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521 entries. 308,197 words.

July, 2003

  • Ashland Parade. 2003-07-04 3:32 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Cynthia and I went to the Ashland 4th of July Parade on… the 4th of July. The parade can be summed up like this: A large number of (presumeably) Ashland natives walked down the street in the searing heat, while a larger number of people watched them and cheered. 123 words.
  • Oops. 2003-07-07 7:47 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    To paraphrase a song, “I feel stupid, oh so stupid…” 40 words.
  • Dentist. 2003-07-08 6:34 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’m going to the dentist this morning! This may not sound like cause for celebration, but at least I won’t have to be in prison–I mean, at work for a few hours. 82 words.
  • Extrusion Imminent. 2003-07-15 6:46 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    In the continuing saga of Tom’s Teeth, I spent another 2 1/2 hours “vacationing” in the dentist’s chair this morning. I’ve come to this realization today: When I’m lying on my deathbed, even if the rest of my life is a complete shambles, I will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that I’ve experienced every conceivable dental procedure known to man. 292 words.
  • Moving Status. 2003-07-20 10:15 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    We are hoping to meet with our realtor this Tuesday night to begin putting our house on the market. Yay! 83 words.
  • This Article Has No Title. 2003-07-23 6:17 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    We signed the papers last night (actually Cynthia did) so our house is officially “on the market.” Unfortunately we were not able to talk our realtors into raising the price more than $900, but oh well. 66 words.
  • A Nibble?. 2003-07-24 10:12 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Yesterday the realtors came by and put a for-sale sign out front! And amazingly enough, we have apparently gotten an interested party already: Rumor has it someone will be viewing the house tomorrow. 61 words.
  • Showings Galore. 2003-07-26 7:54 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    We have not one, not two, not three, but FOUR showings on the house today! 37 words.
  • 3 Offers?. 2003-07-26 2:54 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Our realtor has informed us that he may have up to THREE offers for us to look at this evening! 39 words.
  • Contract Signed!. 2003-07-26 6:03 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Our realtor did indeed present us with three offers for the house, and we accepted the third one. It was rather difficult to turn down considering they offered $4000 more than our asking price – IN CASH. 43 words.
  • Let The Packing Begin!. 2003-07-27 10:05 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Well I’ve started packing up my office here in earnest, since I had the extreme lack of foresight to only ask for the single moving day off from work. (Not that I would have gotten any more time off anyway since it’s cough “crunch time.”) So I’m trying to get as much stuff packed and ready to go as possible. Basically I’m going to pack up everything but this computer. 100 words.
  • Brief Intermission. 2003-07-30 8:52 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Our cable service will be interrupted from tomorrow until August 6th, so you probably won’t hear from us Move-weary Krehbiels until then. 51 words.

August, 2003

  • Moving. 2003-08-09 12:25 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The cable is on in the new house, so I thought I’d write a quick update. 91 words.
  • Network Enabled!. 2003-08-10 10:21 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Due to my superior wiring skeelz, the new house now has network outlets in 3 rooms! 28 words.
  • The Unpacking Continues. 2003-08-18 7:40 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The unpacking continues here at the new Krehbiel residence. I have managed to clear enough space in my computer room for the rolltop desk (I did this by moving boxes into the closet heh), and have filled up most of my bookcase. Cynthia is assembling her library of books in the Upper Room closet and doing Great Things with the kitchen. 260 words.
  • Amiga 1000 For Sale!. 2003-08-23 11:07 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I have just put my Amiga 1000 on the auction block! Everyone go bid the price up. Yes, right now.Amiga 1000 Ebay Auction 23 words.

September, 2003

  • Important Gaming History. 2003-09-03 7:16 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    A quick update before I go to work: I found two neat links to important games in first person role-playing game history. I played both of these games when they came out (on a Radio Shack Color Computer and an Amiga 1000, respectively) and you can definitely see how they influenced later games. (Frankly, most later games were not as good.) 131 words.
  • The Devil.com. 2003-09-04 8:15 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Just so everyone knows, Robert S. Kieren is the devil. He is my arch-nemesis in the Cyberworld. To find out why, go to uvtek.com and look under the “U"s of Technology domain names for sale. 149 words.
  • 233 Hour Powerlessness Ends. 2003-09-28 9:15 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I was sitting in the living room reading the comics by the light of the window, when I heard the strangest sound. Something started clicking over by the piano. I thought the cat had knocked something over, but it just kept clicking and clicking. 161 words.

October, 2003

  • Ramblings. 2003-10-08 7:35 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    An internet hardware vendor who shall remain nameless sent me an OEM copy of Windows XP Pro SP1a without a Certificate of Authenticty (and thus without a Product Key, which as I’m sure you realize is really what you’re paying for). Of course, they have a no return/exchage policy on software. Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we! 332 words.

November, 2003

  • TheDevil.com Continued. 2003-11-19 8:08 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Well, uvtek.com now shows some silly gateway page, but up in the corner is a place where you can type in an offer to buy the domain name. On a whim I typed in $25 and clicked submit, and it brought me to another page that promptly told me that the minimum bid for my future domain name is $150! Robert S. Kieren must be making quite a profit from this little cybersquatting enterprise, assuming people actually buy domain names from people like him. 301 words.
  • Job Update. 2003-11-19 8:17 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    In case anyone but Cynthia is actually reading this page, I am now working only four days a week at Cerebral Locomotion, otherwise affectionately known as Gulag 727. I wasn’t supposed to reveal this to any of my co-workers, but since it’s rather hard to disguise the fact that I’m consistently not at work every Friday, they caught on pretty quick without any help from me. On one hand I feel quite lucky to be home on Fridays, but on the other hand I feel pretty guilty knowing everyone else is still stuck at the Gulag. 133 words.
  • Monticello!. 2003-11-20 8:04 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The long-awaited pictures from our recent trip to Monticello are here! Let the world rejoice! Pictures from Monticello 25 words.

January, 2004

  • New Year’s Update. 2004-01-09 9:53 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    This is a website update so my throngs of fans out there will continue to flock to my site to read the riveting news of my life. 254 words.
  • Racing Champion. 2004-01-10 10:05 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I forgot to mention that I won the First Annual Cerebral Locomotion Race With Silly Toy Remote Controlled Cars at work on New Year’s Eve. (Yes, I had to work on New Year’s Eve and Christmas Eve.) I won a bottle of French champaigne for my efforts. 86 words.
  • UVTEK Software Beta Site. 2004-01-16 9:32 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’m happy to announce that after a lot of work today, I’ve gotten the UVTEK Software web site into a “beta test” stage. I am still working toward a Spring-time official launch date, but it is at the point now where it can receive some traffic without too much embarrassment. I am planning to release the first public beta of my Defector software (which Cynthia once inadvertantly called my “mistake” software hehe) this Sunday. 112 words.
  • Defector Public Beta. 2004-01-18 8:36 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    In what can only be described as a stunning display of hubris, I have released the first public beta version of my self-critically-acclaimed Defector software. For more information, take a gander at the UVTEK Software page. It’s all just too exciting for words. 43 words.
  • New Pictures Available. 2004-01-20 6:10 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Some new pictures are now available for viewing. Check out Fiona Stealing Tristan’s Bed and Our New House Taking Shape. 30 words.
  • Wednesday Night At The Germ Factory. 2004-01-28 8:54 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I think I have caught a cold. It was difficult to catch, seeing as how it was moving very fast, but I am a very nimble sort of person with fast reflexes so I was able to grab it. 79 words.
  • Wet Collie. 2004-01-30 10:19 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    There’s not really anything interesting going on right now, but I thought I would update the site just so I could use my new and improved email notification features again. 118 words.

February, 2004

  • Finger Sandwiches. 2004-02-08 7:15 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Have just activated the link to the first horror story I ever wrote, “Finger Sandwiches.” I wrote it in the year 2000. This is the first time I’ve let anyone read it. Note the warning at the top please. 40 words.
  • Cynthia’s New Job And My Old One. 2004-02-17 7:05 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Cynthia has started a new job at NaturaLawn of America. (Yay!) She is currently away at a training seminar thingy in Maryland until Thursday. (Doh.) 86 words.
  • Read My Book Review Right Now. 2004-02-21 10:03 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    You heard me. Go read it. Right now. 148 words.

March, 2004

  • Latest News from Krehbiel-land. 2004-03-16 9:18 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I figured it was time to write an update. 185 words.
  • CD Changer and Amp Installed Again!. 2004-03-22 8:47 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I finally got around to installing my old (c. 1998) Clarion stereo stuff from my old Toyota truck into my Mazda truck. It was a rather large pain and took up most of Sunday, but I’ve now got my CD changer and 200W amp back in place. 153 words.
  • In Other News. 2004-03-22 8:53 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Having recently watched Black Hawk Down (yes, we were the last two people to see it), I’ve taken an interest in my grandfather’s World War I diaries again. In addition to the diaries themselves that I’ve already transcribed, I have a stack of letters he wrote back home during the same time period. I’ve now finally started transcribing the letters, which could conceivably amount to more text than the diaries. 103 words.
  • Spambiel: La Mort d’Spam. 2004-03-26 9:35 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Cynthia is in Blacksburg visiting a friend, so I have the house to myself until Saturday evening. Since I am a rather large party animal, I have decided to use this time to write a Spam Blocker program so I don’t have to buy one. So far, I have successfully written code to examine messages on a POP3 server, decide which ones are spam, and forward them to another (or the same) email address with a modified subject line for easy filtering by Outlook Express. 208 words.
  • It’s Official!. 2004-03-31 8:30 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    […][…]The incorporation papers are in! It’s a great day for democracy and the American way. Now I can start buying up television and radio stations, baseball teams, and start my own cable network! 33 words.

April, 2004

  • Discography Online. 2004-04-02 4:06 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Those who have only known me since 2001 may be surprised to find out that composing and recording music has been (one) hobby of mine since high school. (Even if you did know me before then, you still might be surprised since I don’t really advertise this too much.) This week I was inspired to put together a definitive “discography” of all the music I’ve recorded over the years, which you can find at the link below, along with a handful of MP3s. 85 words.
  • Google Ranking. 2004-04-04 3:41 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Ye Gods. I just did a Google search for “Krehbiel” and my home page didn’t show up until the 23rd page! So then I search for “Tom Krehbiel” and I don’t show up until the 60th page! 93 words.
  • Updated UVTEK Site. 2004-04-05 9:04 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The new look for the UVTEK Software site is now online, which is one of the last steps in this madcap software adventure. Defector 1.0 should be released “real soon now.” 33 words.
  • Defector Launch. 2004-04-11 10:21 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Saturday, April 10, 2004 saw the official release of Defector 1.0. The fanfare and majesty of the event was unprecedented in the history of UVTEK Software. Throngs of people turned out for the parade. 120 words.
  • Summary of The President’s Speech. 2004-04-13 10:04 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I don’t normally get into politics, but in case anyone missed it, here is a summary of President Bush’s news conference tonight. 785 words.

May, 2004

  • Elmer Revisited. 2004-05-13 8:15 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’ve closed the book on another significant surge of work on preserving Elmer H. Krehbiel’s World War I diaries and letters. I have now transcribed all the letters, which amounted to more than twice as much text as the diaries, and the resulting combination of diaries and letters is over 75,000 words long. Printed on one side of 24# paper, it amounts to about 140 pages, and a stack about an inch tall. 242 words.
  • New Release. 2004-05-25 8:39 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I just released Replica 1.4, a, ahem, “maintenance upgrade.” 61 words.
  • There’s No Accounting For Cows. 2004-05-27 8:28 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Cynthia is away helping a friend in Blacksburg until Saturday, so I am once again left in miserable solitude. As if that weren’t bad enough, I have to work tomorrow (a day I normally don’t have to work), reducing a potential 4-day weekend to a mere 3-day weekend. It sucks! 228 words.

June, 2004

  • Busy Weekend. 2004-06-14 5:07 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    ‘Twas a busy weekend here at Krehbiel Central. Saturday I finally got around to doing a bunch of miscellaneous housework like putting a rubber gizmo on the bottom of the utility room door and adding more weather stripping to the sliding door. Then I noticed one of the attic vents was not spinning like it was supposed to, so I climbed onto the roof and fixed it, and cleaned out the one piece of gutter on the back porch. 243 words.
  • Miscellaneous. 2004-06-15 7:05 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’m sitting here waiting for Cynthia to get home so we can eat, so I thought I’d write some fascinating drivel on my page. 204 words.
  • Fun with Search Engines. 2004-06-20 10:45 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I was looking at my web logs this morning and I noticed that someone had accessed an old Nova Design site design I had been working on ages ago and never deleted. Well it turns out they got there from a Yahoo search engine. So I searched on Yahoo for “Nova Design” and sure enough, there’s my old page at about #6 on the list. 71 words.
  • New Pictures Available. 2004-06-21 9:43 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Here are some new pictures that I finally got around to posting. Yes, I’ll admit it is partially a test of my vastly improved picture gallery software. 31 words.
  • A Moment, Please. 2004-06-24 9:29 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I must take a moment and brag about the cool software I am currently working on. 262 words.
  • One More Thing. 2004-06-24 9:37 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Tonight Cynthia showed me some clinical reports from a school evaluation on our nephew, and I found myself having a very odd reaction to them. At work, one of the things I’ve recently worked on is a narrative report for our cognitive testing software, and, at the time, I thought it was just a bunch of gobble-de-gook (that is a highly technical term). Most of the time I work in a complete vacuum, and I have absolutely no earthly idea who is using the software I write, or what they might use it for, or what any of the competition looks like. 131 words.
  • DIBs and BitBlts. 2004-06-29 10:53 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    This won’t mean anything to most everyone, but tonight I revised the internal workings of my image processing engine so that it uses Win32.CreateDIBSection to allocate the pixel storage. This should not only increase the speed of rendering the data onto Win32 displays, but it should also decrease the memory usage considerably. You can now BitBlt() directly from my Nip bitmaps onto a Windows DC! 102 words.

July, 2004

  • A Fascinating Article. 2004-07-07 9:37 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    […]This article really serves no purpose except to test some new database features I added tonight. If you’re wondering, each news article now has an optional picture and link reference, which makes administration a lot easier. 243 words.
  • Pictures Updated. 2004-07-10 9:57 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’ve updated all the picture galleries on the left using the newest version of my Galleria program. 54 words.
  • Change Log. 2004-07-11 9:20 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I just created a “change log” for all the tasks I’ve accomplished since the first release of Defector. It almost looks like I’ve done something productive! I have some hope of making this a regularly updated item on the site. 43 words.
  • Slideshows Ahoy. 2004-07-12 10:46 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    If you are the kind of person who obsessively clicks links you’ve already seen many times before, you may have already noticed that there is a new feature now available in the pictures, thanks to a helpful suggestion from Cynthia. If you are the type of person who is not willing to look for things on your own, I’ll just tell you that there is now a slideshow link on all my picture galleries. It requires a Javascript-enabled browser, of course, but if you don’t have one of those then you are disasterously behind on the technology curve and probably can’t even read this, since you would still be speaking Latin and probably be wearing a toga. 194 words.
  • Buttons Ahoy. 2004-07-13 11:44 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Okay, I couldn’t leave well enough alone, so tonight I made a bunch of buttons to replace the text links in my gallery pages. It was a surprisingly tedious task to do the highlighting when you roll the mouse over the buttons. And I won’t even go into how frustrating it was to get the play/pause button graphics to work right. 157 words.
  • The Continuing Saga…. 2004-07-14 10:58 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I believe I’ve solved all of the current slideshow problems. The newest updates are in the “Ashland Parade,” “Lakeside Flowers,” and “Chincoteague” picture galleries. 57 words.
  • Fascinating New Material. 2004-07-16 3:44 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Who can spot the new link over there on the left? The first one who does gets… uh… to read it first. 22 words.
  • Picasa ‘n’ Ninjas. 2004-07-16 9:40 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I downloaded that Picasa thing by Google today. My heart stuck in my throat for a moment before I realized it’s just a glorified picture viewer. But nevertheless it’s pretty slick. 110 words.
  • July is a Wrap. 2004-07-31 2:40 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Here are some pictures from the exciting month of July. Pictures from July 13 words.

