BeMused

After much pain, I got MySQL re-installed on my laptop here, and then setup a virtual host so I could play with Expression Engine. It seems like quite the full-featured CMS (I call it a CMS, even though its main feature is basically blogging…but it has so many features and uses, it seems apt to call it such), and I’ve been pondering using it. I won’t change this site here to it, as it’s more than I need and WordPress does quite the admirable job of running my little dinky journal.

But I do like EE’s set of features: Photo Gallerys, Forums*, Wiki, and MoBlog just to name a few. For a robust site, this is a quite a feature package. I think my other site would benefit from having it.

Which leads to the one problem I have so far with EE — It’s not free. $99 bucks for a non-corporate license. Which isn’t to say it’s not worth it, it’s just hard to justify spending cash for a CMS when there are several others that are free.

Has anyone used (or are familiar with) EE? Care to share your wisdom?

Guess I’ll be working on a new theme for the site, as it appears that while upgrading to the latest release, I neglected to back up my themes directory. Ah well, I guess it was time for a redesign anyways.

As the next few weeks are hellabusy, you’ll be seeing the default theme here for awhile.

Of course, this will make me make sure I get everything backed up before updating my other site. Loverly.

Well…

That upgrade went just splendidly, didn’t it?

bah

As mentioned in my previous post, this past weekend was all about camping and having a good time. I can sum up the weekend as such:

• 6pm - Arrive at the site, set up camp
• 6:30 - eat dinner, start drinking
• 7-3am - drink, drink, drink s’more, get on stripper pole (the pads to scour your brain out are to the left)

Saturday:

• 6am - wake up, grab camera and go hiking
• 8:30am - find my way back to camp
• 9-1:30pm - Kick back in the chair, spend all that time trying to convince Ann to stay
• 1:30 - Convince Ann to stay another night, make a run into town for more alcohol
• 3:00 - Shoot guns. That was a lot of fun. Oh, and drink some beers
• 4:30 - Drink more beers
• 6:00 - Dinner (good steaks!). Oh, and drink more beers
• Dinner to bed (which was some god-forsaken hour): Drink. w00t.

There was obviously a lot more involved, but you get the gist. It was quite a strange dichotomy: On one hand, there was a group of people from work, all techie-geeks. The other half of the group were from North Carolina and Tennessee, and about as redneck as you can get. Damn, I’ve not laughed that hard in a LONG time. Those guys (and gals) were hilarious…wait, let me say that right: they were HIGH-Larious, and just as drunk as could be. You can’t help but let your inner-redneck out (if you have any) when around those people.

Oh, and half-sticks of dynamite are LOUD. That’s all I’m saying about that.

This time of year always seems to get a bit crazy for me. Usually it’s end of school term combined with Rolling Thunder / Ride of the Patriots (which I volunteer for) and various activities with the kids. This year, it’s all pretty much the same, with the exception that I’m starting a new school term. Yup, I’m in summer class this year. I’m taking yet another writing class, and already have two papers to critique, two short stories to read and I had to turn in a short story and have it critiqued…and there’s only been one class.

Needless to say, I’ve been busy.

This weekend, however, should be a good decompression type of weekend. I’m going camping with about 25 other people, and it sounds like it’s going to be quite the debacle. I just got back from camping with my daughter two weekends ago. This weekend is all about “adult time”, as in no kids, lots of alcohol, firearms, and even a stripper pole.

Who knows, get enough alcohol in me, and I’ll get up on that stripper pole myself. Whoa…that’d probably scare everyone else sober. Best not.

So this weekend I decided that I needed to buy some new shorts. I ran on over to Kohl’s Sunday afternoon, and started looking around. I like the cargo-style shorts, ’cause I think having all those pockets is hoopty. I found a pair I liked and went to the fitting room to try them on. As I was checking them out in the mirror, I saw that one of the pockets had a really small pocket on top of it. Wondering if my cell phone would fit in there, I grabbed it and put it in. Nice, it fit perfect.

I came out of the dressing room, and after looking at the price of the shorts I was just trying on, decided I could probably find some cheaper ones. So I put those back, and went browsing for some others. I found two pair that were what I was looking for, and fit as well (sidenote: I’m now wearing a size smaller than before the holidays. Sweet!). So I grabbed those, a couple of shirts I found on clearance, paid for my stuff and headed home.

Part of my routine at night, before going to bed, is to basically find everything I’ll want to take with me the next morning: Laptop, wallet, keys, badge, and yes….cell phone. You can probably see where this is going now. Around 10:30 last night, as I was getting ready to head to bed, I started collecting my stuff and realized I had no idea where my phone was. I backtracked through my day and came to realization that, yes, I’d never taken them out of the pockets of the shorts I’d tried on.

So this morning found me at Kohl’s right when they opened. I walked in, headed for the shorts rack, and was dismayed to find they’d rearranged a bit. But I’d actually brought my brain with me to the store. That, and my wife’s cell phone. I pulled it out, dialed my number in, gave a half-hearted smile to the lady straightening out the pants two isles over, and started listening for some pants to ring.

Sure enough, I heard them start, two racks from where I was and on the bottom. Pulled out my phone, said “Yes!” outloud, gave the saleslady a much brighter smile, and left the store, heading to work.