AnonyDomBlog

What's the news???? - finalized!!!!

2005-11-21T23:23:00.000-05:00

How could I keep you in the dark for that long...

Alright, as I mentioned last week, I do have some exciting news...

Chris Miller has been gracious enough to allow me to setup a blog on his server at Connectria.

And so, I have created the very beginnings of a new blog (finally using Notes/Domino - Steve's Dominoblog template of course) at PhilRandolph.com

It's a work in progress as I'm still learning the ins and outs of the dominoblog template, so it will take a while to flesh it out fully...and I may ask for advise, ideas, etc. as I go along.

Note - at this time, I'm still trying to get the new domain pointed at the new blog database, for now, please use this
I'll come back to this blog for the last time and change the link to new domain when it's ready.

I've changed all of the links to the new blog to "http://philrandolph.com", as that now seems to work correctly. That wraps it up for this blog...thanks for your readership here...and come on over!

Listening to - "All His Children" - Bing Crosby
Reading - "Stargazer - Enigma" - Michael Jan Friedman

A Change is Coming

2005-11-14T08:37:00.000-05:00

Something exciting (at least it's exciting to me) should be occuring in the next few days, and I think only one of you out there know about it.

Be watching this space for an announcement in the coming days... :)

Listening to - "Rhapsody In Blue" - Glen Miller and the Army Air Force Band
Reading - "Star Trek - Tales of the Dominion War" - edited by Keith R. A. DeCandido

Happy Birthday hon!

2005-11-08T08:33:00.000-05:00

My wife of more than nine years is celebrating her birthday today!

She's an amazing woman and I am lucky to be her husband! She means so much to our family and is the most able manager of our sometimes crazy household. I love you so much Kath!

Please join me in wishing her a happy birthday!

Listening to - Nothing Yet
Reading - Just finished "Serenity" - need to get to the library today!

Disappointing Loss, Gratifying Win!

2005-11-07T08:36:00.000-05:00

I don't know what to say about Saturday night's debacle, but it was very disappointing to lose a second game in a row, especially at the Joe. Phoenix just dominated and we were just messy and sloppy. Also the 24 minutes in penalties to Chelios not to mention losing one of our defensemen really hurt us and got the rest of the D much more tired and lethargic than necessary. I do have to say though, Cujo was great in net, he really did a good job.

Fortunately, we did a 180 last night and stomped all over the Blues, which I figured we would but was a bit leary about after Saturday's drubbing. I was worried that once again the "D" would be too tired after so many minutes (I believe over 30 for Lidstrom) taking up Cheli's slack. The Wings came out much better and never looked back last night, and Lalime was lackluster at best.

Holmstom is really kicking butt too. He still is camping out in the goal area, but as some have noted, he's not having to pay as high of a price for holding that position any more, and in turn, he's got 5 goals in the last 3 games. Way to go Holmer!

Listening to - Nothing Yet
Reading - "Serenity" - Keith R. A. DeCandido

Can't Win 'Em All

2005-11-04T10:25:00.000-05:00

Even though we'd like them to... The Wings lost last night in overtime to the Oilers 4-3 in a hard fought game. At least they did get a point for an overtime loss - which gives them 25 points in 14 games which ties several other teams in NHL history. They now stand at 12-1-1. Ozzie played well and made some really great saves, the guys were just giving too many close in chances to Edmonton, and Chris Pronger (previously of St. Louis) was just killing us from back at the blue line.

Now we can look forward to Phoenix on Saturday night then our good friends (to beat up on - I hope) the St. Louis Blues Sunday night. A nice weekend of hockey it will be!

Listening to - "The Right To Bare Arms" - Larry The Cable Guy
Reading - "Serenity" - Keith R. A. DeCandido

Wings win to go 12-1! Manny is Player of Month!

2005-11-02T08:54:00.000-05:00

Another great win for the Wings against the Blackhawks last night, although a couple of downsides - Manny got hurt in the first period after making 8 saves, although from somewhere else I read - it looks like it was probably just a minor injury and he'll be ready to play on Thursday against the Oilers. The second downside was that it was televised on OLN - which I am having huge problems with. One of the guys at the desk with Clement called Brendan Shanahan - "Bret", and they missed the 2nd period faceoff entirely, they hardly ever give the name for a person getting the penalty or what the actual penalty was, especially after coming back from a commercial - apparently Fisher had gotten a 5 minute fighting penalty last night, and I didn't know about it until I read it this morning.

