/(p[eu]rls of wisdom)?/

Expect disruption

2010-03-09T11:03:00.003-06:00

Sometime this week, I'm going to be migrating away from my blogger-created self-hosted system and on to word press. This is because Blogger will soon stop supporting the FTP publication method that I use. I hope it goes well.

Words with Friends problem

2010-02-10T23:03:00.005-06:00

I know that a number of people have had problems with Words with Friends, the scrabble-like iPhone app. Sometimes is seems a game gets corrupted, and then the interaction between the app and the server gets all confused, and the app just crashes a few seconds after you start it.
Here's what worked for me. Not entirely sure why. It may work for you, it may not. It's at least worth a try.

Delete the app from your iPhone. Tap and hold on the app until the apps on your phone start to jiggle. An x will appear in the corner of the Words app; tap that, and the iPhone will ask you to confirm deleting the app. Go ahead and confirm. This deletes all the data from phone. Don't worry though, all your games are stored on the Words servers.

Download the app from the app store directly to your iPhone. Even if you'd got the pay version before, you won't have to pay again, as the app store knows you've already paid.

Do not start the app yet. Instead, turn off the phone. Don't just put it to sleep, but hold the top button down until you get the "Slide to power off" button, then slide to power off. Once it's turned off, go ahead and turn it back on again.

Now start the app. It will take a while to resync, and you may have to tap the phone a few times to stop it from going to sleep as it does so, but hopefully, it will come back, and all will be well with your app once again

Hope this helps.

changes afoot

2010-02-02T12:08:00.003-06:00

It seems that Blogger will be discontinuing the ftp-publishing method, which is how I publish my blog. So, I will be migrating, most likely to WordPress. Expect some disruption as I do this.

I know, it's been ages

2010-01-09T13:16:00.003-06:00

I somewhat neglected my blog in 2009, but I plan on rectifying that this year. While I decide what I want to blog about, here's a little of my recent news.

2009 was the year I played at least one game each day. It took a lot of my time, and I'm cutting back this year. It was, however, a lot of fun. You can read more about it on my BoardGameGeek Geeklist

The St Louis Boardgame Meetup Group that I run continues to go from strength to strength. While I'm not going to be playing a game every day this year (in fact, my first board game of the year was yesterday), this group will still take up a lot of my time.

We got a Wii and Wii Fit+ as gifts, and I've found it a lot of fun so far. We've used it a lot since the start of the year, and some of the games are pretty hard work.

And yes, I've neglected knitting, too. But I'm going to take that back up again. I think another pair of socks seems like a good plan.

New year was brought in by celebrating communion and worship with 17,000 people at Urbana 09, a student Missions conference run by InterVarsity. We volunteered earlier in the week, to help the participants with their arrival. It was a couple of early mornings for me, which was a lot of fun, even though I'm not a morning person.

Ah well, on with 2009, and hopefully some more substantial blogging.

On a final note, as heard this morning on Car Talk, a new bumper sticker: "Honk if you love Jesus. Text while driving if you want to meet Him."

New phone

2009-07-09T03:22:00.000-05:00

I now have an iPhone and I'm still figuring out its many features.

A very exhausting week.

2009-02-25T16:48:00.003-06:00

It's been a very exhausting week.

Early last week, Karyn's grandfather was in hospital, having chemo for a recurrence of brain cancer. Karyn's parents were driving from NY state to OH in order to be with him and his wife, and to help out when he came out of hospital. While they were still an hour out of OH, Karyn's uncle called them to say that her grandmother had fallen, hit her head, and was in a coma and not expected to last very long. The next day, Thursday, they took her off life support, but vital signs didn't look good. She passed away in the early hours of Friday morning.

Saturday, Karyn and I drove up to just outside of Akron, OH. Sunday was the visitation, and Monday was the funeral. Both days were pretty hard. But it was good to see family again, some Karyn hadn't seen in a very long time, and that I'd not met before.

Tuesday, and we leave to drive home. About 100 miles east of Indianapolis, still in Ohio, we are involved in a 5 car pile up. A large truck that I was about to pass decided to pull into our lane, I braked to avoid it, and we're hit from behind, and additional cars join in. We're the front car and not liable, and the car isn't damaged so badly that we can't get home, but we make arrangements to stop with friends in Indianapolis for the night to give us some breathing room.

We're now home, and the car is in the shop, and we're doing OK, though transportation is going to be problematic for us :(

Obama's elf!

2009-02-18T14:46:00.002-06:00

Scary Knitting

2009-01-23T15:55:00.001-06:00

Home!

2009-01-12T23:11:00.001-06:00

I'm home. Tired. More later.