August, 2004

  • One Year Later. 2004-08-01 2:15 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Well, today is the first offical day of “Cousin Camp at Forest Brook.” This is an event that brings together a large number of nieces and nephews and other miscellaneous young folk at our house for the week. (Yes, you read that right, the entire week.) I have just finished the last-minute preparations (ie., the honey-do list of cleaning tasks) and am now sitting down for a quiet moment before things get, um, campy. 143 words.
  • Day 1 Report. 2004-08-01 8:58 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    It is nearing the end of the opening day at Camp Forest Brook. The kids arrived around 5 o’clock. 178 words.
  • Day 2 Report. 2004-08-02 8:58 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Mattie triumphantly returned this morning at the ungodly hour of 7:30 for another grueling day of camp. The other kids, too, were awake at the aforementioned ungodly hour, if not before. 264 words.
  • Day 3 Report. 2004-08-03 8:33 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Here’s the wrap-up on day 3: (Only 3??) 305 words.
  • Day 4 Report. 2004-08-04 8:13 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    There isn’t much to report about day 4 since Cynthia hasn’t called or left a message for her poor, neglected, worried, forgotten husband yet. 43 words.
  • Day 5 Report. 2004-08-06 6:42 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I got a little behind on the reporting but I’ll now bombard you with information. 202 words.
  • Day 6 Report. 2004-08-06 6:56 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Today isn’t really over yet but I suspect that everyone will be too tired to do much else when they get back. 185 words.
  • Day 7 Report. 2004-08-08 9:50 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The final day of Cousin Camp dawned at approximately dawn. The cooking and cleanup work began soon after. The mission: Get the house ready for the mob of people arriving at 11:00 for Jordan’s birthday party. 457 words.
  • On Another Note. 2004-08-08 9:54 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The !@#$!@3 !@#$!@#4 !@#$$@!!@# that owned uvtek.com RENEWED IT UNTIL 2013!! !@#$!@ !@#$!@#$ !@#$. And !@#$!@# !@#$!@#$. 34 words.
  • Odd Thomas. 2004-08-08 10:21 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Sometime during the week of Cousin Camp, I finished Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz. I saw this book at a K-Mart one day and thought it sounded kind of interesting after reading the jacket, and then later at the Green Valley Book Fair I picked up a copy of the hardcover for like $7. 274 words.
  • Gaston and Me. 2004-08-31 9:54 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    It took me about 4 hours and 45 minutes to get home last night. I happened to reset my odometer before the trip. Total mileage on the odometer when I got back: 16.0. 111 words.

September, 2004

  • Recent Events. 2004-09-21 6:07 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I haven’t written much here lately because I’ve been preoccupied with, of all things, Celtic arts and crafts. During my vacation from work I got pretty involved in a book on Celtic knotwork. I find it a fascinating form of art because it’s both scientific and creative. 140 words.
  • Imminent uvtek.net Server Move. 2004-09-26 4:35 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I am hopeful that I will be able to move uvtek.net from Communitech.net to Omnis Network on or about October 2nd. Keep your fingers crossed! 124 words.

October, 2004

  • Surprise!. 2004-10-03 8:43 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    You may be surprised to note that uvtek.net is still in the same place. (You may not have noted this at all, but it’s true.) That’s because I decided it would be better to wait until around November 1 to move the server, because it’s already been paid through the end of November. That way, if there are any problems on the new server, I can switch it back to the old server within the 30-day money-back-guarantee period. 78 words.
  • Bruce Hornsby. 2004-10-21 8:45 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Cynthia and I went to see Bruce Hornsby at the Carpenter Center (otherwise known as, the Theater Amid Massive Destruction) Saturday night. It was quite cool. Except for the drunk women beside us screaming “woooooooo” during every quiet moment of every song. 130 words.

November, 2004

  • Every Cloud. 2004-11-03 6:52 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The fate of the world rests in the hands of… Ohio? 54 words.
  • Election Thoughts. 2004-11-05 12:53 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Again, I don’t normally get into politics, so I apologize for this diversion. (Warning: Obscure reference ahead.) Most of the time you can find me working diligently for the Voter Apathy Party. (“Now here’s a party I can get excited about. 453 words.
  • Weekend News. 2004-11-07 8:37 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    We had the niece and nephew over again this weekend. We went to Pocahontas Park to canoe yesterday. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize that the canoe rentals were shut down for the season. 88 words.
  • Boycott In Progress. 2004-11-10 6:01 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    It has come to my attention that Flower Depot in Ashland has screwed us over, so I thought I should warn all of the loyal readers of my site. 117 words.
  • 14 Episodes of Kingdom Hospital, Stat. 2004-11-10 11:09 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    We finished watching Kingdom Hospital on DVD tonight. Overall it was pretty good but I think the 14 episodes could have easily been shrunk down to 4 or 5. I guess they were hoping for an X-Files type of series where half the episodes don’t have anything to do with the basic story arc. 186 words.
  • Moving…. 2004-11-12 4:20 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I sent in the request to move uvtek.net this morning, but so far it’s still here. 21 words.
  • Auctioning Aladdin. 2004-11-12 10:59 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    […]I know my server may get yanked out from under me at any moment, but I just had to write something about this. 289 words.
  • Fax0red. 2004-11-13 8:21 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I am wondering if our fax machine is broken, because I faxed the appropriate papers to the new Internet provider twice yesterday but the status on their web page still says “awaiting faxed papers.” I recall now that Cynthia mentioned she had problems faxing out resumes a while back, too. I suppose it’s reasonable to expect that, after 10+ years, a fax machine might develop some problems. 98 words.
  • Faxed. 2004-11-13 9:45 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Wow, that only took an hour and 20 minutes. I rock! 104 words.
  • Virtual Moving Day. 2004-11-17 9:21 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    According to the Powers That Be, uvtek.net will move on November 20th. 30 words.
  • Electronic Arse-Pirates. 2004-11-19 7:42 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I read an interesting article on Slashdot this evening which makes me a) thankful I never aspired to get involved in the game programming industry and b) likely to boycott purchasing any “big name company” games from now on. (By boycott, of course, I mean pirate.) 192 words.

December, 2004

  • Back!. 2004-12-06 10:43 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Naturally, my new web host’s database server crashed and their backup procedure was faulty, so they lost a couple of my last news articles. Tragic, but survivable. 89 words.
  • Case Closed. 2004-12-08 3:16 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Went to “the doc” (which is generic for any doctor, but in this case means a urologist) today to find out why I’m still having “urgency” issues and a slight burning sensation. I already suspected that I was probably on the verge of developing a bladder infection from the last kidney stone episode and I probably just needed some antibiotics. Cynthia tried to get someone to write a prescription over the phone but they wanted to see me first. 191 words.
  • Weekend News. 2004-12-13 1:52 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I don’t recall if I’ve mentioned this here yet, but Cynthia is now playing at Emmanuel Church at Brook Hill, so she is happy to be back in an Episcopal church. (Last year was Lutheran church hell.) This is her first church job with a real pipe organ, too! 329 words.
  • Christmas Grumpiness. 2004-12-14 12:57 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Well, it’s Christmas time again (ahem, at least for the uninformed) and you know what that means: Let’s play shame the neighborhood with enough lights you can probably see them from orbit! Yes, our neighbors have once again installed more lights per square foot than you can find in downtown Las Vegas. And even more importantly, they are all perfectly aligned and symmetrically organized. 175 words.
  • New York, Here We Come!. 2004-12-15 3:33 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I actually got the week between Christmas and New Year’s off from work, so Cynthia and I are packing up and heading to New York for a well-deserved vacation from this backwater ‘burg. 33 words.
  • Napster Reborn. 2004-12-16 4:34 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    So after listening to EnergyX for a while I collected a list of cool songs I wanted. 371 words.
  • Weekend Notes. 2004-12-19 11:32 PM.
    • Blog

    We picked up our train tickets to New York yesterday! While surfing the web (for something completely unrelated), I came across something that I found most highly entertaining. If you go to the URL http://www.kid-coloring-page-online.com/history-of-crayola-crayons, you will find a list of resources and links on the “history of the crayola crayon.” Now if you scroll about 3/4 of the way down this list, you will find a link to a site called “Crayola Clan history.” This links to the very same Crayola Clan history found on this site! Har-har. Hee-hee. Anyway, I think it’s the funniest thing ever. Imagine all the young impressionable kids looking for information about crayola crayons and finding the Crayola Clan history. “Mommy, what’s a frag? Why did the nice crayons shoot all those other people?” 287 words.
  • Christmas Survived. 2004-12-27 2:48 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    […]Christmas here had the usual assortment of stress and, well, more stress, but we survived the ordeal relatively intact. 51 words.

January, 2005

  • Happy New Year!. 2005-01-01 10:27 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    We are back safe and sound from our New York trip! More details and pictures will be forthcoming as I get around to it. 109 words.
  • Pictures From New York Revealed. 2005-01-09 2:21 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I think I can at last reveal the pictures from New York. I ended up having to upgrade Galleria a little to handle the sheer volume of pictures. 183 words.
  • Recent Events. 2005-01-20 3:44 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’ve been woefully negligant in posting news this month, so I’ll jot down some noteworthy events from Camp Forest Brook. 172 words.
  • Vick a Huge Disappointment. 2005-01-24 3:49 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Michael Vick sucks. If only he could have not sucked today, he might have beaten the hated Eagles and keep them out of the Superbowl where they belong. But no; he sucked, so the Eagles advance again by default. 153 words.

February, 2005

  • Eagles did not disappoint. 2005-02-11 6:25 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    My web host borked my first attempt at posting this, but I will attempt to re-capture the magic of what I first wrote. 82 words.
  • Chomper Update. 2005-02-26 12:21 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Today is a red letter day in the history of my teeth. Which is to say, today my temporary upper crowns were replaced with permanent upper crowns! This is a cool thing. 58 words.

March, 2005

  • Amiga 4000 Sold!. 2005-03-08 1:22 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    […]The last vestiges of my Amiga programming days just got sold on EBay. 44 words.
  • Palm Sunday Kickoff. 2005-03-20 1:59 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Cynthia’s grandmother died yesterday after taking very ill a couple weeks ago. She was 104. It has been a very stressful time for the Millers up in Doswell, and everyone is thankful it has come to a peaceful end. 90 words.
  • The Aliens Came For Coffee. 2005-03-21 4:16 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    It occurred to me why I find so few things to write here. Most of the things I would be inclined to write about are off-limits because people I know might read the page. 292 words.
  • Nothing Made Up. 2005-03-22 4:12 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I suppose I could talk about some of my recent adventures. 274 words.
  • Goochland Express. 2005-03-23 4:26 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Went to Cynthia’s grandmother’s funeral today. Saw a lot of people who seemed to know me a lot better than I knew them. 265 words.
  • And The Winner Is…. 2005-03-26 5:58 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    We survived Holy Week okay (unlike SOME Christian icons who shall remain nameless…). By my count, including Palm Sunday and funerals, Cynthia has played for eleven services this week so far. There is an Easter Vigil service tonight and two more on Easter Sunday. 150 words.
  • Partying with the Krähenbühls. 2005-03-27 10:56 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    So I was up most of the night last night doing geneology research. So sue me! Anyway, I find it very entertaining and highly informative. 415 words.
  • Ancestry. 2005-03-29 3:19 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The moment you’ve all been waiting for! I freely admit that I have copied a lot of information from other people who have done much more intensive work than I have. All my sources are credited in the footnotes, though. 56 words.

April, 2005

  • What’s In A Name. 2005-04-25 2:24 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I haven’t been doing very much lately except researching my family history. I find the whole process of piecing together concrete information from small bits and pieces pretty fascinating. Yesterday I actually went to the Library of Virginia and looked up some more information. 249 words.

May, 2005

  • Exclusive First Peek!. 2005-05-02 3:35 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    […]Here’s an exclusive peek at my Genealogy program. I’m writing it for the same reason I write all my other programs; I don’t like everything else that’s out there. I wanted something that’s easy to navigate in, and something that looks spiffy. 134 words.
  • ‘Wars. 2005-05-24 2:33 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Cynthia and I saw Episode III Sunday night. Pretty cool. Way better than I and II. 66 words.

June, 2005

  • Tear Down The (Shed) Wall!. 2005-06-01 1:48 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Cynthia and I spent our Memorial Day in a relaxing fashion: We busted up our shed into a million pieces. It was quite a bit harder than I expected. 60 words.
  • Big June. 2005-06-29 2:34 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    June has been a BIG month so far, including, but not limited to: 1) leaving my old job, 2) a vacation in Chincoteague, 3) starting a new job. 37 words.

July, 2005

  • Expanded June News. 2005-07-08 12:29 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I haven’t done a significant update to my site in a while, so here goes. 600 words.
  • Work Happenings. 2005-07-16 4:05 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    On the work front, I finally received network access on Thursday afternoon! I can actually do work now. I spent Friday installing software and familiarizing myself with some of the source code. 434 words.

August, 2005

  • Extra Crispy. 2005-08-09 12:49 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    So Cynthia and I went to Tangier Island on Saturday with her family. It was pretty fun. The island itself was a little sparse on the entertainment side, which is understandable since it only has like 150 people on it. 124 words.
  • Categories Removed. 2005-08-14 1:33 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Since I basically never write anything in the Site News or Crayola categories, I pulled them down. 36 words.
  • Scanning and flaking. 2005-08-16 12:51 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I have been feeling rather poorly the last couple of days, so I stayed home from work to rest up. While doing so, I continued scanning some family photographs. I have now scanned 739 slides and photographs. 81 words.
  • Mucus update. 2005-08-21 2:41 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Today is the 7th day of my most recent sickness, although since I began feeling badly last Saturday night, one could argue that this is actually the 8th day. This past week has been a complete and total loss for me, since I have been unable to go to work or do anything productive at home. And while I have been improving each day since Thursday, I have to say that it is really freakin slow improvement. 293 words.
  • Today’s News. 2005-08-26 10:08 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Today was particularly boring, being a Friday and all, so I decided to comment on today’s top story. I have discovered the joy of RSS Newsfeed Readers, so I now have instant news from around the world available at my fingertips. 158 words.
  • If I’d only had a Midigun…. 2005-08-27 9:36 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Wow these RSS Newsfeeds are awesome for finding things to write about on my blog. Now I can be just like television media and rip off stories from other sources! Check out the Midigun! 347 words.

September, 2005

  • This Week In The News. 2005-09-01 11:14 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    If you’ve turned on a television lately, you’ve probably seen that the Superdome in New Orleans has turned into Thunderdome. But you may have missed these other important news items from this week: 199 words.
  • Creativity Extinct, Creationism On The Rise. 2005-09-09 12:33 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    In my ever-widening search for news that didn’t make it onto NBC’s Nightly News, I have found the following information for you. 280 words.
  • Web Overhaul. 2005-09-14 12:57 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Remember a while back when I said I wanted to do a ground-up rewrite of my website? Well, it’s underway! Actually, it’s been underway for about a month, but it’s only just now starting to look like a working web site. 167 words.
  • Cats, Keyboards, and Crime-Fighting Grannies. 2005-09-15 12:22 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Here are some more interesting stories you may have missed in the swirl of, how shall I put it… crap… in the mainstream media. 157 words.
  • Water Bridge?. 2005-09-18 2:46 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I just got an email containing a picture of a “water bridge” over the Elbe River in Germany. The picture looks fake to me, but maybe I just assume all such email circulations are fake. I Google’d for more information, expecting to find a bunch of “urban legend” hits, but found only one article about it dated 10.10.2003. 79 words.
  • Firefox’ed. 2005-09-21 1:58 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I found this article on Slashdot comparing the number of security patches released for Internet Explorer and Firefox in the same time period to be highly amusing. Basically they are saying that Firefox, the allegedly “safer” open source browser, has released 2-4 times more security fixes in the same time period than Internet Explorer. Ha ha. 154 words.
  • Rita’rded Reporting. 2005-09-25 3:41 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The level of absurdity in the news media is approaching mind-numbing proportions. I saw one reporter holding up a busted-up streetlight and talking at great length about how it had come hurtling down in front of them. Last night there was some “new video” of the aftermath of Rita being shown (on several competing news channels simultaneously). 209 words.
  • Launch Day. 2005-09-25 2:59 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Today I am officially launching the new site. 37 words.