The second thing I want to highlight is that not only did Manny get "Defensive Player of the Week" from the middle of October - as I blogged about here, but he also has been named "Defensive Player of October"

Wow - Manny your rock - I hope you are really ok after last night's leg issue - but Ozzie's got your back - what a tandem we've got!
Listening to - "Summer Nights" - Grease Soundtrack
Reading - "Articles of the Federation" - Keith R. A. DeCandido

It's installed - and it ROCKED!

2005-10-28T09:33:00.000-04:00

Full props to WOW!

As I mentioned on Tuesday, we decided to splurg and obstensively for my wife's upcoming birthday and as part of my Christmas allotment we've decided to upgrade to digital cable and get the NHL Center Ice package so we can get Wings games the way they were meant to be...regardless of the fact we live out of range of FSN Detroit.

They were all set with the two new digital cable receiver boxes before I got home from work, and the only thing I needed to tweak on one setup was the channel that the VCR/DVD combo was set on. I tried out taping from both new setups and all went well. I'm very pleased with their quick service and setup and all that. It'll be fun to see what all that new fancy remote will do.

And as for the game - that went great for our guys, 5-2 over the Blackhawks who we'll be playing again 2 more times in a row Saturday and Tuesday.

Listening to - "Still Ranting After All These Years" - Dennis Miller
Reading - "Articles of the Federation" - Keith R. A. DeCandido

Oh, why not, everyone else is...(Simon+Wash)

2005-10-26T12:47:00.000-04:00

As I expected before I started this test, I seem to be a bit like a mix of Simon and Wash, but I wish I'd gotten a little bit more on the "like Mal" scale too... 0% on Jayne...thank God!

You scored as Simon, the Doctor. Simon Tam,
a former well-to-do young surgeon and bachelor
extraordinaire. You gave up everything to help
your sister, which I respect. However, you are also
pompous and talk too much, which I also respect.

Simon, the Doctor

88%

Wash, the Pilot

50%

Inara, the "Companion"

44%

Shepherd Book

44%

Captain Malcolm Reynolds

38%

First Mate Zoe

38%

Kaylee, the Mechanic

31%

RiVER

25%

Jayne Cobb, resident bad-ass

FiREFLY QUIZ
created with QuizFarm.com

Listening to - "Something Like This:" - The Bob Newhart Anthology
Reading - "Articles of the Federation" - Keith R. A. DeCandido

Center Ice - How to get it on my provider

2005-10-25T08:38:00.000-04:00

Believe it or not, my darling wife has really been pushing me to check into whether we can get NHL Center Ice through our current cable provider - WOW (Wide Open West). Now as I've told you we do enjoy listening to the streaming audio from the Wings radio guys, but she's really having withdrawal from not SEEING what's going on with the games, and with the babysitting she's been doing for the last several months, it appears that the cost of getting the service would fall within our budget. So far I've been having trouble trying to find a way to determine if it's possible with WOW. Does anyone out there have it with WOW, or know of how it's done? I'm going to dig a bit more today and maybe even call them, but just wondered if anyone's already done the work and can tell me. Thanks!

Update @ 1:30pm -
Well, we done did it. I called the WOW guy at the call center and after a bit of time with him trying to figure out the package costs to get us upgraded to Digital Cable so that we could get NHL Center Ice, we've got an install time for 2 digital cable converters and activation of Center Ice of 2-6pm on Thursday. (Just in time for the Wings vs. Blackhawks game at 7:30) After all is said and done, besides the $129 cost of the package for the season, my monthly service only bumped up about $13-$14. And that's for 200+ channels and digital now. I'll comment on the whole process after the install in an entry on Friday most likely. Hope it ends up being a positive one!

