https://bphogan.com/2005/Recent content in 2005 on Brian P. HoganHugo -- gohugo.ioen-usSat, 31 Dec 2005 03:12:44 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/12/30/linora-update/Sat, 31 Dec 2005 03:12:44 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/12/30/linora-update/Dad called tonight to say that anyone who wants to see Linora should do it as soon as possible. We did the stupidest thing we could do by rushing out head-on into a snowstorm to get up to my parents’ place. Mom’s on oxygen and Carla says she’s weeker than she’s ever been. The hospice people were here today saying that we are nearing the end. It is only a matter of time before she will not be able to physically swallow her medication anymore.https://bphogan.com/2005/12/29/two-to-four-weeks/Fri, 30 Dec 2005 03:08:13 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/12/29/two-to-four-weeks/Dad was told today that we probably only have a few weeks left.https://bphogan.com/2005/12/26/christmas-2/Tue, 27 Dec 2005 03:02:53 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/12/26/christmas-2/Santa came to see Ana this year and brought some neat toys. After we did some Christmas stuff at home, we went up to see my parents. Christmas has always been my mom’s favorite holiday. I think she was saving up for this. She was really tired and we had to break out a wheelchair so she could save some energy. She needed help moving about the house and I had to help her take her pills.https://bphogan.com/2005/12/22/mom-made-the-paper/Thu, 22 Dec 2005 07:12:50 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/12/22/mom-made-the-paper/In case nobody wants to give out their info to the Leader Telegram, I’m posting this here. I’m sure this violates some sort of copyright or something, but I don’t care. It’s about my mom, and I didn’t get a paper copy of this so I want this here for my own personal benefit anyway. One more Christmas As the holidays near, terminally ill patients and their families pray for some extra time together Jennifer Schmidthttps://bphogan.com/2005/12/15/dreamhost-fastcgi/Fri, 16 Dec 2005 02:21:12 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/12/15/dreamhost-fastcgi/Dreamhost servers were killing off my new application and so I did some digging and found this great hack by a nice fellow named Gary on the Dreamhost forums. Modify ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-0.14.3/lib/fcgi_handler.rb or ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rails-1.0/lib/fcgi_handler.rb: def exit_now_handler(signal) dispatcher_log :info, "asked to terminate immediately" ## force to restart dispatcher_log :info, "but we will restart" restart_handler(signal) #exit endhttps://bphogan.com/2005/12/15/memorial-service/Fri, 16 Dec 2005 02:16:52 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/12/15/memorial-service/Alan’s memorial service was today. It was a very nice service, highlighting some great moments from his life. After the service, we had lunch and I talked with Titus and George for a while about old times. It was a strange feeling. Titus looked like he was doing his best to put on a good face for everyone, but I still wish I could do more.https://bphogan.com/2005/12/11/christmas-party/Sun, 11 Dec 2005 16:35:27 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/12/11/christmas-party/The party was a mild success. We made way too much food this time around though. We were expecting a bigger turnout than we had, but we learned a lesson: Next time I think we’re just going to plan a bit smaller. Chris and Katie came with the cute little Ava. It was nice to be able to catch up in person instead of over the phone. After the party, we cleaned up a bit, watched some shows, played some games, and played with the baby a bit.https://bphogan.com/2005/11/26/sad-day-2/Sat, 26 Nov 2005 16:37:05 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/11/26/sad-day-2/I just heard this morning from my parents that Alan Seilheimer passed away this week in Marshfield. He was undergoing a treatment for cancer. Alan is the father of Titus, my good friend of more than 20 years. He’s like family to me and I’m truly saddened by this. Right now I don’t even know what to do, though I want to do something. Titus is right. Cancer sucks.https://bphogan.com/2005/11/16/interesting-issue-at-my-school/Wed, 16 Nov 2005 23:29:22 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/11/16/interesting-issue-at-my-school/JS Online: Bible study policy raises ire Every Tuesday last school year, Lance Steiger took a Bible to the basement of his dormitory at UW-Eau Claire and led a small group of friends in a discussion about a particular chapter or verse. Steiger, a resident assistant and a junior at the time, said he was never told he could not lead a Bible study in the dorm where he worked helping students adjust to college classes and campus life.https://bphogan.com/2005/11/13/some-me-time/Sun, 13 Nov 2005 17:37:19 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/11/13/some-me-time/Listening to: “You Love To Sing” by Copeland Today is just