October, 2005

  • Quake 3: Arena??. 2005-10-02 11:34 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    In complete desperation, I pulled out Q3A this weekend because I felt the need to frag something. I was amazed. 273 words.
  • Name Games. 2005-10-24 1:16 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I suppose it’s time to update the old web page. Let’s see if I can think of something interesting that’s happened lately. 195 words.
  • Failed The id Software Test. 2005-10-25 2:25 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Well I installed Quake 4 tonight and found that, not surprisingly, my computer is obsolete. 188 words.
  • Productivity Going Down. 2005-10-26 1:26 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I learned today that network security at work is scheduled to take a big left turn into absurdity next week. They are attempting to keep the developers completely off the network, because for some reason the higher-ups think they represent the largest security risk. We won’t be able to directly access the Internet, the database servers, or the production servers. 129 words.
  • Redskins Pummeled At Halftime. 2005-10-30 7:38 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Well the Redskins are getting their butts kicked. 20 words.

November, 2005

  • English Ancestors Found!. 2005-11-05 12:06 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Thanks to a chance encounter with FamilySearch.org, the LDS genealogy web site, I was able to document some more of my ancestors. This particular branch of ancestors comes from my great-grandmother Matilda Gray’s branch. (Individual I469 on my genealogy page.) I located a bunch of previously unknown information on the ancestry of her father’s parents, Joseph P. Gray and Martha Elizabeth Baker. 94 words.
  • Tuesday Night Was Okay For Fighting, Too. 2005-11-09 5:49 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Since my computer at work is more-or-less frozen up while it performs a weekly virus scan, this seems like a good time to write something. 343 words.
  • Big Water. 2005-11-13 2:50 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Neat. Our water main is currently spewing water into our front yard. If it weren’t for Cynthia going outside to check for mail, we wouldn’t have even known about it until the morning, when it would have been a BIG problem. 96 words.
  • Water Squelched. 2005-11-13 5:15 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Front yard flooding fixed. Water guy replaced the old decrepit meter with a new-fangled electronic thingy. Gushing water is gone. 23 words.
  • Mediocrity Taking Over The Web. 2005-11-13 2:41 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Nicolas Carr’s blog article, The amorality of Web 2.0, rocks. (There’s some technical mumbo-jumbo, but there’s also a bunch of regular English words I didn’t know, either. :) There has always been something about Open Source that has made me uneasy, but I’ve never really been able to put my finger on exactly what it was. 173 words.
  • Freedom No Longer Free. 2005-11-18 1:53 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I tuned into 98.9 Liberty on the way home today, and there it was, like a grisly, glistening shape rising from the fetid waters of capitalism: a commercial. I gritted my teeth as I listened, knowing it would be but the first of many, for surely they would group 20 such commercials together like all the other radio stations, and I would have to begin station surfing in vain, for it is well known that all radio stations synchronize their commercial marathons for maximum annoyance. But wait! 166 words.
  • Let There Be Lights. 2005-11-28 7:11 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Friday our neighbors were at it again. You may remember from last year that these retired folk constructed a Christmas light extravaganza in their front yard that would blind most ordinary humans. Friday, merely one day after Thanksgiving, they were blasting Christmas music (we’re talking Bing Crosby here) and stringing up lights again. 464 words.
  • Influential Songs of My Childhood. 2005-11-29 5:00 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    On the way into work this morning, I heard The Logical Song by Supertramp on 98.9 Liberty. Every time I hear this song, it immediately transports me back to my childhood (c. age 10), so I thought I would start a new series of web articles entitled, “Influential Songs of My Childhood.” This is the first installment in a series of X articles (where 1 £ X £ ¥) where I will delve into the reasons why some songs have struck a particularly resonant chord with me for well over 20 years. 536 words.

December, 2005

  • Keep Boycotting EA Games!. 2005-12-05 1:45 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Here is more evidence (as if any were needed) to support continuing the boycott on EA Games: According to this Reuters article, another game developer is suing EA Games for allegedly stealing his features and putting them in Madden ‘06. Admittedly, the features in question, well, suck, but the point is that EA brazenly stole them. Well, allegedly. 129 words.
  • Influential Songs of My Childhood, Part 2. 2005-12-06 4:31 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Believe it or not, I heard (and didn’t turn off!) the Charlie Daniels Band’s The Devil Went Down To Georgia this morning on the way to work. It struck me that this was another Influential Song From My Childhood, though admittedly not of the same caliber as the last one. I guess this would be more of a Song I Remember From My Childhood. 477 words.
  • Activists Unite!. 2005-12-19 8:00 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I would like to point out the following two Slashdot articles to the throngs of technically saavy political activists that read my site. 122 words.
  • How To Read Op-Ed Articles. 2005-12-30 4:47 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’ve recently added some “controversial” feeds to my news reader (by which, I mean political and religious-themed topics) to broaden my knowledge base. I’m intentionally trying to add feeds that give arguments from opposing viewpoints (ie. conservative vs. liberal, intelligent design vs. science, etc) in the hope that some median truth might come forth. 653 words.

January, 2006

  • New Employer. 2006-01-03 7:35 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Today I started my new job.. well, technically it’s the same job, but I’ve shifted from being a sub-contractor to a contractor. 55 words.
  • Washington at Tampa Bay Prediction. 2006-01-04 3:17 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Washington travels to Tampa Bay for the first round of the playoffs this Saturday. Who would have thought I’d be saying that? The last time Washington was in the playoffs was 1999. 259 words.
  • Washington at Seattle. 2006-01-09 2:17 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I was indeed wrong about Washington at Tampa Bay, although I shouldn’t have been. No way did the Redskins deserve to win that game after the offense stunk up the joint so badly. 120 yards?? 146 words.
  • Book of Daniel. 2006-01-09 4:21 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    We taped The Book of Daniel and watched it over the weekend. We willfully and maliciously fast-forwarded through the commercials while we laughed ourselves silly in defiance of Big Media. Sorry, I digress. 169 words.
  • News Flash: Dark Ages Didn’t Happen. 2006-01-09 8:05 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’m just trying to kill time here, so I don’t really feel like looking up hard evidence to support my claim, but the article Christianity credited for West’s success, which discusses the book The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism and Western Success by “leading” U.S. sociologist Rodney Stark, sounds like.. what’s the word I’m looking for… total crap. (By the way, I didn’t know there was a sociologist race going on… I wonder if it’s on ESPN?) 239 words.
  • Iran Not Quite All There. 2006-01-10 3:58 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I couldn’t find anything particularly noteworthy to mock in this morning’s blogosphere, but I did come across a rather frightening article about Iran’s president (Iran leader’s messianic end-times mission). The more I read and hear about Iran and their president, the more frightening that situation gets. Mr. Ahmadinejad sounds a bit like a loose canon. 120 words.
  • CSI:Mickey. 2006-01-10 4:13 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Golly, but I’ve been getting uber-political lately! What’s up with that? Let’s get back to more important topics, like the strangulation and decapitation of mice! 152 words.
  • iPod-Ridiculosity. 2006-01-11 3:52 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Okay, this iPod thing is starting to get ridiculous: Levi Strauss debuts iPod-ready jeans. How gullible do people have to be to fall for this? How desperate are these people to throw away their money? 130 words.
  • A Truthy Response To Barney. 2006-01-12 6:39 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Barney Brenner’s op-ed piece, Darwinism: An Endangered Way of Thinking?, is a good example of punditry in action. The article has just enough truthiness in it to fool someone who doesn’t know better, or someone who has already made up their mind. He makes a lot of claims and doesn’t back a single one of them up, presuming that the reader will just accept his word on them. 1,202 words.
  • Green Pigs and Cell Records. 2006-01-13 3:50 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    There’s nothing really to snipe at this morning, so I’ll have to get creative. 195 words.
  • Garbage Time. 2006-01-13 7:48 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Sitting here watching the clock in the work week’s equivalent of “garbage time” (that portion of a football game after which the losing team has given up any hope of winning the game), I’m reminded that in my last job, the boss frequently liked to use this time–yes, the final hour of the final day of the work week–to brainstorm, go over status reports, and plan for the future. It gives one some perspective. While it might seem that watching the second hand tick by on a clock might cause some resentment or bad feelings, I can honestly say: It could be a lot worse. 105 words.
  • Dark Tower Found. 2006-01-16 5:52 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I finished the Stephen King Dark Tower books last night… I’ve had the last two books for like six months but just now got around to reading them. (My life is such that I have to deliberately exclude things from my plate in order to read.) I started with book five and went on through to the last two. All I can say is: Wow. 457 words.
  • Fat Cats Responsible. 2006-01-17 4:40 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’m trying out a new feed reader today called Omea Reader. I haven’t made up my mind yet, but one thing I like is that you can “bookmark” (note obvious anti-Microsoft terminology) news web pages that haven’t made it into the RSS world yet. I can’t stand opening up a browser and slogging through a menu of 1000 favorites to find news, so this is a nifty feature for my lazy buttocks. 366 words.
  • Rainy Commute. 2006-01-18 2:40 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    There’s nothing quite like starting your workday by driving on Interstate 95 for a half hour in the rain. Let’s see if I can paint a picture for you. You can see that there are cars around you, but you can’t quite make out how far away they are or how fast they’re going. 164 words.
  • Muslim Sit-Com Coming Soon!. 2006-01-18 5:14 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I was having a really hard time finding anything to snipe at today. My usual targets were silent or monumentally dull. I even added tons of new feeds to my aggregator, specifically looking for radical thinking from every possible angle. 482 words.
  • Privacy Wars. 2006-01-19 2:52 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Amid the uproar about the Prez wiretapping everybody’s phones, I thought it would be fun to pass along a couple other privacy issues from today’s news. 228 words.
  • New Blog. 2006-01-20 4:58 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    If you’re looking for more witty and insightful responses to the Crowhill Weblog, you’ll have to go to The Krehbiel Strikes Back. I started that blog for the specific purpose of sniping at The Pope. (I won’t call him Pope Narcissus there, though, because that wouldn’t be polite.) Tell all your friends! 76 words.
  • Michael Moore vs. The Whale. 2006-01-20 6:58 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    What do Osama bin Laden, Michael Moore, Chris Matthews, and a whale all have in common? They are all hot topics in the blogosphere today. 297 words.
  • On The AFA. 2006-01-23 2:22 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The AFA makes me sick. They have an electronic petition to send emails to NBC about The Book of Daniel. They’ve done all the work, so all you have to do is click a button and bam-o NBC gets a nicely worded email written by the AFA, and they can claim billions of people oppose the show. 142 words.
  • AFA Response. 2006-01-25 2:02 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Just for the record, here was the AFA’s response, if you can call it that, to my letter. Note the smug “ohhhh, we’re innocent, we had nothing to do with it!” attitude and link. 99 words.
  • The Republican Womb Patrol. 2006-01-31 6:34 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I saw a post today, Say good bye to your wombs, gals, you no longer control them. The Republican party does, on the liberal blog The Daou Report, referring of course to the imminent confirmation of Judge Alito and the suspected future overturning of Roe v. Wade. 313 words.
  • Iran Seeks Answers. 2006-01-31 6:35 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    “I am not making this up.” Here’s some cheery news from Iran: Iran Invites Blair to Holocaust Denial Conference. Yes, you read that right. Iran is holding a conference to “scientifically” determine the facts about the Holocaust. 82 words.

February, 2006

  • Christianists. 2006-02-01 3:57 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I came across the article, Onward, Christianist soldiers?, by Ruth Walker of the Christian Science Monitor today, after I saw a reference to the word “Christianist” on a liberal blog. It’s a good read. The term is very appropriate, too. 116 words.
  • The Danger of Sheehan. 2006-02-01 7:18 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    When Cindy Sheehan first arrived on the scene, I was touched by her story. How could anyone not be? I didn’t particularly think the President should give in and talk to her in Camp Casey–he already had once, after all, and that’s more than most Americans get–but she made a brave stand. 510 words.
  • No Humor Required. 2006-02-02 5:13 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    And you thought Christianist fundamentals were bad. Check out Storm grows over Muhammad cartoons. 205 words.
  • Wild Conspiracy Theories. 2006-02-10 6:58 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I found the following text on Americablog (about as liberal of a blog as you can possibly get without being Michael Moore’s own blog), referring to today’s news that Homeland Security knew about the levee breaks in New Orleans a day before the Bush administration said they did. 394 words.
  • Thursday Blogworld Wrapup. 2006-02-23 6:30 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Yesterday Blogworld was busy taking sides on the Dubai Port Sale. 85 words.
  • Quick, Grab A Thesaurus. 2006-02-24 6:20 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    One thing I find amusing about the media, and now the blogosphere, is the number of different ways that writers say the same thing. No writer wants to sound like he’s plagerizing someone else, so the result is often a hilarious variety of randomly mixed-up words from a thesaurus. Here’s a selection from bloggers talking about the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Iraq. 211 words.
  • Monday Smorgasbord, Feb 27. 2006-02-27 8:28 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Thomas Lifson at American Thinker writes about an Islamic domination angle that I hadn’t heard before: The Islamist Attack on Intellectual Property. A world without intellectual property sounds pretty bleak, and not just because my whole career is based on it. Wait, nevermind… it is because my whole career is based on it. 262 words.
  • Tuesday Smogasbord – Feb 28. 2006-02-28 9:01 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Winner of today’s most disturbing look into the life of a typical Palestinian, via. Little Green Footballs: A Mother from Hell. This woman is actually disappointed that her daughter failed to become a suicide bomber (she was caught before her bomb vest went off). 293 words.

May, 2006

  • Genealogy News. 2006-05-15 2:07 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Hi! I’m starting a new blog for genealogy-related news. 62 words.
  • Centreville House. 2006-05-15 2:16 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Thanks to zillow.com, I discovered today that the house I grew up in, which used to be at 6035 O’Day Drive, Centreville, VA 22020, now appears to be: 5964 Manorwood Drive, Centreville, VA 20120. 54 words.
  • Elmer and Anna’s Wedding Date. 2006-05-22 7:10 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The other day, I found an invitation to Elmer and Anna’s wedding, which shows the wedding date as April 1, 1926. Previously, I had always thought their wedding was April 1, 1925, because Dad had noted on his slides that Elmer and Anna’s 25th anniversary party was on April 1, 1950. So I suppose that means the 25th anniversary was actually on April 1, 1951. 101 words.

July, 2006

  • Old News Closed. 2006-07-14 6:03 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’m no longer adding to the “Old News” category. 35 words.
  • Televisions and Pianos. 2006-07-14 6:28 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    As you can probably tell, I’ve renamed the Genealogy News to Household News. I figure I can combine both topics into one category, and perhaps have enough material to post something once a month or so. 384 words.

September, 2006

  • On 8mm Film Transfer. 2006-09-11 5:26 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Once again I find myself pondering how to cost effectively transfer 8mm films to a digital format, for genealogical and archival purposes. Here are some notes so I don’t forget them. 417 words.
  • Digital Fortress. 2006-09-18 5:29 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I finished Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress last night. It’s a very typical Dan Brown novel (that is, sort of a cross between the Hardy Boys and Oliver Stone’s JFK), but I didn’t think it was as good as DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons. Um, perhaps I should say that it’s below the quality level found in DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons, because I wouldn’t want to give the impression that any Dan Brown novel is “good.” At best, I’d call them “kind of entertaining.” 168 words.
  • Washington at Dallas. 2006-09-18 6:04 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Ugh. It was embarrassing to watch. The first week, I thought the Redskins looked average; last night, they looked horrible. 134 words.
  • Week 3, Washington at Houston. 2006-09-25 2:53 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I didn’t see the game, but apparently it was a blowout against the hapless Texans (as was expected). The Giants lost (despite what appears to be a valiant fourth-quarter comeback attempt) but the Eagles won, putting them in first place by a game. The Cowboys had a bye week and didn’t play. 105 words.