Listening to - Still Nothing
Reading - "Star Trek Titan - The Red King" - Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin

9 Wins, 1 Loss - Awesome! Props to Manny

2005-10-25T08:32:00.000-04:00

Finally got to "SEE" a Wings game tonight as they whacked the Columbus Blue Jackets for the second straight game 6-2. This brings them to an awesome 9-1 record for a total of 18 points. Now, unfortunately, the game was televised on OLN so I'm sure alot of you out there didn't get it, and that might not be a horrible thing, as the sound and camera work and what have you, was not good as has been reported other times by many other people. But, at least it's televised Wings hockey that I can see from northeast Ohio, so enough of my complaints.

Another cool thing is that Manny Legace, our longer suffering backup, who has finally broken out of others' shadows has rocked the net this opening month and played every game for our boys, well, he got honored as the defensive player of the week for last week. He went 3-0 with a shutout and a 1.30 goals against average. He also has been doing all 3 of my fantasy hockey teams proud so far this season - that's important too!

Listening to - Nothing
Reading - "Star Trek Titan - The Red King" - Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin

Reason for quiet next few days

2005-10-20T14:31:00.000-04:00

My section of our department is being moved to a different floor in our building tomorrow, so I've been packing and consolidating and pitching and so forth. I'm also only working a half day tomorrow which coincides nicely with the move. I won't be taking my laptop with me when we travel this weekend, but if I get lucky I may be able to hop on someone elses ISP...but if not...

Listening to - "Sun Valley Jump" - Army Air Force Overseas Orchestra
Reading - "Star Trek Titan - The Red King" - Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin

Who's reading this via RSS?

2005-10-19T12:05:00.000-04:00

As far as I know (and I admit that I have a limited knowledge in this area), there isn't a way to get a counter to acknowledge readers of your blog and its entries via RSS. If there is anyway to do it at all, please let me know, as I'd love to have this information. I lieu of that, would anyone who does currently get to me via RSS drop me a quick comment? Thanks! :)

Listening to - "The Lumberjack Song" - Monty Python
Reading - "Star Trek Titan - The Red King" - Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin

Trying out Tracksy

2005-10-18T12:49:00.000-04:00

After a suggestion left in a comment by Chris I decided to take a look at what the weblog statistics service Tracksy had to offer. It is currently hidden on this site until I have a chance to see what kind of flexibility I have for showing the counter, and setting the starting number, etc...but I thought I'd compare Tracksy and StatCounter to see which I like the best...and of course MapStats is still revving up too! What do you think of the visitor location list on the right?

Listening to - "You've Got Me Where You Want Me" - Bing Crosby
Reading - "Star Trek Titan - The Red King" - Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin

Trying out a new visitor mapping service

2005-10-17T12:50:00.000-04:00

Got contacted by a new blog visitor mapping service and after checking it out, I decided to see what it would be like, especially after my recent loss of some gVisit functionality. It's called MapStats

It has only been doing stats since this morning I think, so it'll take it a while to get going, but it seems like it should do alright. It's on the right panel where the header reads "Recent Visitors Here Were From:"

I don't think the stats part of it will rival what I get from StatCounter which handles my visit counter and other behind the scenes stats, but I do like being able to see visitors on a world map and zoom on in to see where they are from.

Listening to - Nothing
Reading - Star Trek Titan - The Red King" - Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin

Finally got to Serenity!

2005-10-17T12:30:00.000-04:00

My wife surprised me on Friday evening by getting a babysitter for our kids and getting us out of the house finally by ourselves and to the movie we'd been wanting to see since we heard it was being made - SERENITY

It was very intense, all the way through and very true to the tv series it came from - Firefly, which was unfortunately never handled correctly from the beginning on Fox a few years ago and then was cancelled without completing their first season. Now the original aired episodes and some that never got shown are being broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel at 7pm eastern on Friday nights.

I'd love to discuss it further off-blog with anyone who is interested, but don't want to spoil it for anyone who's not seen it yet.

Thanks for getting us to the show hon!

Listening to - "Magnum P.I." - TV Themes
Reading - "Star Trek Titan - The Red King" - Andy Mangels and Michael A. Martin

Where'd my gVisit go?

2005-10-14T09:54:00.000-04:00

My recently added gVisit "recent visitor locations" functionality seems to have disappeared...not sure what's going on there...it's still in the template - a javascript call to a PHP.