for me to spend some time by myself. Ana and Carissa are gone for the day and nobody else is around. I’m just spending the day listening to music and doing small projects around the house. I had a really great weekend. Some friends were over on Friday night and we played some video games, drank some booze and ate some really good pizza.https://bphogan.com/2005/11/11/that-awful-feeling-again/Fri, 11 Nov 2005 06:53:22 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/11/11/that-awful-feeling-again/This is from an email from my dad. I’ll just let you read it. Hi, Everyone, As most of you know, approximately 4 years ago, Linora was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Treatments have consisted of chemotherapy, radiation, and a stem-cell transplant. Because none of these treatments produced a remission, her last option was a bone marrow transplant. However, in order for the transplant to succeed, the lymphoma had to be brought under control with high-dose chemotherapy.https://bphogan.com/2005/11/09/update/Wed, 09 Nov 2005 19:48:10 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/11/09/update/I don’t have much news to report, other than Mom went back to the hospital again and now the doctor wants to have a “family meeting”. If it’s like the last family meeting then it’s not a good thing.https://bphogan.com/2005/10/26/this-is-the-coolest-illusion/Wed, 26 Oct 2005 05:05:19 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/10/26/this-is-the-coolest-illusion/Check this out! It’s one of those neat optical illusion thingies you usually get in the email. This one actually worked for me. Damn cool illusionhttps://bphogan.com/2005/10/21/i-need-to-learn-more-scales/Fri, 21 Oct 2005 22:55:22 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/10/21/i-need-to-learn-more-scales/I can’t improvise on the guitar like I can on the piano. I can play chords and I can play along with others, but I often have to capo in order to keep up. I don’t play it as often as I should. I have a great guitar that I bought from a good friend of mine and I love to play it. I just need more time.https://bphogan.com/2005/10/21/long-week/Fri, 21 Oct 2005 22:40:20 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/10/21/long-week/Listening to: “Conclusion” by Keih Jarrett So I’m winding down a long week by relaxing to some cool music via Pandora. If you’ve not had a chance to play around with it yet, you should give it a try. You enter an artist or song that you like and it creates a personalized radio station for you. You get to rate the songs and it will tailor the station to your tastes.https://bphogan.com/2005/10/18/awful-feeling-feeling-awful/Wed, 19 Oct 2005 01:53:23 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/10/18/awful-feeling-feeling-awful/I don’t want to start preparing. I don’t want to think about what’s happening but it’s getting closer and it’s eating away at me. I don’t sleep well anymore and I’m constantly dealing with an upset stomach. I called her tonight and she sounded so tired and so out of it. She didn’t even recognize me right away. We didn’t talk long because she needed her rest because the nurses keep waking her up.https://bphogan.com/2005/10/13/looking-forward/Thu, 13 Oct 2005 19:23:17 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/10/13/looking-forward/This weekend should be a lot of fun. Some good friends are coming in from out of town and we’re all looking forward to sharing some memories, laughs, and some fine whiskey. (or soda). I’m excited.https://bphogan.com/2005/10/13/closer/Thu, 13 Oct 2005 18:41:49 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/10/13/closer/The bathroom’s almost done. It’s been painted and there just needs to be one last thing done; putting some sort of cover to fill the gap where the tub meets the floor.https://bphogan.com/2005/10/05/happy-birthday-to-me/Thu, 06 Oct 2005 01:26:55 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/10/05/happy-birthday-to-me/I had a pretty good day today. I woke up early to get Ana ready for school. Her school had a special “Walk To School” day where all of the kids walked with their families or other grown-ups. The UWEC Football t eam was there to help out as well which was really cool to see. After we dropped her off at the school, we went home for a bit and then headed out to run a few errands.https://bphogan.com/2005/09/28/taming-the-bathroom-from-hell/Thu, 29 Sep 2005 01:38:14 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/09/28/taming-the-bathroom-from-hell/Today was the day that Mark and Dave were going to help me start work on the bathroom. Mark was unable to make it, but Dave was able to get most of the work done by himself I made sure to be around to answer questions and make some decisions, but I did learn a lot. Thankfully, I was able to work from home today so I didn’t have to take the day off.https://bphogan.com/2005/09/17/harmony-659-the-best-universal-remote/Sat, 17 Sep 2005 17:39:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/09/17/harmony-659-the-best-universal-remote/My wife bought