October, 2006

  • Week 4, Jacksonville at Washington. 2006-10-02 10:03 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    One-fourth of the season is behind us. Washington looked like a completely different team from the one I saw two weeks ago. That is, they looked like professionals again. 212 words.
  • Week 5, Washington at NY Giants. 2006-10-08 11:57 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    A total suck-fest by the Redskins this week. Not much else to say about it. The momentum from the past two victories came to a crashing halt. 133 words.
  • Week 6, Tennessee at Washington. 2006-10-16 2:20 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    To quote from last week: “A total suck-fest by the Redskins this week.” I might add that it was an even worse suck-fest than last week, because Washington lost to a winless team with a rookie quarterback. I only saw the last quarter-and-a-half, but it was just awful. No change in the NFC East standings, though: The Eagles lost, so Washington remains 2 games behind, now with 10 games left to play. 124 words.
  • Week 7, Washington at Indianapolis. 2006-10-23 5:24 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Washington forgot to show up in the second half of their game this past week, so they got blown out by the Colts despite an unexpected 1-point lead at halftime. Thankfully, the Eagles also lost again so the Redskins remain 2 games behind, now with 9 games left to play. They are off next week, during which time I hope they figure out how to play football at the professional level. 147 words.
  • Week 8, Bye. 2006-10-30 4:21 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Washington didn’t play this past weekend, but the Eagles, Cowboys, and Giants did. With the Giants win, they continue to hold first place and look like the team to beat. Their win also drops Washington to a full 3 games behind in the division with 9 games left to play. 258 words.

November, 2006

  • Week 9, Dallas at Washington. 2006-11-06 3:05 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Washington pulled a win out of their collective butts by blocking what should have been Dallas’s last-second game-winning field goal and getting a facemask penalty on the ensuing runback. But it counts as a win no matter how ugly or unlikely it is. :) Overall, the Redskins showed improvements in their passing offense (that is, they actually had one), but their defense still looked pretty shaky, especially on third down. 261 words.
  • Week 10, Washington at Philadelphia. 2006-11-13 2:38 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Ugly, ugly, ugly. I didn’t see most of the game because I fell asleep in the first half, and the game was over by the time the second half started. That humiliating defeat all but eliminates any possibility of the Redskins making the playoffs this year. 259 words.

January, 2007

  • I’m Somebody!. 2007-01-06 1:27 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’m somebody! Who would have thought I would ever appear alongside such giants of Virginia blogging as Not Larry Sabato, Waldo Jaquith, and Vivian Paige! 41 words.

March, 2007

  • Blog Test Weekend. 2007-03-24 4:18 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I am conducting a test this weekend. I’m replacing the old uvPortal software with the new uvBlog software to see what happens. Mainly I am testing to see if I can divert traffic that used to go to the portal to the new site. 68 words.
  • Blog Test Weekend Results. 2007-03-26 2:01 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    As of 10:00 PM on Sunday, I’ve received 2,286 hits on the new blog from Yahoo’s and Google’s search engines. Kind of amazing that my little ol’ domain gets that much traffic. 65 words.

April, 2007

  • Site Unblocked. 2007-04-17 3:36 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Oops. I was trying to block a spammer IP but due to a bug, nobody was able to access the site for the last few days. I should probably test things now and then. 38 words.
  • Krehbiel Award. 2007-04-27 3:25 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    This is funny… There’s a “Krehbiel Award” at the University of Arkansas: 5 UA Fort Smith Employees to Receive Awards. “Dr. William Huskison of Fort Smith is the recipient of the Luella M. Krehbiel Teaching Excellence Award. … The Krehbiel Award recognizes contributions of UA Fort Smith’s part-time faculty. 68 words.

May, 2007

  • Hax0rs Sighted. 2007-05-06 3:20 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Wow, I should check my logs more often. 25 words.
  • Vanity Watch. 2007-05-06 3:27 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Periodically I go to Google and search for my name, just to see what comes up. Partly out of curiosity and partly to find out what other people (aka. potential employers) would see about me if they did the same search. 73 words.
  • More On The Hax0r. 2007-05-07 10:19 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    A quick Googling of some of the usernames that the would-be hax0r bot is attempting to login with – Ganjaboy, Ganry, and Wolf – suggests that I am not the first site to be hit by this particular bot. It has left its calling card (ie. spam) on bazillions of bulletin boards around the Internet. 55 words.
  • Operation: Mindcrime II. 2007-05-29 7:43 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I was interested to see that Queensrÿche released a sequel to Operation: Mindcrime a few years ago. I just got it last week. I had very low expectations, because I think Queensrÿche peaked in the mid- to late-90s, and their last couple of albums have been occasionally good, but overall nothing to write home about. 407 words.

June, 2007

  • 24 Season 4 Synopsis. 2007-06-03 2:57 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    A writing exercise by Thomas Krehbiel. 839 words.
  • Promotion Obtained. 2007-06-15 1:17 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I hardly ever mention anything about my life anymore. To rectify that, I will quickly mention that I recently received a promotion and payraise. Since February, after the lead programmer/database administrator left for another job, I’ve been the only .NET developer on my team, which has somewhat elevated my importance to the company. 54 words.
  • Matrix. 2007-06-23 4:18 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    This past week we signed a paper and made a deposit on a 2008 Toyota Matrix, which should be available in the Fall. This will replace Cynthia’s aging 1992 Corolla. We had to order a 2008 model because there weren’t any 5-speed 2007 models within 300 miles. 57 words.
  • Cynthia’s Mom’s Knee Replacement Successful. 2007-06-26 12:54 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Cynthia’s mom underwent knee replacement surgery this morning (on both knees) and is now recuperating. The technology is pretty amazing – they literally replace all the cartilage and junk with some kind of synthetic stuff that bonds to the ends of the bone thingys. (As you can see, I am an expert on this subject.) Anyway, once she finishes healing, her previously always-on-the-go lifestyle will be but a snail’s walk compared to the terrifying speed-runner pace she will now be able to maintain. 83 words.
  • Home Network Upgraded. 2007-06-30 5:45 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    This past week I upgraded my home network hardware for the first time since about 1997. I had been using a Linksys 5-port Workgroup Hub all this time, but I finally got tired of the near-constant red “collision” light activity, so I bought a Netgear 8-port Gigabit switch. I also bought a Netgear router to replace the Windows XP connection sharing, which freed up one entire computer on the network. 102 words.

July, 2007

  • de.icio.us links added. 2007-07-18 1:47 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’ve just added my del.icio.us links to the left sidebar. Yes, believe it or not, I’m such an Internet dinosaur that I’ve only just signed up for del.icio.us this past week, even though it’s been around since the ancient days of 2003. (But hey, I know people that still don’t turn to Google first thing… go figure.) Anyway, if you’ve ever wondered about the fascinating diversity of subjects I read about on the Internet, now you’ll be able to see it firsthand. 82 words.

September, 2007

  • New Matrix. 2007-09-09 9:22 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    We got a 2008 Toyota Matrix yesterday for Cynthia. We had ordered it earlier in the summer (because there were no 5-speed 2007 models left in the area) and it finally came in. Cynthia really loves it! 37 words.

October, 2007

  • Project Complete. 2007-10-21 9:03 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Late September, I was assigned to help a colleague at work finish his project on time. 32 words.

December, 2007

  • Crash of the Choirs. 2007-12-19 12:26 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    About this Clash of the Choirs thing: First of all, it should have been called, Clash of the Pop Music Backup Singers. Calling them “choirs” is an insult to choirs everywhere. They weren’t doing anything remotely resembling the harmonic complexity of real chorale music. 108 words.

January, 2008

  • RSS Feed Fixed. 2008-01-04 10:05 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Oops.. I discovered my RSS feeds weren’t showing new posts. 29 words.
  • links for 2008-01-26. 2008-01-26 12:51 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    SQL Prompt - Intelligent code completion for SQL Server Sounds like a nifty tool… if you’ve got $195. (tags: sql tools) 21 words.
  • Blog Designs. 2008-01-26 8:42 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’m looking for a new web design for my page. I’d like to make a non-scrolling front page with “about” information, which in turn links to the various categories of blogs. I also want to try to seperate the blogs from each other. 71 words.
  • New Design Online. 2008-01-28 1:57 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    New blog design is online. 41 words.
  • links for 2008-01-29. 2008-01-29 12:43 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    What is diffrenece between string.compare and string.compareordinal More on string comparisons. 34 words.

February, 2008

  • links for 2008-02-01. 2008-02-01 12:35 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The Server/Client Balance of Power Continues Discussing the pitfalls of Microsoft AJAX. (tags: asp.net) c# code format Nice web tool to format C# code for blog posting (tags: blogging) Ten Essential Tools: Visual Studio Add-Ins Every Developer Should Download Now – MSDN Magazine, December 2005 Some nifty tools. (tags: tools) 50 words.
  • Times Are Off Again. 2008-02-01 1:36 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The times are wrong on all the posts again. I feel like I’ve fixed this problem dozens of times over the lifespan of this blog. I have no idea why it keeps breaking. 76 words.
  • links for 2008-02-02. 2008-02-02 12:37 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    TDD or POUT Ah, another kindred programming spirit… POUT rules! (tags: articles) Php IDE - VS.Php Standalone Edition | Jcx.Software Corp. PHP plugin for Visual Studio? (tags: php) 28 words.
  • links for 2008-02-03. 2008-02-03 12:33 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Sperm Made From Female Bone Marrow, Men Obsolete? Hehe… Amazonian overlords! (tags: random) G4 - The Feed - The MMO Report: Friday, January 25th (tags: games) G4 - The Feed - The MMO Report: Friday, February 1st (tags: games) Best Super Tuesday Candidate for Technology? 47 words.
  • links for 2008-02-04. 2008-02-04 12:44 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Transhumanism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (tags: articles) Cellphones to Monitor Highway Traffic OMG they are stealing my ideas again! (tags: random) Bionic Arm Might Go Into Clinical Trials Transhumanism on its way… (tags: random) HOF Moment: Darrel Green 1.10.88 Wow… wish I could see a video of this (tags: redskins) Green Awesome Darrel Green story (tags: redskins) Monk’s greatest hits 12.16.84 Art Monk rulez! (tags: redskins) Fame catches up to Monk Art Monk makes the Hall of Fame! 111 words.
  • links for 2008-02-05. 2008-02-05 12:44 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Mocks Aren’t Stubs Mocks vs. Stubs (tags: articles) Local Install Source (Msocache) Explains the mysterious MSOCache hidden directory. 37 words.
  • links for 2008-02-06. 2008-02-06 12:39 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    KCNN: Legal Risk Module In case you need a refresher course… how to avoid legal trouble in blogging. Basically, it boils down to: Don’t make stuff up. (tags: blogging) Hosting Process (vshost.exe) Details about what the heck those .vshost.exe files are for. 111 words.
  • Two Space Calamity. 2008-02-06 11:52 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    It’s happening. You know how HTML files always squish the two spaces after a period into one space? I’ve always hated that, since everyone knows there are supposed to be two spaces after a period. 81 words.
  • links for 2008-02-07. 2008-02-07 12:35 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Linq to Objects – measuring performance implications of the where clause In case you didn’t intuitively realize this and needed numbers… Linq to objects is slow as crap compared to hand-coded queries. (tags: linq .net) Download details: Log Parser 2.2 Run queries against text files eg. log files. 50 words.
  • links for 2008-02-08. 2008-02-08 12:31 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    PRB: Read-Only Properties Cannot Be Exposed by XML Web Services What to do if you need to explose a read-only property in a Web Service. 27 words.
  • Twiceler. 2008-02-08 1:28 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Don’t know if anyone else is experiencing this, but my site has been hammered over the last week by this Twiceler robot: “Mozilla/5.0 (Twiceler-0.9 http://www.cuill.com/twiceler/robot.html)". Easily 15 times as many hits as from Googlebot. I guess they are trying to destroy whatever semblence of bandwidth is left on the Internet. 64 words.
  • links for 2008-02-09. 2008-02-09 12:42 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    New Robots.txt Syntax Checker: a validator for robots.txt files Nifty tool to validate a robots.txt file. (tags: web tools) The Years of Experience Myth Cool. (tags: articles) How to maintain the position of the scrollbar on postbacks with ASP.NET 2.0 Neato ASP.NET 2.0 feature. 50 words.
  • links for 2008-02-10. 2008-02-10 12:33 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    VS 2008 Web Development Hot-Fix Roll-Up Available Bug fix for Visual Studio 2008 (tags: vs) 15 words.
  • links for 2008-02-11. 2008-02-11 12:33 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    C# Application Markup Language (CSAML): A Preview Mmmm, tasty sarcasm! 30 words.
  • links for 2008-02-12. 2008-02-12 12:33 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Know Why Uruguay is the IT Outsourcing Paradise… Interesting (tags: outsourcing) WPF: Threading basics in WPF WPF threading info that I might be able to use.. esp. BitmapImage.Freeze() (tags: wpf) 30 words.
  • links for 2008-02-13. 2008-02-13 12:46 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    WPF Tree View icons - MSDN Forums How to do images in TreeViewItems since you can’t just set an ImageIndex property anymore. 71 words.
  • links for 2008-02-14. 2008-02-14 12:41 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    TPCI - TIOBE Programming Community Index List of popular languages (tags: articles) Speedcabling - Untangling for fun and profit. Could this be the next big sport? (tags: humor) Transact-SQL User’s Guide UPDATE syntax with INNER JOIN. 38 words.
  • links for 2008-02-16. 2008-02-16 12:40 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Re: Backup stored procedures af a db, using a command line tool - TechNet Forums Nice script for backing up stored procedures (tags: sql) sqlcmd Utility Syntax for running SQL Server queries from the command line (tags: sql) WIC H_RESULT 0x88982F60 (WINCODEC_ERR_BADIMAGE) when trying to create BitmapImage - MSDN Forums BitmapCreateOptions.IgnoreColorProfile fixes exceptions loading JPEGs created by IJG library. 61 words.
  • links for 2008-02-17. 2008-02-17 12:29 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    ImpulseAdventure - JPEG snoop - JPEG Dump Decoding Utility Handy tool to show you everything you ever wanted to know about your JPEG files. 40 words.
  • Turned Off Daily Links. 2008-02-17 9:12 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I turned off the daily Del.icio.us link posts. 28 words.

April, 2008

  • Tree Topping. 2008-04-28 10:28 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    This past weekend I topped my first tree. I don’t think I’ll be quitting my day job anytime soon. (Dammit Jim, I’m a programmer, not a lumberjack!) It wasn’t a big tree, so at first I was just going to use a hand saw, but it didn’t take long to realize that I didn’t have the arm strength or the leverage to cut through a 6" trunk at a point way up over my head. 123 words.

June, 2008

July, 2008

  • New Design Online. 2008-07-06 2:23 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’ve just updated the “skin” for Krehbiel’s Korner. As usual, I got completely sick of the old one and needed to make a change before I became physically ill. I admit that the design is heavily influenced by Drupal.org, which I think is one of the better minimalist web designs I’ve seen recently. 77 words.
  • Bathroom Repair Adventure. 2008-07-06 6:04 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Several weeks ago we discovered we have rather significant water damage in our downstairs bathroom. Pictures of this ongoing adventure can be found here: Bathroom Repair For Programmers. 1,102 words.
  • July 2008 Buyer’s Guide. 2008-07-14 10:43 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I recently helped my niece pick a laptop for college, which got me thinking that I should write an article containing all of my computer buying recommendations. 1,399 words.

September, 2008

  • New Comment System. 2008-09-09 1:17 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I updated the commenting functionality on my blog for no particular reason. 47 words.

December, 2008

  • O Come, O Come Emmanuel, Three Versions. 2008-12-11 2:27 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    In the spirit of Advent, here are three different versions of O Come, O Come Emmanuel that I’ve recorded over the years. 122 words.
  • Christmas Eve Tunes. 2008-12-24 8:33 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    In order to demonstrate to the malls and radio stations when it is appropriate to begin playing Christmas music, I now present two more Christmas carols I recorded back in 1995. 82 words.

March, 2009

  • New Web Site Live. 2009-03-22 2:44 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The new web site is live. Old links should still continue to work, but the preferred site link is http://thomaskrehbiel.com or http://thomaskrehbiel.com/blog if you want to go straight to the blog. Let me know if you have any problems. 39 words.
  • Belated Goals for 2009. 2009-03-28 3:00 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I found it helpful last year to enumerate some goals and check back in with them from time to time throughout the year. So this year I’m trying it again. I actually started this list in January but am only just now getting around to posting it. 319 words.

April, 2009

  • Planning a Move to Hostgator. 2009-04-07 12:40 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I think I’m going to start working on migrating my home page to Hostgator.com. It’s quite a lot faster in terms of both latency and generating PHP pages. Omnis.com has been a great host for lo these many years but I’m getting weary of dealing with their general sluggishness. 64 words.