Is there anyone else who is having this same problem? If so, let me know what you did, or are trying to do to fix it. Perhaps they are just down right now????

Update @ 10:00am
Looks like they might have yanked the functionality to show the list of visitor locations in a little table, so I put the original link to my gVisit page for this blog back in it's place...we'll see if the visitor list appears again, or they tell us what happened.

Listening to - "Sonny Boy" - Al Jolson
Reading - "Star Trek Titan - Taking Wing" - Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels

Latest Wall Strategy

2005-10-13T10:48:00.000-04:00

You may all be getting tired of this somewhat pedestrian subject, but it feels good to get my frustations with it out and also to celebrate milestones in its progress...so bear with me if you will.

So, we gave up on doing the extra drywall compound patching on all the line, and now going directly to a coat or two of Killz2 primer on the previously bare (likely unpainted) drywall that was behind the boards that were removed, then another coat of primer on the entire wall, then begin with the new color. If we still see alot of splotchiness (did I coin a new word here?) all over from my nail, accident patches, then we're going to do a sponging technique which should do a fairly good job of hiding the blemishes.

We ripped up the rest of the carpet in the room last night also, and put some furniture back into a usable if not very aesthetic configuration so our kids can be using that room again, we feel like they've been trapped upstairs on the main floor for the last week or two with the dusty sanding and painting stuff going on down there.

She is seeing an end in sight, and so am I, and that's a good thing!

Thanks for letting me vent! :)

Listening to - "All The Way" - James Darren (This One's From the Heart)
Reading - "Star Trek Titan - Taking Wing" - Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels

Chris' blog's new look

2005-10-13T08:27:00.000-04:00

One of my most frequent commenters/readers Chris Whisonant blogged about a change he had made to his template. He also included a link which may be useful to me or other users of the "Blogger" system - http://blogtemplates.noipo.org/ Thanks Chris!

Listening to - TV Show/Cartoon Themes
Reading - "Star Trek Titan - Taking Wing" - Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels

Slight addedum to the blog description

2005-10-12T09:57:00.000-04:00

With the obvious new slant to some (ok most) of the entries on this blog as of late, I decided to add the words "Red Wings Hockey" after "Domino Development" in the description of what should appear here. I will try to balance things a bit better in the coming weeks and months, but during hockey season the games and the action keep happening and theres almost always something to comment or rant about...so, at least I'll be a bit more active. You never know, I might even start to get a hockey blog reading following too!

Listening to - "Les Miserables" (Soundtrack)
Reading - "Star Trek Titan - Taking Wing" - Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels

Captain to be back in lineup on Thursday

2005-10-12T09:50:00.000-04:00

It appears that Stevie Y will be back out leading the team Thursday night against the LA Kings. Hope we can get back to our winning ways after last game's letdown vs. Vancouver. Too bad it will be starting at 10:30 eastern...of course like I told my wife, we could bring the wi-fi enabled laptop upstairs when we go to bed so we can fall asleep listening to the game! Not sure how well that idea went over, she really didn't respond.

Listening to - "Les Miserables" (Soundtrack)
Reading - "Star Trek Titan - Taking Wing" - Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels

Ongoing Wall Saga

2005-10-11T09:19:00.000-04:00

Ok, so the latest is that we are going to leave the ceiling boards on the ceiling and just prime them (going from a dark brown) to the color we are going to use for the molding in the room, some kind of antique white or creamish color. If she ends up hating that, then we'll take them down and repair the ceiling at that point. I'm fine with this, less work right now, and perhaps not have to do anything with it at all.

Now what's really kicking our butts, is the Xs that were on the walls, and the little grooves or ridges of 30+ year of paint or slight indentation of board on wall. I've been putting a thin layer of drywall mud compound of these grooves/ridges and then sanding them down as best as I can to get a smooth surface for painting, but on the small section of wall we have been experimenting with it still looks horribly blotchy and you can tell exactly where the X used to be, this is even after a couple of coats of primer and a coat of the new wall color (a soft light yellow - God knows what the actual name is). I'm going to try to sand a bit further down and see if I can get a smoother surface tonight. We want to completely cut our teeth on this one wall so we can determine the best strategy for the rest of them...

Wish me luck and I'm open to any suggestions if you have any on what else might work well in this case...it's a stumper!