I know, I know

2009-01-11T18:07:00.003-06:00

I've not posted nearly enough while I've been away, but I've been tired.

Tomorrow is the flight home, bags are packed, and the fun will be tomorrow getting to Heathrow...

Bedford, England

2009-01-06T14:01:00.003-06:00

Our time near Bedford has been great - we spent new year here, along with 3 family birthdays. My nephew and niece are all grown up (15 and 14 respectively - they were 11 and 10 when we last saw them), and my mum and dad are doing pretty well.

I've also managed to see Simon and Vicki (who I was at university with) and their two sons, eating at a Mongolian Barbecue (which Simon pointed out is neither Mongolian, nor barbecue). We also had a game day where Jess (another friend who went to the same university), and her fiance Dave came and played boardgames with us.

I've also played at least one game each day of 2009 so far (excepting today, but I still have 4 hours to rectify that).

And I've managed to complete a sock, knit its mate, and start on a new pair.

It's sad that we are leaving for London tomorrow, but I hope it won't be quite so long before we see folks again.

In London, we have two gaming events planned, so the 2009 consecutive days gaming should continue. I even hope to get one on the plane on the way back, just to keep it going :) We'll also be seeing some old friends I've not seen in a while - some of them for 8 years or more.

I also hope to see some nice London yarn stores. Any recommendations?

Seeing family

2008-12-30T06:58:00.002-06:00

My sister picked us up from the airport, and we had a good chat on the drive home through traffic (ahh... the M25... the world's largest car park). Hugs from Mum and Dad when we got home and lots more chatting. A bit later in the evening, my niece, Alice, came over to see us. Wow, has she grown. She was 9, nearly 10 when we saw her last, and now she's just turned 14. She's no longer a girl but a young woman.

All in all, it's good to be here, and relaxing, and having few obligations. Just what a holiday should be. I'm even doing very little thinking about work!

made it to Chicago

2008-12-28T20:48:00.000-06:00

Got to chicago safely. Waiting for the international flight. Enjoying being an AAdvantage Gold member, as that meant we skipped the lines at check-in and security, and get early boarding. I sent an email to my sister to let her know it's not the terminal we first thought. Hope she checks her email before leaving.

Too long

2008-12-27T22:45:00.004-06:00

I'm flying to England tomorrow. It's been far too long... worked out it's been over 4 years since I was last there to visit my folks so it's long overdue.

Some things in my life since that visit:

Started this blog
Learned to knit
Had a scare with an episode of Atrial Fibrillation
Got the St Louis Boardgame Meetup off the ground. (Previous events listed didn't happen, and that was when someone else was completely failing to organize it)
Had a new nephew in England that I hope to meet on this trip
Had a knitting pattern published
Bought a house
Appeared on local television
Had my gall bladder removed
Flown to Jordan for work (and two more trips after that
Shaved my head for Halloween

A lot has happened. Time to catch up with my folks.

Relaxing

2008-11-30T23:08:00.000-06:00

Today I didn't work! I went to church, and I've relaxed all afternoon and evening. it's a good feeling.

Nearly done...

2008-11-29T23:03:00.002-06:00

NaBloPoMo is nearly over. I've managed quite well in finding stuff to talk about, I think, and only a few days of silly short posts.

Work's been very busy - in fact I worked another full day today, because there's a deadline looming, and my part in the project has been fraught with problem after problem. Working through these problems diligently, with the help of colleagues, has got me to a place where the big deadline ought to go ok. However, I've managed once again to find some more problems. Fortunately, these new problems aren't show stoppers, and can be addressed after the big deadline has passed.

Also, the parent company of the company I work for has now completed a big deal, with a large amount of the new company, Clearwire, being owned by Sprint, Google, Time Warner, Comcast, and Intel, along with the original share holders. It some exciting times and should mean an interesting but good future.

That Thanksgiving Meal

2008-11-28T23:29:00.003-06:00

Although I've cooked a turkey before, this was the first time since I've been in the US that I've not spent Thanksgiving at someone's house. It's also the first time since moving here that I've cooked a Thanksgiving dinner, all on my own, because Karyn had to work that morning.