May, 2009

  • BasicState Uptime Graphs. 2009-05-10 12:09 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The following graphs show why I need to move my home page to another web host. 81 words.
  • Moving In Progress. 2009-05-21 9:04 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Tonight I hope to be moving the site to a new web host. 42 words.
  • Moving Complete. 2009-05-22 12:29 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The switchover is complete. 52 words.
  • Importing Twitter Posts Soon. 2009-05-27 1:46 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’m working on some updates to the home page. In the process I’m going to import all of my Twitter posts, so at some point in the near future you’ll see a blitz of new messages appear on the page and in the feed. 94 words.

June, 2009

  • Site Update 2.1.90612. 2009-06-13 2:57 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Published an update to the blog software which adds a blacklist table to ban IPs. 38 words.
  • uvBlog 2.1.90615. 2009-06-16 2:09 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Published a minor update tonight which cleans up some cosmetic problems in the RSS feeds. 45 words.
  • uvBlog 2.1.90621. 2009-06-22 2:46 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Published a new version tonight with mainly internal changes. 36 words.

July, 2009

  • uvBlog 2.1.90704. 2009-07-04 10:55 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Published a new version today with one experimental new feature: Twitter integration via. OAuth 1.0a. This allows the site to access Twitter account data without ever needing to know Twitter credentials. 59 words.
  • uvBlog 2.1.90712 – Now with OpenID. 2009-07-12 10:02 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Published a new version of uvBlog that includes experimental OpenID support. You can now register and login with an OpenID, and attach as many OpenIDs to your account as you want. I used the Zend Framework to implement it, which turned out to be relatively straightforward (once you figure out the necessary files to include). 65 words.
  • uvBlog 2.1.90715. 2009-07-16 12:51 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Published a new version with a redesigned page heading and some code changes to support the menu. Also encapsulated the encryption routines into classes so I can swap them out for new ones later. 40 words.
  • About. 2009-07-24 1:54 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    […] Krehbiel’s Korner is the official home page of Thomas Krehbiel. Accept no substitutes. 282 words.
  • uvBlog 2.1.90725. 2009-07-26 12:46 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I know this will disappoint the brute force attackers and the hordes of people clamoring to register on my site, but I’ve disabled user registration for a bit until I finalize the security model I want to use. 75 words.

August, 2009

  • The Buddy On The Mend. 2009-08-19 11:01 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The Buddy is back to eating regular dog food after a week featuring vomiting, diarrhea, trips to the vet, IV fluids, antibiotics and bland food. Since he couldn’t eat, he also couldn’t take his pain meds so his arthritic hips flared up pretty bad. Don’t really know what happened to him but he’s getting back to his normal cheery self. 86 words.
  • An Actual Recording: Loop 90823 1.0. 2009-08-25 1:40 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’m trying to get back into recording some music, so I’m starting with short loops to get the hang of it again. This particular piece consists of bass and electric guitar, along with my relatively new Roland V-Drums, which are quite fun to play. I’m licensing this recording under the Creative Commons BY-SA license… click the button below to find out what that means. 78 words.

September, 2009

  • All Good Things. 2009-09-22 3:32 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    We had to put Tristan down tonight. It was a hard decision but we think it was the right one. The combination of old age, arthritic hips, giardia and pneumonia was just too much. 39 words.

October, 2009

  • It Happened Just The Other Day. 2009-10-07 1:38 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I almost cut my hair today. No wait, I actually did. On Saturday. 106 words.
  • Changing Ids. 2009-10-21 1:57 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    If you’re reading this in an RSS feed reader, you may have noticed duplicate entries because I keep changing things in the feed. 47 words.

November, 2009

  • November Novelist. 2009-11-05 11:22 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’ve joined NaNoWriMo and will be writing a novel this month (NaNoWriMo is a “contest” where you try to write a 50,000 word novel between November 1 and November 30). I almost tried it a couple of years ago but didn’t go through with it. This year I’m going to win! 212 words.

December, 2009

  • New Puppy Adventures. 2009-12-08 2:29 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    After Tristan’s passing, Cynthia and I both decided we wanted to get another dog. Cynthia wanted another collie and I was interested in a short-haired hound. We thought it would be fun if we each had a dog and did some kind of activity like agility training together. 891 words.

January, 2010

  • Reaper 3.161 Tip. 2010-01-02 9:44 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Tip: In Reaper 3.161 DAW, avoid using Mute automation on tracks; program crashes when you later try to record audio on a new track. 24 words.
  • Not showing ‘Skins in Richmond. 2010-01-03 9:15 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Not showing ‘Skins in Richmond. 22 words.
  • The end of vacation. 2010-01-04 1:03 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The end of vacation: This is what the monarchy must have felt like during the French Revolution. 17 words.
  • REAPER. 2010-01-05 11:31 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’ve started using a DAW charmingly titled REAPER, written by some of the folks behind WinAmp. It’s not flawless, but I’m quickly leaning toward dropping any further attempts to use SONAR. 733 words.
  • I am Bender. Please insert girder.. 2010-01-09 12:23 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I am Bender. 6 words.
  • Back from first night of puppy class. 2010-01-13 1:13 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Back from first night of puppy class.. holy crap Bella and I have a LOT of work to do! 19 words.
  • Bella is learning “look”. 2010-01-15 12:00 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Puppy update - Bella is learning “look”, has a pretty good handle on “sit” and “come”, but still can’t or won’t do a “down.” 24 words.
  • Old games that require their CD. 2010-01-16 9:33 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Old games that require their CD to be in the drive to play suck.. when trying to get them to run on a netbook with no CD drive. 28 words.
  • Bella has done 5 downs today!!. 2010-01-17 10:44 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Bella has done 5 downs today!! 10 words.
  • “All the world’s a chew toy”. 2010-01-18 2:10 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    “All the world’s a chew toy” -Cyn, about Saint the collie puppy 12 words.
  • Just registered Bella’s microchip. 2010-01-19 1:40 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Just registered Bella’s microchip.. they didn’t mention it costs $17/year. 22 words.
  • Saint’s profound statement. 2010-01-19 11:01 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    [[p -Saint’s profound statement for this morning. 7 words.
  • Bella did a “down” this evening. 2010-01-20 11:32 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Bella did a “down” this evening without a lure! 9 words.
  • Once again I can’t help but notice…. 2010-01-22 11:18 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Once again I can’t help but notice… there’s really nothing to do on the Internet. 15 words.
  • This one spot in Mirror’s Edge. 2010-01-23 5:24 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    This one spot in Mirror’s Edge is annoyingly hard.. repeating the same section over and over and over again is really not very fun. 24 words.
  • Mirror’s Edge: Finished. 2010-01-24 3:20 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Mirror’s Edge: Finished. 23 words.
  • Pouring rain, inches of mud. 2010-01-25 11:37 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Pouring rain, inches of mud, standing water everywhere: Still not as bad as an earthquake. 20 words.

April, 2010

  • Mission: Earth Accomplished. 2010-04-19 12:45 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I recently finished a series of 10 pulp sci-fi books (allegedly) by L. Ron Hubbard called Mission: Earth. The books were terrible beyond belief (worse even than Dan Brown – at least Brown novels have an interesting story idea), and I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone. Wikipedia has it right: “It is frequently cited within science fiction circles as one of the worst science fiction novels ever written.” 259 words.

June, 2010

  • Woo I’m posting something. 2010-06-07 4:46 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Woo I'm posting something with the Android Buzz widget. 30 words.
  • Pine Tree. 2010-06-12 2:21 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    One of the remaining pine trees in our back yard, after the last round of tree-cutting. 25 words.
  • Mother Robin Feeding Her Hatchlings. 2010-06-13 2:06 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    A mother robin feeding a worm to her hatchlings in the nest over our back stairs, but only after the cameraman goes away. 23 words.
  • Gloves and a Feeder. 2010-06-14 1:16 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    A couple more macro focus pictures, taken after we cut down a bunch of trees in the back yard. 30 words.
  • Hypothetical speaking. 2010-06-15 6:41 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Hypothetical speaking, if I were nearing the end of Lost season 5, where would one find Lost season 6 to watch? 21 words.
  • Posting something on Buzz. 2010-06-18 3:23 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Posting something on Buzz from the desktop, as opposed to a phone, to see what the <activity:service> title will be. 20 words.
  • Google Buzz importing complete. 2010-06-18 7:58 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Google Buzz importing complete. 14 words.
  • The Google Buzz mobile site has been dead. 2010-06-22 9:58 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    The Google Buzz mobile site has been dead to me for several days now. 28 words.
  • MySQL Community Edition. 2010-06-22 10:47 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Hrm MySQL Community Edition appears to be conspicuously missing from the MySQL product offerings under the new Oracle regime. 19 words.
  • Found MySQL Community Edition. 2010-06-22 11:08 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Found MySQL Community Edition. 39 words.
  • Why do my Android apps ask for access. 2010-06-26 12:51 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Why do my Android apps ask for access to Storage and Phone Calls when I never specified that in my AndroidManifest.xml? 21 words.
  • Yay Buzz mobile site is working again. 2010-06-27 12:12 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Yay Buzz mobile site is working again after signing out and back in. 13 words.

August, 2010

  • August Music Update. 2010-08-17 2:10 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Some of you reading this may be surprised to learn that, in the previous millennium, I wrote and recorded a whole bunch of music. Some others of you already knew that and might be wondering if I’m ever planning to do that again. 495 words.
  • Mastering Loud Songs is Hard. 2010-08-20 12:40 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    So I’m working on mixing these two new songs. However, despite the explosion of free or cheap resources available to today’s amateur home recording musician, I’m finding the “mastering” process more challenging than ever for one single reason: Loudness. 347 words.
  • Sorry About The Double Postings. 2010-08-21 10:38 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    By the way, I have no idea why the site is getting double posts from Delicious.com all of a sudden. 25 words.
  • Vote For My Next Song. 2010-08-22 8:53 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’m finishing up two new songs. Now which song should I work on next? Vote now! 18 words.
  • Two Partied Out (1.26). 2010-08-23 10:41 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    This was originally intended to be part of a concept album about a staunch partisan’s son breaking family tradition and running as an independent. 28 words.
  • Shallow and Uneducated (1.11). 2010-08-23 10:43 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Social commentary about young whippersnappers (and their parents) destroying the country with their absent-mindedness. 19 words.

October, 2010

  • Daemon by Daniel Suarez. 2010-10-23 1:06 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I just finished Daniel Suarez’s much talked-about Daemon. (Talked about among the digerati, at least.) It’s not a literary masterpiece, but it’s a great story and a thought-provoking idea, and I think it will resonate particularly well among the tech-savvy and younger generations. (There is talk of an upcoming movie, which would be pretty awesome.) 344 words.

May, 2011

  • Vocabulary Lesson from A Game of Thrones. 2011-05-20 10:59 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    When I’m reading books on my Kindle, I’ve taken to highlighting words that I don’t know at all or don’t know well enough to come up with an exact definition from memory, with the hope that I will review them later and perhaps find a way to insert them into my own writing. 601 words.

July, 2011

  • Too Many Social Media Sites. 2011-07-13 12:40 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I’ve reached a social media crisis point. With the release (sort of) of Google+ it’s now clear that there are simply too many social media sites to keep up with. 649 words.

August, 2011

  • Natural Disaster Week. 2011-08-26 9:16 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    It’s been a big week for natural disasters here in Virginia. First a 5.8 magnitude earthquake, complete with aftershocks (which caused a lot of excitement but we didn’t suffer any discernable damage), now we’ve got Hurricane Irene bearing down on us. 123 words.
  • Irene: Saturday Morning. 2011-08-27 12:27 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Hurricane Report From Richmond: It is raining. I would describe it as a completely ordinary rain, not particularly heavy, but steady. A little while ago, I heard a mild gust of wind outside. 38 words.
  • Irene: Saturday Noon. 2011-08-27 4:23 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Steady rain continues, with occasional bursts of heavy downpours. 37 words.
  • Irene: Saturday Afternoon. 2011-08-27 8:46 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Power out now, probably for good and all. Strong gusts have knocked a tree onto our shed… the only damage in the neighborhood I can see, naturally. Dogs are busy with bones. 32 words.
  • Irene: Sunday Morning. 2011-08-28 11:07 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Storm is gone. 30 words.
  • Irene: Sunday Noon. 2011-08-28 4:28 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    It’s bright and sunny outside, and the ground is quickly drying. The power was miraculously restored here at about 11 AM, far exceeding my expectations. Other than the maple tree sitting on our shed, there is little to indicate that a hurricane passed by yesterday. 57 words.

September, 2011

  • Irene: Redux. 2011-09-02 12:52 AM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    So we thought everything was great when we got power back on Sunday. Then, the power went out again at noon on Tuesday. It’s Thursday night now, and we are not “scheduled” to have power restored until tomorrow night. 113 words.
  • A Rainy Day. 2011-09-24 1:39 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    So I’ve been putting off writing this post for a while, mainly because as soon as I post it a bunch of people will probably start asking me about it, but there isn’t really much to say about it, even if I wanted to have a conversation about it, because it’s kind of private, ya know? But today being a rainy and dreary day seems like an appropriate time to mention it. Cynthia and I are separating. 94 words.

October, 2011

  • Code Update!. 2011-10-17 11:54 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    At long last, I fixed a little problem where people could view private posts if they happened to know the URL. 34 words.

November, 2011

  • Happy Belated Thanksgiving!. 2011-11-26 2:23 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I was reminded that I haven’t posted anything on my blog for a while, so I thought I would do that. 687 words.

December, 2011

  • Bye bye uvteksoftware.com. 2011-12-05 10:44 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    I let uvteksoftware.com lapse for a month, then I had a change of heart and tried to re-register it, and some place called GO MONTENEGRO DOMAINS had already bought it up. Damn cyber squatters! Now they’ve got uvtek.com AND uvteksoftware.com. 56 words.

September, 2013

  • Bored with Everything. 2013-09-18 1:45 AM.
    • Blog

    After I moved into a new house, I instantly became bored with all computer games. I still load up Assassin’s Creed III now and then, but I can only get through a mission or two before getting bored. I also tried to play Europa Universalis IV for a while, but I just can’t get into all the details of a Colonial Europe Simulator. Which is a shame because I think the game map looks very pretty. 117 words.

October, 2013

  • Welcome to Endgame Viable. 2013-10-17 12:01 AM.
    • Blog

    I stumbled onto this thing called the Newbie Blogger Initiative (NBI). I found it by reading a post on a blog called Inventory Full, which is an awesome blog name, by the way. That post, which referenced a bunch of other blogs, got me thinking that I didn’t have enough MMORPG gaming blogs in my feed reader, so I went and added a bunch. Then, when I looked over the recent posts on all of those different blogs, they all had one thing in common (besides MMORPGs): The Newbie Blogger Initiative. 508 words.

March, 2014

  • Why I Suck At Comments. 2014-03-20 3:00 PM.
    • Blog

    I am the world’s worst blogger when it comes to dealing with comments. Partly it’s because I’m not nearly as good at “real-time” communication as writing things in advance, but mostly it’s because it’s technologically much more difficult for me to post comments at the present time. Most of my posts are written in a plain text editor and posted via. WordPress’s post-by-email feature, because I don’t have access to my site during the times when it’s most convenient for me to write. That’s why my posts rarely have pictures in them. And why the links are usually screwed up. Once I’ve emailed them in I touch up the post dates and scheduling with the WordPress Android app. 308 words.

April, 2014

  • NBI – Support Your Local Blogger!. 2014-04-25 3:00 PM.
    • Blog

    I first heard about the Newbie Blogger Initiative last year, sadly just as it was ending. I thought it was a great idea then, and I still do, so I’m supporting it this year in whatever small way I can. New bloggers need all the support they can get, because it can be pretty discouraging at the beginning. I’ve been writing and blogging about various things for years, so I know all about how daunting it can be to find and build an audience. (Honestly I only know about failing miserably at it.) Blogger communities like the NBI help tremendously. 410 words.

