plain
smtp_use_tls = no
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_password_outgoing_smtp
smtp_sasl_security_options = noanonymous

where mail.your-relay.net is the name of your relay host computer.
This instructs that the mail relay is using sasl logins and the credentials are in the
specified file.

Then, create /etc/postfix/sasl_password_outgoing_smtp containing:

mail.your-relay.net login:password

where mail.your-relay.net is your relay host,
login is your login account name and
password is the password for your account.
Then, has the file (creates
/etc/postfix/sasl_password_outgoing_smtp.db)
and have postfix reload it’s parameters:

/usr/sbin/posthash /etc/postfix/sasl_password_outgoing_smtp
/usr/sbin/postfix reload

Viola, it works!!

I visited my local Safeway to fill my Diet Coke habit andI found that there are now three different versions of low calorie Coke: origional Diet Coke, Diet Coke with Splenda and, in a burst of creative marketing and brand development, the Coke answer to Pepsi One: Coca-Cola Zero.

We purchased all three and held a tasting.
The results were:

• Diet Coke still tastes the same. I have been drinking it so long that I
  prefer the slightly non-sweet taste. But then, I prefer the not-over-sweet
  tastes of snacks (insert pitch for dark chocolate over milk chocolate);
• Diet Coke with Splenda:
  this has the base Diet Coke taste but it has an after taste which must be
  from the sweetener. I think this is a flavor that different people will take differently
  so you’ll have to give it a try. But, as a person who’s used to Asperaine,
  this taste was not pleasent;
• Coca-Cola Zero: YUCK!! It is much sweeter than normal Diet Coke and
  uses both Aspertane and Splenda for sweetness. They are obviously going for
  the “sweet drink” profile (Diet Mt Dew, Code Red, …). Their market surveys
  must have been telling them that people want this. I’d suspect the flavor is
  close to the “New Coke” thing from a few years back.

Now, I don’t doubt that there is a market for a sweeter drink — some people
like that stuff — but I don’t know why they decided to mingle the product with
the Coco-Cola brand and not create another brand.
We’ll see if their sharp marketing people have gotten this one right.
Anyway, I’m sticking to my Diet Coke.

I didn’t mention that my trip to Chicago was on
United Airlines
.
It seems that United has pissed of their baggage handlers
and we’re the one’s, you and I, who are suffering the consequences.

On the way home, everyone got onto the plane,
all sitting in our seats and buckled in with the door
closed ready to go,
but we sat there for 45 minutes while they
“finished loading the luggage”.
That’s right, the plane was more
than 45 minutes late because of waiting for
the luggage to be put on board.

On the way to Chicago, I arrived there at 5pm on Sunday.
It was over an hour before my luggage was on the
carrosle.
Mine wasn’t the real sob story, though.
The plane in from Las Vagas was sitting at the gate
with the luggage onboard.
People were standing around waiting and waiting for their
luggage until the United representitive who had
to face all the ticked off customers told them that
they didn’t know when the luggage would get unloaded.
The best they could offer was to file a ‘lost luggage’
claim and it would be delivered to them the next day.

That’s service.

I think, that no matter how cheap the fares are, you
should give United a miss for a while.

Oh, and yes, I didn’t check my bags on the way back.

I’m travelling to Chicago this week.
It is hot, humid and hazy.
I’m on the Miracle Mile but I can’t see very far up the
street.
I’m on the top floor of my hotel but I can’t see a quarter
mile from here.
I’m skipping the trip to the observitory on top of the
Hancock Tower because I just wouldn’t see any view.
All of the locals are complaining about the heat in June.
Global warming is a pain.

I did walk around the neighborhood I’m in.
There are many residential buildings here and a lot of people
on the street.
People from the burbs are always afraid of ‘downtown’,
but the part of Chicago around the Hancock tower is
very clean and pleasent.

It is a little expensive for my tastes. If you can’t read
picture at the left is says “Elegent Homes priced from
$1.5m”. These are “homes” that are in a several story
building on the shore of Lake Michigan, but still, I’m sure
the “starting at” homes are on the non-lake veiw, setting
sun side of the building. And a deal at only 1.5 million.

This part of Chicago is shopping crazy.
Most of the buildings around here have several floors of
shops. These are all upscale mall stores that cater to
the people who can afford the 1.5 million dollar
residences around here.
Shops range from coffie shops to a Bentley automobile showroom.
The Hershey’s shop shown at the left was very disappointing.
Since I really like chocolate, I check out the shop and
thought I could find things is the special Hershey’s shop.
I expected to find a special dark chocolate the can only
be found at the you-have-to-go-to-Chicago shop.
Saddly, the only thing they sold here was packaged
chocolate that you could purchase anywhere else in the nation.
Another company making a little marketing mistake.

Had to upgrade WordPress again.
Seems version 1.5.1 broke the RSS feeds.
Things are better now.

Last year

I reported

that Christmas started on June 12th.
This year, they are a little late — the first Christmas junk mail
came on June 25th.
I guess the stores aren’t as anxious about Christmas this year.

Last night, my son graduated from high school.
He has been attending a
small high school
and there were only 18 people in his graduating class.
But, there were many scholorships and people going to prestgious schools,
so the experience of the school was great for him.

Now it’s off to college for him, but, in the short term,
there was a
celebration
of the four years of work.

A few weeks ago, a report

hit the news
on the U.S. Geological Survey report on lack of monitoring of U.S. volcanos.
Most of the new reports focused on the fact that Yosemite moved up to
number 26 in the list of volcanos most likely to do something.

Well, I read the report and I did notice that, for me, the real news was that the
top four volcanos in the U.S. that are most likely to do something are Mt St Helens, Mt Rainier, Mt Hood and South Sisters. These are all mountains you can see on a clear day from here in Portland.

It adds a little interest having volcanos in your yard.