Listening to - "Break On Through (To The Other Side)" - The Doors
Reading - "Star Trek Titan - Taking Wing" - Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels

Cruiser fix update - not quite as cheap as I'd hoped

2005-10-11T09:07:00.000-04:00

Well, it didn't end up being horribly cheap, but it is at least taken care of...

It turns out I had a bad power steering pressure switch, which I of course have never heard of before, let alone know what it does, but that's what set off the engine light (I guess a multitude of things set off that particular icon on the dash) So, I am happy that is was at least nothing horribly wrong.

I do have to hand it to mt local ProCare, they are very professional and quick, and they do keep coming in under their estimate, I'll keep taking my business there, I just don't want to be there all the time...

Listening to - "For What It's Worth" - Buffalo Springfield (Forrest Gump Soundtrack)
Reading - "Star Trek Titan - Taking Wing" - Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels

In other news

2005-10-07T13:09:00.000-04:00

Following up on other fronts..

Making further progress with the family room remodeling. I've got all the wood ceiling and floor moldings and Xs (cris-crossed molding boards) off all of the vertical surfaces, and depending on my wife's decision, I'll be taking a crack at getting the ceiling board pieces down tonight. Then it's just a bunch of further drywall patching/spackling everywhere over the nail holes and the aforementioned crowbar mishaps. I'd like her to be able to start painting before the end of next week.

Thanks to Chris for his pointers to me on my earlier post about the contact document updating main document thing. I've tried a couple of strategies based on what he was taking about, but haven't yet hit on something that I like that works correctly yet. But I'm still plugging away at it. The latest one only updates the main document after you've saved the contact document twice...can't quite figure that one out...oh well...fun times.

Checking out the engine light thing on the Cruiser tomorrow morning at ProCare, they think it's likely just a computer sensor glitch as I'm not noticing any problem with the car's performance. Hopefully they let me off cheap!

Listening to - "Flat Foot Floogee" - Benny Goodman (Swing Kids Soundtrack)
Reading - "Star Trek Titan - Taking Wing" - Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels

Another win, but not so easy this time

2005-10-07T12:58:00.000-04:00

Wings 4, Blues 3......whew.

Sitting in our kitchen playing rummy (which my wife totally trashed me at by the way), listening to the Wings/Blues game on WXYT's internet stream, we thought we had it made for an easy win going into the 3rd period with a "surely insurmountable" 4-1 lead.

But in the new NHL and it's new style of play and penalty calling, things can change quickly. The boys did pull it out and Legace made a bunch of saves on the flurry of shots he faced as time was winding down.

Hoping to see the Captain back for Sunday's game vs. Calgary, but I'd rather him be fully healed up instead of potentially causing more damage to his groin, and being out even longer.

Listening to - "Swingtime in the Rockies" - Benny Goodman (Swing Kids Soundtrack)
Reading - "Star Trek Titan - Taking Wing" - Michael A. Martin and Andy Mangels

Who-hoo! Wings down Blues 5-1 to open the campaign

2005-10-06T15:40:00.000-04:00

Wow, what a great opening game at the Joe last night...with a 5-1 route of the visiting Blues, and even better, we get to play them again tonight!

Datsuk, Lang, Schneider, Lebda (new guy), Samuelsson (ROOKIE new guy) all got goals and lots of other guys got some great assists. They even sent Lalime the Blues starting goalkeeper to the bench just a bit past the halfway mark of the 2nd period.

Hope to be seeing more of the same tonight (or at least hearning it, not in FSN Detroit range with our cable, so we listen to games on WXYT internet radio feed, nothing like the sound of Detroit's radio play-by-play guys!

Don't worry, I won't be commenting on every game...but had to give the guys their props... :)

--------------------
Update 10/11 - Ok, my bad, Samuelsson is not a rookie, he's just new to us...he was actually drafted by San Jose in the 1998 Entry draft and has played for SJ, NY Rangers, Pittsburgh and most recently Florida. He then played in the Swedish Elite League last year during the NHL lockout.

He's also on fire - 4 goals in 4 games...rock on!

Listening to - Nothing at the moment
Reading - "Star Trek Vanguard - Harbinger" - David Mack