May, 2014

  • Know Why You’re Blogging. 2014-05-05 3:00 PM.
    • Advice
    • Blog

    There’s a lot of great advice going around about blogging this month for the NBI, and if you are new to writing or blogging (or not), you should read all of it. Thankfully many of them are summarized in the Newbie Blogger Initiative Week #1 Roundup, so I don’t have to. The only thing I can add is my own personal philosophy on this blog. But first, if you want to start a blog, just start it, and do whatever you want, and to hell with everyone else and what they think. It’s your blog and nobody can tell you how to run it (unless you violate the terms of service, that is). I mention this only because a lot of “how to blog” guides tend to focus on the “business” aspects of blogging. They tend to assume you want to blog to make money through advertising. There’s nothing wrong with that, but that’s not the only reason to blog. 553 words.
  • Scheduling Posts. 2014-05-08 3:00 PM.
    • Advice
    • Blog
    • Musings
    • Responses

    I saw this excellent post from Belghast a while back: Thumper Logic. The first part of his post got me thinking about my own publishing schedule, and as it is NBI month I thought a meta-blogging post would be a good topic. I too have tried to write one post a day-in the past. I applaud the effort, and anyone who can do it is far better at this than I am. 494 words.
  • Blogging The Hardest Way Possible. 2014-05-15 3:00 PM.
    • Advice
    • Blog
    • Responses

    In honor of the Newbie Blogger Initiative, in this post I’m going to talk about “how” I blog for Endgame Viable. That is, the actual process. I don’t recommend doing it this way. :)First, I play some games. Usually they are MMORPGs. This typically happens on weeknights and weekends.After I’m done playing games, the next morning I often go to a place where I can’t play any games, which is a place that rhymes with the surname of a famous Star Trek captain. There, if I have time, I read some blogs and tweets about what else is going on in the gaming world.By this time I have some ideas of things I want to write about. I might want to make an observation or vent about something that happened in my last play session. I might want to report about something new I did. I might have an opinion about something I read on the Internets. Most of the time, these are not particularly earth-shaking thoughts, and quite possibly not in any way unique or unusual.I open a plain text editor window and resize it to be fairly small. It usually stays open throughout the day. (At this time, I’m using WriteMonkey, but it doesn’t really matter.) I prefer writing in plain text like this because it’s unobtrusive on the screen and I’m a software developer by trade, so I’m very comfortable using text editors. 1,378 words.

June, 2014

  • Leveling Jealousy. 2014-06-05 3:00 PM.
    • Blog

    This post from Keen asked a question which I desperately clutched upon as a topic for a post. When a new MMO launches do you ever feel pressed to keep playing to stay at or ahead of the curve? Maybe you have friends playing who all seem to have more time than you do — does that bother you? I know it shouldn’t bother me and I’d be a much happier person if it didn’t, but unfortunately it does bother me to see other people in my circle of friends leveling faster than I am. I fall victim to thinking that one’s level is a measure of one’s gaming skill, when it is actually just a measure of one’s time investment. (Wouldn’t it be cool if your “level” was derived from the number of hours you’ve played a character? But it wouldn’t represent your character’s “power” level, just your character’s “age.” Of course, then a separate measurement would be required for power.) 281 words.
  • Summer!. 2014-06-24 3:00 PM.
    • Blog

    Since I’m the boss of my own blog, I’m going to declare myself on summer vacation and blog less for a little while. For one thing, I’m playing a bit less than before, and what I’m playing is mostly thoughtless grinding, so I don’t have a whole lot to report. Secondly, I decided I’m going to do Camp NaNoWriMo for July, so very soon I’m going to need to concentrate more on writing fiction than writing blog posts. I’ve fallen way behind on my dreams of becoming a best-selling author and I need a spark to get going again. (If you haven’t done NaNoWriMo before, I highly recommend it.) 130 words.

August, 2014

  • Congrats Blauggers!. 2014-08-15 3:00 PM.
    • Blog
    • Musings

    I just wanted to drop in and say congratulations to everyone participating in Blaugust: Belghast’s challenge to post every day during August. Clearly, I’m not participating, because I’m being a lazy bum this summer. Would that Blaugust had occurred in Blarch or Blay or Blune. Even if I hadn’t taken a vacation, my daily schedule has been turned upside-down so much that I’m struggling to find the right way to write anymore. The carefully constructed, complicated routine I used to use is out the window now. Now when I want to write something, I just sit down, open up WordPress in whatever computer happens to be nearby, and write. But it feels extremely weird to write that way. 251 words.
  • Why Endgame Viable. 2014-08-31 3:00 PM.
    • Blog
    • Musings
    • Responses

    Well, here’s a topic. From Rowan Blaze: Why Have I Touched The Sky? Sort of a meta-blogging topic. So my second challenge for you, Dear Reader, in these few days of Blaugust: Why did you title your blog what you did? Do you think the name still fits? My first name for this blog was Melanthius. I still think that’s a cool name that rolls off the tongue, but it doesn’t have any inherent meaning when you look at it. 209 words.

May, 2015

  • FFXIV – New To Me Dungeon Diary. 2015-05-10 3:00 PM.
    • Blog

    In my latest FFXIV ventures, I’ve done a number of level 50 dungeons for the first time, which is something I really hate, especially so long after they’ve been out. I just hate being “the new guy” in a dungeon, especially in FFXIV because it actually announces it to everyone. (Fortunately there is a reward to the other players for running with a new person, so nobody is likely to kick you out.) Here is my brief diary of how they went. (Spoiler: They all went better than expected.) 778 words.
  • The NBI And Starting A Blog. 2015-05-12 3:00 PM.
    • Blog

    Two weeks into May, and after posting a talkback post, I realized that I hadn’t even mentioned The Newbie Blogger Initiative (NBI). This is a good indication of how bad my blogging has been lately. But enough about me. NBI is a very cool effort to promote new blogs and to spread the word that now is a great time to start a blog if you’ve been thinking about doing so. NBI is generally focused on gaming blogs but nobody is going to stop you from starting a non-gaming blog, too. 451 words.

June, 2015

  • Difficulty in The Witcher 3. 2015-06-08 3:00 PM.
    • Blog

    I’ve just about had enough of the Hard difficulty in The Witcher 3. It’s fine for normal encounters, but when it comes to bosses it’s over that fine line between challenging and frustrating. And it’s not because the encounters are actually too difficult, it’s because of two things: 1) The controls are not responsive enough, and 2) It takes too long to re-load from your previous save. 336 words.
  • Blaugust Plans. 2015-06-14 3:00 PM.
    • Blog
    • Community

    To hold myself accountable, I’m going to announce publicly that I’m going to try to participate in Belghast’s Blaugust this year. That means posting at least 31 times during the month of August (once a day). Fortunately for me, I’m sure I have at least 31 half-finished posts in my Drafts folder that I can choose from. So don’t be surprised if you see posts about very old topics that everyone’s long forgotten. :) 74 words.

August, 2015

  • Blaugust 2015 Feeds In OPML. 2015-08-02 9:48 PM.
    • Blog

    Somebody else might find this useful: Blaugust 2015 OPML That is a list of Blaugust feeds exported as an OPML from InoReader. Presumably you can import that into your RSS feed reader of choice (Feedly, etc.). If the URL doesn’t work directly, you should be able to save it as a file and import it that way. P.S. I got the list from Belghast’s list of 69 Blaugust challengers. 120 words.
  • A Year Of Blog Stats. 2015-08-12 3:00 PM.
    • Administration
    • Blog

    Way back in April, Endgame Viable became a year old, statistically speaking. That is to say, in April, I had accumulated my first full year of WordPress site statistics. (The Endgame Viable “brand” was actually born on October 16, 2013, while the first post on this blog-ie. the database that powers this blog-was June 29, 2012.) I’m not one to keep a close eye on statistics, but they can be useful to see what “works” and what “doesn’t work,” and some new bloggers might be interested in what I’ve learned. 475 words.

March, 2016

  • Black Desert In Tweets. 2016-03-07 11:29 PM.
    • Blog

    Since I am too lazy/don’t have time to write a coherent post about Black Desert I thought I would take the very simple route of pasting a bunch of my tweets about it into a post. Boy was that a mistake. It turned that it wasn’t easy at all, and this post took far longer to create than I wanted it to. This is a big problem because I just got the “Learning Higher Processing Skills” quest from Ficy in Heidel, which opens up the “Pure Water for an Experiment” quest from Flaviano, which then allows you (I think) to heat Melted Copper Shards into Copper Ingots, a task I’ve been wanting to do for some twenty or thirty hours of game time now. 127 words.

June, 2016

  • NBI 2016 – Kill Hippy GIFs With Fire. 2016-06-07 2:15 PM.
    • Blog
    • Musings
    • Opinion

    The topic of animated GIFs came up in the NBI Discord this morning so I thought I’d write a little bit about it. I hate animated GIFs. That is all. No, really, I hate them. I lived through the 1990s World Wide Web, so I have vivid memories of the days when every advertiser put obnoxious blinking animated GIFs in every web ad, making every web page into some crazy dystopian night-time Las Vegas scene with blinking neon signs in every direction. (There was an early Futurama episode that captured this very well-I think it was A Bycyclops Built For Two.) It was horrible. It was so bad it birthed the entire ad-blocker industry. 514 words.

July, 2016

  • A Post-by-Email Test. 2016-07-05 6:14 PM.
    • Blog

    Today I am trying to enable posting by email on my blog again. 13 words.

November, 2016

  • The Swamp. 2016-11-13 9:28 PM.
    • Blog
    • swampip.com

    This blog contains all of my “controversial” writings. I was inspired to start writing about politics and current events again, as you might guess, by the election of Donald Trump in 2016. There was such an incredible explosion of fear, outrage, and yes, gloating, that I just had to say something. I try very hard not to deliberately offend people but of necessity these are going to be the “hot button” topics that make people mad. Please note that I have disabled comments for most of these posts because I simply don’t have the time or energy to debate this stuff. 101 words.
  • Timeline Updated. 2016-11-20 3:47 PM.
    • Blog
    • swampip.com

    I updated the Post-Election Timeline. 5 words.

May, 2017

  • Accountant, Bourne, 10 Cloverfield Lane. 2017-05-20 3:00 PM.
    • Blog
    • Media

    Last weekend I rented The Accountant on Verizon VOD. It was decent, but not quite good. I felt a pretty strong connection to Ben Afleck’s character because I can identify with many of the symptoms he reeled off about “high functioning autism.” I’ve never been diagnosed but I’ve always assumed I’m on the Asperger’s spectrum somewhere, enough to be recognizable, but not enough to be debilitating. The plot that went on around him, though, wasn’t all that interesting to me (corporate accounting woohoo). Still, there were good performances all around. 310 words.
  • Note on Comment Approval. 2017-05-31 12:00 AM.
    • Blog

    I apologize, but at some point in the last couple of weeks, WordPress decided that I needed to approve every single comment regardless of who it came from, so you may see some delays with comments showing up. I have no idea why it’s doing this. I can only assume some random thing changed with WordPress or Akismet or Jetpack recently. I’ve fiddled with some settings again tonight to see if it helps. 73 words.

June, 2017

  • FFXIV – Heavensward, What Happened?. 2017-06-23 2:30 PM.
    • Blog
    • MMORPG

    Still bumping around doing miscellaneous tasks of little import in Stormblood. But lately I’ve been thinking about Heavensward, the previous FFXIV expansion. I pre-ordered it early and was in there on early access launch day, but looking back on it two years later, I didn’t play it very much at all. (Yet for some weird reason, I remained subscribed the whole time.) In FFXIV ARR (2.x), I leveled all of the following jobs to 50: Bard, White Mage, Dragoon, Black Mage, Miner, Botanist, Carpenter, Weaver, Alchemist, and Leatherworker. I had no jobs below level 15, and most jobs at least 25. Heavensward provided plenty of great screenshots, if nothing else. 687 words.
  • FFXIV – Dun Scaith. 2017-06-26 2:30 PM.
    • Blog

    It was a big weekend for me in FFXIV, as I managed to finish up the Heavensward Main Scenario Quest, so I stand ready to begin Stormblood this week (just in time for everyone else to be finishing it :). However, since there is usually a two or three day lag between my gaming events and posts about them, let’s continue with last week’s adventures… Normally I try to stay semi-focused on meaningful progress when I’m in an MMORPG, but I had a bit of time to kill Thursday so I started wondering if I could pick up two more points of item level so I could check out Dun Scaith, the final alliance raid in Heavensward. It would do little or nothing for me at this point, but I had a couple of quests in my journal that required it, and I just wanted to see it. Kitty saves the day! 799 words.

July, 2017

  • FFXIV – Stormblood Story Summary. 2017-07-19 2:30 PM.
    • Blog

    I’m going to make an attempt here to summarize the FFXIV Stormblood story for my own future reference. There are going to be spoilers ahead if you haven’t played, although I’ll try to keep it fairly high-level and leave out every detail of how everything turns out. (That means I’m not going to tell you who lives and who dies, muhahaha.) (You can consult any of a wide variety of Wikis if you really need all the details, and may I also suggest the 58 video series I uploaded to YouTube if you get really bored and need to see all the spoilers? I just may.) 1,053 words.

August, 2017

  • The Thirteenth Doctor. 2017-08-08 2:30 PM.
    • Blog

    Here are just a few thoughts about the announcement of The Thirteenth Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, because I wanted to schedule a post for today, my first day back at work (yuck), and this was the only text I had available. I don’t have a problem with a female The Doctor. Whittaker was very good in Broadchurch. And that’s about the extent of my thoughts about the announcement. I’ve never looked up to The Doctor as a male role model, and can’t even conceive of anyone who has, or what it might be like to be a man who believes they’ve lost their favorite male sci-fi role model. 682 words.

November, 2017

  • Blogging In A World That Hates Blogs. 2017-11-20 3:30 PM.
    • Blog
    • Responses

    I usually prefer to post nothing instead of a post about blogging*, but since Roger brought it up, and I just said two posts ago that there’s nothing to blog about, let’s talk about blogging! Rather than write something that stands on its own, I’m just going to respond to the parts of Roger’s post that jumped out at me, as if it were a Usenet post. The Nature of the Beast “I’ve written several pieces that I’m proud of. However, they never got the traffic I hoped for. That’s the nature of the beast, I guess” 1,459 words.

March, 2018

  • A Fox Passing Through. 2018-03-31 3:26 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    Pictures of a fox in my back yard. 233 words.

May, 2018

  • Eurovision 2018. 2018-05-14 7:32 PM.
    • Blog
    • thomaskrehbiel.com

    My thoughts after watching the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time. 1,851 words.
  • GDPR Compliance Missive. 2018-05-25 4:33 PM.
    • Blog

    Today, May 25th (a Friday, amusingly enough for those of us who know that Friday is the worst day to deploy new things), is the day that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect for the European Union, so, since I have a web site on The Internet, and I know there are Europeans who occasionally visit this site, and supposedly I’m a professional in the information technology field, I wanted to write about it quickly. 1,697 words.

June, 2018

  • On Blogging More. 2018-06-18 2:30 PM.
    • Blog
    • Musings
    • Writing

    This is an amalgamation of an old draft from March 2017 that I never got around to publishing, probably because I never found a picture for it, and some new thoughts because the subject came up again this past week. My keyboard, stylistically distorted purely for artistic effect, not at all to mask the dust and dirt that showed up because of the side lighting angle. 2,366 words.

July, 2018

  • Flipping The Tables For Blaugust. 2018-07-29 1:39 PM.
    • Blog
    • Writing

    I’ve belatedly decided to officially participate in the Blaugust extravaganza. I wasn’t going to because frankly I didn’t think I’d be able to write 31 posts in August. (I still don’t think I will.) But late this past week I stumbled upon some information that I completely missed the first time: You don’t actually have to write 31 posts to participate. I figure that even in my crippled state I should be able to manage five or ten posts. 272 words.
  • Primary Care Doctors. 2018-07-30 12:42 PM.
    • Blog
    • Musings

    This afternoon I have an appointment with a new primary care doctor, one I’ve never seen before. I had no choice but to select a new one because I had to buy new insurance this year, and my old doctor wasn’t “in the network.” It took three months to get this appointment. I don’t like doctors even on a good day. Especially “primary care” doctors. As far as I can tell, the main goal of this type of doctor is to shove you out the office door as fast as possible with the most generic of healthcare solutions that they can think of: “Here, take this generic prescription and come back in a couple weeks if your problem’s not better.” That appears to be the main thing they teach you in primary care doctor school. 347 words.
  • The Medical Report. 2018-07-31 3:11 PM.
    • Blog
    • Musings

    The very brief medical news is: Yesterday, the doctor was considerably more concerned about my high blood pressure than my hands. I’ll be starting on some new medication for it. I have a followup appointment Wednesday morning where bloodwork will be done and they will see if my pressure is still in what they casually referred to as the “stroke zone.” They did an EKG and I got the distinct impression that if the readings had gone poorly, I might very well have been strapped to a gurney and carted to a hospital right then. But apparently the result was acceptable. 367 words.