With an oven that's not working, I had available to me a portable convection oven, a roaster oven and the stove top. The roaster oven is kind of like a very large crockpot but with a metal insert instead of a ceramic one. The 12lb turkey fit inside it fine, and I put it on, along with some potatoes for roasting. In the convection oven, I'd already baked a frozen apple pie for later, and I then put in a number of large sweet potatoes. Green bean casserole was prepared, ready to go in at the appropriate moment. Then I worked on a box of stuffing, but I added some chopped apricots and some pecans to it. That then went in a dish, and into the roaster oven as well. Once the sweet potatoes were cooked, they came out. I saved two for another meal, and the rest were mashed with butter, brown sugar and nutmeg, then topped with marshmallows, to go back in later. The green bean casserole cooked, but was a little soupy (partly because they were frozen beans that I'd not drained as well as I could have after having cooked them). Giblets, onion and celery simmered merrily for hours as well, along with a lot of the juices from the cooking bird, to make the basis of a lovely gravy, and lastly some bread rolls were heated in the convection oven after everything else was done. When I came to move the turkey from the roaster oven to the serving platter... it fell apart. It was really well done, but because the roaster oven kept the moisture in it didn't dry out. It was most yummy. I think I like that way of cooking poultry and will most likely do so again in the future. After the meal, I removed the meat from the bones and then put the carcass in the crock pot with onion and spice herbs and spices to make some nice rich turkey broth. That's now cooling down ready to be put into some smaller containers to go in the freezer. I don't want to put it all in one as it's very intense and really doesn't need a lot to use in whatever it is I'll use it for. But I look forward to using it!

A yummy meal with some yummy leftovers. Yum.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T08:07:00.003-06:00

Today is Thanksgiving over here in the US. The closest equivalent UK celebration would be Harvest Festival. However, we don't stuff ourselves silly in the UK - just likely to have something similar to a Ploughman's, and also likely to have a variety show as entertainment - various skits and songs, completely unrelated to each other, just for a bit of fun, sometime in the evening.

This year, I'm thankful for a wonderful job that I really enjoy, I'm thankful for my health, thankful for an imminent chance to head back to the UK to see family.

What are you thankful for? Please comment and let me know!

Oh, and as you're sleeping off your turkey today, just remember it's nothing special about the turkey, you just likely overate.

plans for England

2008-11-26T23:06:00.002-06:00

Plans are moving on for England. I should be meeting up with a friend from University (still waiting on the final confirmation though!). We also bought new luggage today (the sale was better than the one's advertised for Black Friday, so no 4am visit to the store!).

And I've found a wonderful new (sort of) musical group to listen to, made famous by the phenomenon of youtube. That would be Straight No Chaser

Ever have one of those days?

2008-11-25T15:34:00.004-06:00

Ever known that guy who has a day that starts with everything having gone pear-shaped overnight, and he's spending all day fixing a major problem instead of doing the actual work he'd planned to do that day, even though that actual work is really important and a deadline is looming? Yeah, I'm that guy.

Mac update

2008-11-24T22:26:00.003-06:00

So, my Mac is happy again - it may have taken a long time to restore from my Time Machine backup, and then several Mac Updates later to get everything back to where it should be, but it's nice and happy again. It took a while to do, but it was a pretty painless process.

Tonight we had a venison pot roast which was tasty, and we have a turkey defrosting in the fridge for Thursday. Just wish I was spending it with friends, but everyone seems busy this year.

sad mac

2008-11-23T17:52:00.000-06:00

Another mac update, and again the mac fails to boot after the install. This time the Genius said that it looked like the disk really had gone bad, and they'd replace it for free. Since my last experience, I've been using TimeMachine to do backups and it's currently restoring. Only another 12 or so hours to go...

Leaf raking

2008-11-22T13:21:00.002-06:00

Today, my church went to neighbours and raked leaves. We did it for free, and to bless the homeowners. The two houses we did (one was a corner lot and was huge) both had owners who were sick. I took some pictures

Latest stats

2008-11-21T22:41:00.002-06:00

I just updated the record of game plays in my gaming group, and Dominion, which first hit the table November 6th is already the most played game of 2008.

I think people are enjoying it.

Anathem

2008-11-20T23:57:00.000-06:00

Anathem, by Neal Stephenson is my current late-night read. But be warned, if you're getting it from the library, it will likely take longer than your allotted 3 weeks to read it. I'm thankful for a wife that works in a library!

It's a very good book, and well written, but I don't want to say more as I don't want to spoil it! :)

/(p[eu]rls of wisdom)?/

Expect disruption

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Words with Friends problem

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changes afoot

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I know, it's been ages

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New phone

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A very exhausting week.

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Obama's elf!

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Scary Knitting

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Home!

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I know, I know

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Bedford, England

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Seeing family

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made it to Chicago

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Too long

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Relaxing

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Nearly done...

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That Thanksgiving Meal

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Thanksgiving

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plans for England

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Ever have one of those days?

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Mac update

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sad mac

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Leaf raking

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Latest stats

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Anathem

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