August, 2018

  • Blaugust Introduction – Blaugust 1. 2018-08-01 7:22 PM.
    • Blog
    • Musings

    This is my back yard and the raucous neighbors who frequently visit. Today is the first day of Blaugust. I thought I would start by introducing myself, something I probably should have done a long time ago. Hi! I’m a middle-aged guy who lives alone in a somewhat rural-ish house with a dog and a cat. I’m “in my 40s,” though in truth I’m now a lot closer to 50 than I would care to admit. I was married for a time, but now I’m divorced. I don’t have any kids. I’m an INTP and/or an INFP depending on my mood when I take that test. 659 words.
  • Blog Post Topic Ideas. 2018-08-02 7:00 PM.
    • Blog
    • Discussion

    I know bloggers are always in search of topics to write about, so I thought I would throw out some ideas here at the start of Blaugust. Then I noticed some others doing that. Then I noticed topic brainstorming is actually on the schedule for the first week. Reading comprehension, yay! Anyway a__lmost all of these are based on posts that are sitting in my Drafts folder unfinished right now. What do you use Twitter for? Is it a conversation platform? Is it a notification platform? Is it safe? How do you use retweets and favorites? 726 words.
  • The Cataract Report – Blaugust 3. 2018-08-03 8:30 PM.
    • Blog
    • Musings

    Not from today, but from 2010, the last time I saw an eye doctor before 2018. This morning I finally saw the cataract specialist. It’s been about five months since the optometrist told me I had a cataract. It looks like I never wrote a full post about that. No Blaugust back then. :) The delay was mostly because of having to meet insurance requirements: To make a long story short, I have new insurance this year, and that insurance requires a referral from my primary care doctor, but I had to find a new primary care doctor because my old one was not in the new insurance network, all of which adds up to a lot of waiting for appointments. (There was also a little bit of me delaying making the appointments because I hate doing that.) 774 words.
  • New Writing Process Didn’t Work – Blaugust 5. 2018-08-05 11:44 AM.
    • Blog
    • Musings
    • Writing

    This photo of boats is completely relevant to this post! I think I’ve collected enough observational data now to abandon my new writing process. At first it was new and invigorating, but after a week it’s kind of irritating and not any better or faster. For posterity, here’s what I did: I turned on the webcam and recorded myself talking for about 7 or 8 minutes. I played back the video with VLC and set the playback speed slightly slower, and transcribed what I said into a Scrivener document. Then I copied the transcription into another Scrivener document and edited it into a blog post. I read the final post out loud several times to complete the editing process. Then I copied it into WordPress, added a picture, and published it almost immediately. 507 words.
  • Back Yard Bird-Watching – Blaugust 7. 2018-08-07 11:22 PM.
    • Blog
    • Musings

    The classic and ubiquitous American Robin from many years ago at a different house. My dad was an avid backyard bird-watcher. He would setup bird feeders and watch all the wildlife that showed up through binoculars from the living room. In the early days of video cameras, this was back in the 80s, I remember he’d setup one of those monstrous suitcase-sized VHS camcorders on a tripod to record birds at the feeders. 690 words.
  • The Hand Report – Blaugust 8. 2018-08-08 8:24 PM.
    • Blog
    • Musings

    This morning I went to another doctor’s appointment, the fourth one in the last nine days. This time I went to see a hand specialist, as I had been referred from my primary care doctor. I was amazed to be able to get an appointment to see him two days after calling. It’s interesting to see the kind of people you find in waiting rooms. Based on my meager experience the last couple of weeks, doctor’s offices seems to be the social hotspot for people over 60. Today an entourage of four older folks were in the waiting room to help one of their number with an appointment for an injured arm. I listened to them talk amongst themselves about how to fill out the medical history forms. “She has trouble with depression doesn’t she? She doesn’t want them to know about that though. How much does she weigh?” This and many other very private subjects were broadcast throughout the waiting room for anyone to hear. It was quite funny. Waiting rooms: Great places to hang out if you want to steal identities. 805 words.
  • Nineties News Nostalgia on Netflix – Blaugust 9. 2018-08-09 7:48 PM.
    • Blog
    • Media
    • Musings

     I just finished watching the American Crime Story: The People Versus O.J. Simpson series on Netflix. It’s pretty good. I’m not sure it deserved to win any Emmys, but I enjoyed it anyway, especially the second half of the series. I didn’t remember a lot of the twists and turns. I didn’t see much of anything about the whole OJ Trial when it happened. I remember the basic framework of it: The Bronco, the trial, the gloves, the acquittal. Oops, spoiler alert! Anyway I didn’t pay any attention to the details at the time. For example, I never knew that OJ’s friend is the same Kardashian that spawned all the Kardashians we know and love today. 297 words.
  • More Netflix Documentaries – Blaugust 10. 2018-08-10 6:13 PM.
    • Blog
    • Media

    You might have noticed I don’t post a lot about games here, and that’s mostly because I haven’t played much of anything in the last month. So the “here’s what I played last night” style of post is completely off the table for me so far in Blaugust. It makes it kind of hard to think of something to say. :) I could tell you what I watched last night, which was a Netflix documentary called Evil Genius: The True Story of America’s Most Diabolical Bank Heist. I had never heard of the so-called “pizza bomber” before, and the 4-part series fascinated me, in the same way that one is fascinated watching a train wreck. I don’t often watch documentaries about recent events (though I suppose one could argue that 2003 isn’t exactly “recent” anymore), and I was struck by how strange and unsettling it was to see a lot of HD footage. Documentary footage is supposed to be grainy restored film or old photographs moving around with Ken Burns’ panning and zooming effects. 550 words.
  • My Oldest Computer Files – Blaugust 11. 2018-08-11 2:30 PM.
    • Blog
    • Musings

    My dog likes to be involved with everything. They say everything’s been written before and there’s nothing new to write on a gaming blog. Well, okay, I say that, because I’m lazy and not very motivated. I keep looking at all the mountains of writing prompts floating around Blaugust, including the ones I wrote, and thinking, “Meh, I’m just not interested in writing about that today.” 880 words.
  • Developer Appreciation Overthinking – Blaugust 18. 2018-08-18 2:30 PM.
    • Blog
    • Musings

    The Blaugust theme of the week is Developer Appreciation, but I’ll be honest, I have no idea how to write on this topic. It’s one of those situations where I have to decide whether to write what I think everyone expects, or write what I actually think. I’m sure the intention here is to simply state, “I think games are great and I don’t think developers should get death threats on Twitter!” But that sounds a lot like “Sky Is Blue Week” or “Water Is Wet Week” to me. Of course I appreciate the developers of the games I play. I wouldn’t be buying or writing about their games if I didn’t! Of course I don’t think developers should be getting death threats, because I’m a normal human being who understands cause and effect, and the consequences of my actions. 830 words.
  • Blaugust Performance Self-Review – Blaugust 31. 2018-08-31 2:00 PM.
    • Blog
    • Musings
    • Writing

    Back in July I filled a directory with 70 photographs for potential use in Blaugust posts. Last chance to use them! This is Chingoteague. I’m not sure if this is sunrise or sunset but let’s just say it’s sunset to fit the theme of the post. 2,723 words.

September, 2018

  • Week End – Carbine, CCP, Daybreak, Witcher. 2018-09-08 2:30 PM.
    • Blog

    I started to write three or four blog posts this week, didn’t finish them, and didn’t want to post them. Instead I decided to cram all of them together into one summary post for the week. This allows me to post, but without the bother of crafting long essays that have beginnings, middles, or ends, when everything I want to say can be summed up in a paragraph. No wonder listcicles are so popular! I rather like the process of keeping a draft open throughout the week and just throwing sentences into it now and again as they occur to me. 1,275 words.
  • Cataract Surgery Day. 2018-09-18 1:00 PM.
    • Blog

    This is probably the last chance I’ll have to write anything before I get a cataract removed from my right eye. I’ll have scheduled this post to publish Tuesday morning, theoretically about the time of the surgery. I say “theoretically” because there are a lot of moving parts that have to come together and I feel like there’s at least a 50% chance I’ll arrive at the appointment and they’ll tell me, “Sorry we can’t proceed because some random thing wasn’t done right. And of course we’ll have to charge you for wasting our time. Have a nice day!” There were a lot of logistical things to coordinate (getting a “permission slip” from my regular doctor, getting eye drops from the pharmacy, etc.). I _think_everything is in place as I write this (Monday), but who knows? I’m very good at imagining all the things that could go wrong. 593 words.
  • Cataract Removed. 2018-09-19 12:08 AM.
    • Blog

    Just a very brief post to say the cataract surgery went well, and the procedure did in fact take about 10 minutes. I felt nothing, saw nothing, heard almost nothing except some classic rock tunes on a radio somewhere. Most of the time was spent signing consent forms, waiting for dilation drops to take effect (they dosed me three different times with dilation drops which lasted all day), and putting an IV in my arm for a sedative. I don’t think I ever lost consciousness, however my memory of the actual procedure is a bit hazy and I was a bit wobbly for a little while. If the procedure hadn’t been explained to me beforehand, I would have had no idea what they did. I can’t logically explain it but I couldn’t see or feel a thing except some colors and shapes in my vision for a few minutes. I never even saw the doctor who did the procedure. I can only presume they put something over my eye(s) to limit my vision, but I have no memory of that. Anyway then they wheeled me out, put a clear plastic shield over the eye, unhooked everything, and I was outta there. I go back tomorrow morning for them to check everything, and that’s it. 214 words.
  • Day Two Without Cataract. 2018-09-19 9:13 PM.
    • Blog

    Day two of life after cataract surgery was perfectly fine. I went to my followup appointment this morning, where the doctor barely even looked at me before letting me go again. They apparently don’t worry too much about people my age recovering from cataract surgery. But in any case the technician checked my eyeball pressure and I could read the eye chart at I think it was 20/30 through the bionic lens already. 299 words.
  • Day Three. 2018-09-20 10:25 PM.
    • Blog

    The eye continues to improve. Computer screen text is getting clearer, and sunlight doesn’t hurt as much. The “new” eye wears out quickly though in front of the computer. It starts to twitch, as one’s eyes do after reading a long time. (At least my eyes do.) It just starts happening within about five minutes. So I’m staying away from the computer except for short periods. Earlier in the year, I found that with the cataract, dark themes (white-on-black text) were easier to read, but since the surgery I’ve found the exact opposite. 181 words.
  • Day Four. 2018-09-21 11:05 PM.
    • Blog

    Okay I’m getting pretty impatient now. I want to be fully recovered right now please. The new eye is better after another day, but still a bit blurry and hard to focus on a computer monitor for any amount of time, especially text. It gets better every day, but it’s still a chore. I can see the television from a chair halfway across the room fine, though, so I’ve been watching (and re-watching, in fact) The Americans, and I started playing a little bit of The Last Of Us (Remastered) on the PS4. 185 words.
  • Comfy Questions and Answers, Part 1. 2018-09-27 2:00 PM.
    • Blog

    Nothing new to report about the eye, except the new normal seems more normal every day. I stopped using the antibiotic eye drops as instructed, and now only use the prednisone (steroid) eye drops 4 times a day for another week. (Those drops drive me crazy because I swear they have chalk in them, as if they simply crushed up some pills and mixed it with water.) I don’t see much of anything interesting happening in gaming. I feel really bad for news sites right now. There’s maybe 1 or 2 actual news stories a week, usually about games that aren’t even out yet, but they have to keep making up stuff that sounds like important news twenty times a day. 1,192 words.
  • Comfy Questions and Answers, Part 2. 2018-09-28 11:18 PM.
    • Blog

    This is a photo I took in the New York Cloisters museum some years back. Seemed appropriate for the Jesus talk down below. Had a rough night last night with back pain. One of those situations where there’s no way to stand, sit, or lie down that feels better. It’s a lot better today but I’ve also been working harder to keep myself still. Yesterday I tried to ignore it. Big mistake. Frustrating as it might be, there’s always less overall down time when you stop and rest rather than try to keep pushing through the pain or sickness. There’s your dose of adult wisdom for the day. 820 words.
  • Comfy Questions and Answers, Part 3. 2018-09-30 7:25 PM.
    • Blog

    In the interests of brevity and not boring everyone to death, I’ll edit the rest of these down to a few sentences. 12. “What is your family ancestry?” My family came from a group of Anabaptists who originated in Switzerland, moved to what is now Ukraine, and emigrated to Kansas en masse around 1874. 13. “What scares you?” A whole lot of things, mostly personal. 14. “What are you most grateful for?” Life, consciousness, self-awareness. 576 words.

October, 2020

  • Resident Evil 3 Demo. 2020-10-19 10:43 PM.
    • Blog
    • Consoles
    • Videos

    I tried out the Resident Evil 3 remake demo on the PS4 the other day. It looks nice, but the gameplay is brutal. It takes three headshots to kill a zombie, and about a dozen non-headshots if your aim is as bad as mine, so you run out of bullets in about 10 seconds flat, and then have to either run away or use the knife. The knife is not a very effective weapon. 530 words.

August, 2021

  • The First Day of Blaugust. 2021-08-01 8:57 AM.
    • Blog

    It’s the first day of Blaugust, and it’s a dreary one. 654 words.
  • On Music Posts. 2021-08-03 8:47 AM.
    • Blog

    I have what I have to assume is an abnormal reaction to music posts. 416 words.
  • A Two-Fawn Morning. 2021-08-06 8:01 AM.
    • Blog

    We interrupt this blog post creation for an unscheduled visit from some deer. 265 words.
  • Like Pulling Teeth. 2021-08-10 8:48 AM.
    • Blog

    I would say that getting me to talk or write about myself is like pulling teeth, but I’ve had five or six teeth pulled in my lifetime (or more, I honestly don’t remember), and a ton of root canals, and a ton of dental work in general, so pulling teeth is no big deal to me. 235 words.
  • What's Up With That?. 2021-08-13 11:00 AM.
    • Blog

    I have the day off today, and I have to talk for a moment about the What Up With That SNL sketches. 191 words.

March, 2022

  • Bellies. 2022-03-20 12:39 PM.
    • Blog

    I don’t want to write this, because it will make it real. 238 words.

June, 2022

  • My First Roll20 Game Wasn't Terrible. 2022-06-26 10:45 AM.
    • Blog

    Talk about getting outside your comfort zone. This is so far outside my comfort zone that it’s on a completely different planet, with a poisonous atmosphere, crushing gee forces, with a comet heading directly for it. 2,949 words.

July, 2022

  • Blaugust 2022. 2022-07-18 6:20 PM.
    • Blog
    • Writing

    Blaugust is back for another year. I don’t really need to explain it, just go do the thing. 276 words.

August, 2022

  • Comment Administration. 2022-08-04 10:55 AM.
    • Blog
    • Administration

    This brief post serves two purposes. 278 words.
  • Unexpected Coyotes. 2022-08-11 6:05 PM.
    • Blog

    Here’s something I didn’t expect to be writing about today. 309 words.
  • Common Tasks in Movie Studio Platinum and DaVinci Resolve. 2022-08-13 8:00 PM.
    • Blog

    A reference for myself of common tasks I do in video editors. 822 words.
  • Shingles Vaccine Completed. 2022-08-19 8:17 PM.
    • Blog

    It’s 8 PM and I’m exhausted, so it’s far too late for me to write a post tonight, except this one. 233 words.
  • Sick Beats and Computer Glasses. 2022-08-25 6:30 PM.
    • Blog

    Yuck. It’s one of those posts where I just write down stuff that happened today. 584 words.
  • Blaugust Tallies. 2022-08-31 5:52 PM.
    • Blog

    It’s the last day of Blaugust, so I’ll now present my summary findings to the jury. 343 words.

September, 2022

  • What's Top of Mind. 2022-09-17 9:15 AM.
    • Blog

    A new blog post series idea. 426 words.
  • Reading Fail 2022 - Top of Mind. 2022-09-20 6:06 PM.
    • Blog

    I recently hinted that I was starting a new, innovative series of blog posts about nothing. I immediately abandoned that plan and decided to work on videos instead. 322 words.

October, 2022

November, 2022

  • Twitter Firestorm - Top of Mind. 2022-11-05 8:32 AM.
    • Blog

    I suppose the social pressure is mounting to the point where I have to say something about Twitter. 733 words.
  • Mid-November Bullets - Top of Mind. 2022-11-14 10:18 AM.
    • Blog

    I’m all about throwing old traditions out the window because they don’t make sense anymore, so I present: The Mid-Month Update. 329 words.
  • Twitter Firestorm, Part 2. 2022-11-20 4:43 PM.
    • Blog

    So Twitter turned into a ghost town overnight, which was somewhat inevitable I suppose. 1,362 words.
  • Ghastly. 2022-11-25 8:46 AM.
    • Blog

    I found out that my nephew died unexpectedly a few days ago. 116 words.

December, 2022

January, 2023

  • January 2023 Bullets. 2023-01-01 8:23 AM.
    • Blog

    It’s a new year, whoopie. Nothing particularly noteworthy to report. 747 words.
  • Mid-January Top of Mind 2023. 2023-01-16 7:10 PM.
    • Blog

    An unexpectedly stressful start to the work year and a return to some gaming, instead of doing anything productive. 629 words.

February, 2023

  • February Top of Mind 2023. 2023-02-01 9:36 AM.
    • Blog

    It’s a new month and the year is already 8% complete. 1,143 words.
  • Where Do I Fit In?. 2023-02-09 8:39 AM.
    • Blog
    • Community

    To be brutally honest, the older I get, the less I feel like I fit in with other Internet gamers. 418 words.
  • A Busy Month - February, 2023. 2023-02-13 7:58 AM.
    • Blog
    • Gaming

    It’s been a busy couple of weeks. Also I need a better title for these kitchen sink posts. 1,671 words.
  • Chaos and Uncertainty - February 2023. 2023-02-28 9:58 AM.
    • Blog

    Sass mode activate! 1,226 words.

March, 2023

  • Ignorance Is Strength - March 2023. 2023-03-15 8:00 AM.
    • Blog

    It was so warm in February that flowers bloomed early and covered my car with pollen. But today we cower in fear of the Ides of March. 1,906 words.
  • Gen-Z Sleeper Agents - March 2023. 2023-03-31 8:00 AM.
    • Blog

    It’s been a somewhat uneventful couple of weeks of mundane daily routine. 2,312 words.

April, 2023

May, 2023

  • The Cliff - May 2023. 2023-05-15 8:15 AM.
    • Blog

    Redfall flops, Party-based RPGs, Baldur’s Gate videos, Kubernetes, and the news. A relatively uneventful time slice of life. 1,861 words.
  • Data Loss - May 2023. 2023-05-31 8:25 AM.
    • Blog

    Party-based RPGs, ChatGPT-powered Twitch embeds, and catastrophic NAS failures. 2,026 words.

June, 2023

July, 2023

  • The Coming Blaugust - July 2023. 2023-07-15 10:00 AM.
    • Blog

    Blaugust 2023, a little Pathfinder, setting up an ActivityPub server, what I’ve been watching, and a little more. 1,522 words.
  • The Imminent Blaugust - July 2023. 2023-07-31 8:00 AM.
    • Blog

    Blaugust 2023, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, blog site updates and microblogging, a nutritional reset, and more, in the summer heat. 2,606 words.

August, 2023

  • Nothing But Baldur's Gate 3 - August 2023. 2023-08-15 8:45 AM.
    • Blog

    There’s nothing else in the world for me right now except Baldur’s Gate 3. (No spoilers, though.) 1,346 words.
  • Creator Appreciation 2023. 2023-08-16 8:45 AM.
    • Blog

    Some hastily-written thoughts about Creator Appreciation week for Blaugust. 964 words.
  • Unspoken Community Standards. 2023-08-23 6:45 PM.
    • Blog

    Some thoughts and observations about the perilous minefield of unspoken community standards, and editing your own words. 1,275 words.
  • Vacation - August 2023. 2023-08-31 11:25 AM.
    • Blog

    Blaugust retrospective, Baldur’s Gate 3, videos, vacation, and more. A fairly bland and uninspired effort. 1,368 words.

September, 2023

October, 2023

November, 2023

  • Autumn Leaves - November 2023 Part 1. 2023-11-15 9:45 AM.
    • Blog

    Snowrunner, voting, blog work, audiobooks, and more. Well, not much more than that, really. 2,395 words.
  • Next.js - November 2023 Part 2. 2023-11-30 10:00 AM.
    • Blog

    World of Warcraft did a thing. New Next.js and AWS blog development. Dev vlogs. Lower Decks. Fairy Tale. Thanksgiving vacation. A work presentation. Jupyter. 2,536 words.

December, 2023

  • Cold - December 2023 Part 1. 2023-12-15 10:30 AM.
    • Blog

    It’s cold. Monster Hunter games. Devlogs. Doctor Who and Indiana Jones. Next.js development. Slow time at work. Dentist and poison ivy. 2,035 words.
  • End Of Year - December 2023 Part 2. 2023-12-31 10:00 AM.
    • Blog

    Oops the year’s over already. The return of Baldur’s Gate 3. Best year for gaming? YouTube stats declining. Trapped in British quiz shows again. 2,424 words.

January, 2024

  • Start of Year - January 2024 Part 1. 2024-01-15 10:00 AM.
    • Blog

    The 2024th one. Baldur’s Gate 3 finished. Warhammer Rogue Trader started. Juggling CRPG videos. Taskmaster, New Zealand, Australia, and Guy Montgomery. A new cataract enters the ring. 1,911 words.
  • Grumpasaurus Rex - January 2024 Part 2. 2024-01-31 11:45 AM.
    • Blog

    Searching for a game to enjoy. Lies of P, Alan Wake, Palworld, Enshrouded. Voicemeeter Banana. Fantasy High Junior Year. Røde PodMic USB. 3,456 words.

February, 2024

  • Toxic Bosses - February 2024 Part 1. 2024-02-15 12:30 PM.
    • Blog

    Steam Next. Toxic bosses in Lies of P and Nioh. Hellpoint. Dimension 20. New computer glasses. 1,808 words.
  • Leap Day - February 2024 Part 2. 2024-02-29 10:40 AM.
    • Blog

    Last Epoch 1.0. Nightingale Early Access. Lies of P done. Lords of the Fallen in progress. Mitigating microphone noise with console tables. Making Let’s Play videos. Dimension 20. Java. 4,646 words.

March, 2024

April, 2024

May, 2024

  • May - May 2024 Part 1. 2024-05-15 11:00 AM.
    • Blog

    Social media retreat, replacing coffee with tea, a little gaming, actual play shows, and that’s about it, really. At least I refrained from talking about TTRPGs this time. 1,711 words.

June, 2024

  • Broken Slack - May 2024 Part 2. 2024-06-01 7:15 PM.
    • Blog

    Busy hands games. More about Glass Cannon shows than you probably care about. Dune and Planet of the Apes. Broken Slack. 2,188 words.
  • Summer Is Here - June 2023 Part 1. 2024-06-15 8:45 PM.
    • Blog

    The heat is on. It’s on the streets. And in my house. More about lexical selection errors and Hitler documentaries than you probably want. 1,593 words.
  • A Review of an Audible Review. 2024-06-20 10:25 PM.
    • Blog

    Or: What Must It Be Like To Be That Person 1,936 words.
  • Eliminate human tyranny! - June 2024 Part 2. 2024-06-30 8:00 PM.
    • Blog

    The end of a hot June. A summer of MMO stuff apparently. Subtitling. A lot about The Three Body Problem. A couple of movies. 2,623 words.

July, 2024

  • Elden Ring DLC - July 2024 Part 1. 2024-07-15 9:00 AM.
    • Blog

    Finding a groove in the Elden Ring DLC. Fool Us, July 4 movies, Stainless Steel Rat audiobooks. 1,642 words.
  • July 2024 Part 2. 2024-07-31 4:30 PM.
    • Blog

    Blaugust, Elden Ring DLC, REAPER templates, television, movies, and audiobooks, the value of code coverage, and poison ivy. 2,276 words.

August, 2024

  • Introducing Me to Blaugust 2024. 2024-08-01 10:00 AM.
    • Blog

    A somewhat disturbing AI-altered photo from 2022 to introduce myself. 465 words.
  • Saturday Musing About Blaugust Systems. 2024-08-03 10:03 AM.
    • Blog

    A return to the good old days of just typing whatever I’m thinking on a Saturday morning. Were they really good days? Read on to find out! What a cliffhanger! 1,119 words.
  • AI-ing Yourself. 2024-08-06 10:00 AM.
    • Blog

    Bloggers turn to AI to find themselves. 1,961 words.
  • Recent Blog Updates. 2024-08-07 11:54 AM.
    • Blog

    An impending tropical storm, now uploading Elden Ring DLC videos, some small updates to the blog, time blindness, and Blaugust controversy?!? 974 words.
  • Does AI Steal?. 2024-08-09 12:12 PM.
    • Blog

    A discussion of whether or not AI steals from artists. 1,061 words.
  • August 2024 Part 1. 2024-08-15 12:15 PM.
    • Blog

    Elden Ring DLC completed, a burst of Disney+ activity, Song of Ice and Fire audiobooks, changes at work. 2,299 words.
  • Parasocial Media. 2024-08-16 9:40 PM.
    • Blog

    On content addiction and the parasocial nature of social media. 526 words.
  • Youtubers I Watch. 2024-08-18 4:52 PM.
    • Blog

    A simple post for a humid day with no air conditioning. 630 words.
  • How I Hung A Computer Monitor Over My Bed. 2024-08-21 10:41 AM.
    • Blog

    While I rest my back in bed, I explain a little bit about how I hung a computer monitor over my bed. 648 words.
  • The Recluse Report - August 2024 Part 2 [+audio]. 2024-08-31 9:00 AM.
    • Blog

    A long one. Wrapping up Blaugust, RSS summaries, Elden Ring DLC done, Dragon’s Dogma 2, a busted PodMic, Reafir, Saturn’s Children, the dentist and insurance. 2,818 words.

September, 2024

October, 2024

November, 2024

  • Election Day Diary 2024. 2024-11-05 6:42 PM.
    • Blog

    Random notes from an exciting/terrifying election day in America, which somehow doesn’t talk about politics. 2,664 words.
  • Post Election Remarks 2024. 2024-11-10 9:18 PM.
    • Blog

    The much-edited post-election missive and the biggest test of my spam filter yet. This one gets more political, but there won’t be any angry outbursts. 1,995 words.
  • The Recluse Report - November 2024 Part 1. 2024-11-16 10:30 AM.
    • Blog

    All is bleakness and despair, Supermassive games, leaves, Bluesky, election distraction, eh, that’s pretty much it. 1,290 words.
  • The Recluse Report - November 2024 Part 2. 2024-11-30 2:54 PM.
    • Blog

    Dark Pictures Anthology games, an assortment of random media consumption, a filling at the dentist. 1,360 words.

December, 2024

  • The Recluse Report - December 2024 Part 1. 2024-12-15 10:30 AM.
    • Blog

    Game announcements, the dream of AI-generated video descriptions realized, a week of watching movies, Fall of Casseroles wrapup, a shocking real estate development, and a lot of crazy news this month so far. 3,086 words.
  • The Recluse Report - December 2024 Part 2. 2024-12-31 4:00 PM.
    • Blog

    Football, Steam sale, refining AI-generated video descriptions, the woes of fixed-position mics, Squid Game, holiday work schedule, and pasta sauce. 2,012 words.

January, 2025

February, 2025

March, 2025

April, 2025

May, 2025

  • The Recluse Report - April 2025 Part 2. 2025-05-04 11:10 AM.
    • Blog

    The Quarry, The Devil in Me, Oblivion Remaster, Failed HDR Recordings, Last of Us, Wheel of Time, Black Mirror, initial ENT results. 2,227 words.
  • The Recluse Report - May 2025 Part 1. 2025-05-16 1:30 PM.
    • Blog

    New Gaming PC, Oblivion Remaster, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Last Of Us season 2 woes, new season of Taskmaster, disaster content, medical updates 4,026 words.
  • The Recluse Report - May 2025 Part 2. 2025-05-30 8:55 PM.
    • Blog

    Very bad health news, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 roller coaster, first look at Elden Ring: Nightrein, a bunch of movies and miscellania. 4,610 words.

June, 2025

July, 2025

August, 2025

  • The Recluse Report - July/August. 2025-08-08 2:19 PM.
    • Blog

    I honestly don’t remember what I wrote in this post and I don’t want to hold up publishing to re-read it. 1,925 words.
  • The Recluse Report - August 2025 Part 2. 2025-08-18 10:11 AM.
    • Blog

    Good health news for a change, Death Stranding 2, Dune Awakening, TTRPG stuff, movies, home improvements. 2,498 words.

September, 2025

October, 2025

November, 2025

December, 2025

January, 2026

February, 2026

March, 2026

April, 2026

  • Artemis II. 2026-04-05 8:23 AM.
    • Blog

    I’ve been completely captivated by the Artemis II mission to fly around the moon. 2,424 words.
  • The Recluse Report - April 2026 Part 1. 2026-04-16 3:29 PM.
    • Blog

    A tiny bit more Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and a crazy unexpected chemo reaction. 1,087 words.

May, 2026

  • The Recluse Report - April 2026 Part 2. 2026-05-01 11:22 AM.
    • Blog

    A long one about trying some tactical RPGs, Pathfinder: Kingmaker continued, NotebookLM for video transcripts, some shows, and other random news. 5,846 words.
  • The Recluse Report - May 2026 Part 1. 2026-05-16 6:39 AM.
    • Blog

    Evercold announced, Battle Brothers rabbit hole, and AI at work. 1,175 words.
  • The Recluse Report - May 2026 Part 2. 2026-05-31 9:36 PM.
    • Blog

    Little gaming, starting an archival digitization of World War 1 diaries, Marbles is back, and a lousy 10-pound-losing chemo cycle. 2,386 words.

June, 2026

July, 2026

  • The Recluse Report - June 2026 Part 2. 2026-07-02 4:26 PM.
    • Blog

    New MacBook, a couple blog posts I’ve seen, Genealogy stuff. 2,372 words.
  • Belghast's Passing. 2026-07-04 8:22 PM.
    • Blog

    A short acknowledgment of Belghast’s passing. 59 words.
  • Feeling Human Again. 2026-07-07 8:18 AM.
    • Blog

    An experiment in daily morning writing to prep for Blaugust. Reflecting on my chemo recovery cycle, returning to work, Under An Iron Sky, re-watching Band of Brothers. 536 words.
  • Automating Blog Metadata with Custom AI Skills. 2026-07-07 10:55 AM.
    • Blog

    Creating a custom AI helper skill to automate the process of creating titles, summaries, and blog post header images. 305 words.
  • Fighting Markdown Autocomplete and A Whopper. 2026-07-07 1:16 PM.
    • Blog

    Eating my first real meal in days while dealing with the frustrations of AI autocomplete during blog writing. 245 words.
  • Turning Off Editor Suggestions in Antigravity IDE. 2026-07-07 2:31 PM.
    • Blog

    Disabling Antigravity IDE’s auto-writing feature makes it a viable editor for drafting blog posts. 270 words.
  • Starting to Update the Blog Theme. 2026-07-07 6:45 PM.
    • Blog

    I’m using Gemini and Antigravity to modernize my Hugo blog theme. 175 words.
  • Demonstrating the Blog Post-Processor. 2026-07-07 7:16 PM.
    • Blog

    A look behind the scenes at my new AI-assisted post-processing workflow for static blog posts. 661 words.
  • AI in Blaugust. 2026-07-08 6:17 AM.
    • Blog

    Reflecting on the distinctions between AI assistance and AI-generated content before Blaugust. 1,269 words.
  • The Search for a Niche Social Circle. 2026-07-10 8:03 AM.
    • Blog

    Reflecting on the challenges of finding a true online home and a compatible social circle in the modern internet age. 362 words.