me the Harmony 659 universal remote as an early birthday present. I’d been looking at one for about 6 months after my last universal remote failed miserably to control my devices. My take on it? Absolutely fabulous, once you get it configured. You have to know the model numbers for all of your devices. That was the first tricky part. The next problem I had was that I have a PC connected to my TV to play music, videos, and games.https://bphogan.com/2005/09/11/fun-day/Mon, 12 Sep 2005 04:02:08 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/09/11/fun-day/Mark at Rock ‘n’ Roll To Go held his End of Summer Bash today. It was a great outdoor get-together. Many of the cool inflatable attractions were out for the kids. Ana had a great time on the Titanic slide and the Ironman obstacle course. It was a great chance for Mark to thank the Eau Claire area, but it was also a chance for him to show off a bit.https://bphogan.com/2005/09/09/anas-first-day/Sat, 10 Sep 2005 04:06:02 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/09/09/anas-first-day/Things have been pretty crazy around here lately and I've been meaning to write this post. Ana had her first day of school on September 1st, 2005. As you can see from the photo, she was really excited to go. She's been doing the school thing for a full week now and she still likes it. She enjoys her teacher and seems to be making some new friends. Kids grow up quick.https://bphogan.com/2005/08/30/where-am-i/Wed, 31 Aug 2005 04:17:49 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/08/30/where-am-i/I’ve been spending time in the Rails community helping out fellow developers with their problems. I’ve spent a few hours a night in #rubyonrails on IRC.FREENET.ORG. It feels really good to help others figure out their problems. On a related note, I have an article up on the Rails Wiki that shows how to set up a development environment using Eclipse. You can find that here.https://bphogan.com/2005/08/23/shes-growing-up/Wed, 24 Aug 2005 03:49:55 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/08/23/shes-growing-up/We took Ana to her new school tonight. We got to eat in the lunchroom and have some less-than-good pizza on those great partitioned lunch trays. We got a chance to see the classrooms that the kids will use and Ana had a nice time with the other kids. She’s really excited to go to school and she wanted to go back tomorrow. Wonder how long that will take to change!https://bphogan.com/2005/08/23/whats-going-on/Tue, 23 Aug 2005 21:59:24 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/08/23/whats-going-on/I’ve moved the site to a new host with loads of bandwidth and space. I am going to keep this as my personal blog but I plan to start publishing more things on the site so please bear with me.https://bphogan.com/2005/08/19/broken-record/Fri, 19 Aug 2005 18:02:28 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/08/19/broken-record/Mom called. She’s back in the hospital again, this time for red blood cells and magnesium. I’m not handling this well.https://bphogan.com/2005/08/15/what-a-blast/Mon, 15 Aug 2005 18:01:02 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/08/15/what-a-blast/I had a great weekend. We headed down on Thursday night and stayed in Janesville. The next morning, we drove to Neal’s parents’ house where we lounged around for most of the day. Carissa had to go and have her nails done for the wedding and we had to go and make sure the tuxes fit. Friday night was the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner at a really nice Itallian place.https://bphogan.com/2005/08/11/hospital-again/Thu, 11 Aug 2005 17:37:32 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/08/11/hospital-again/Mom’s back in the hospital again. She’s been there since Monday I guess. I wish she would have called sooner. I have to go out of town for the wedding this weeekend.https://bphogan.com/2005/08/01/nice-visit/Mon, 01 Aug 2005 17:35:03 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/08/01/nice-visit/I visited my aunt and uncle (Anne and Bob) this weekend and I had a wonderful time. It was good to catch up with them. Carissa and I had a party to go to that weekend and we decided to leave a day earlier and visit with them since they were on the way. I’m very glad we did. The barbecue at Neal and Sara’s place was a lot of fun.https://bphogan.com/2005/07/22/unix-tools/Fri, 22 Jul 2005 05:19:04 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/07/22/unix-tools/I was working on my PE disk tonight and I came across these tools that I totally forgot about. UnixTools is a collection of command-line tools that are ports of the most common and useful “Unix Tools” a typical Unix / Linux admin would run across. So now you can use “grep” in Windows, and you can stop confusing “dir” with “ls”! Download the files here (~2.7 MB)… the file is a self-extracting archive that will prompt you for an install path.https://bphogan.com/2005/07/22/rails/Fri, 22 Jul 2005 05:14:03 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/07/22/rails/I’ve been spending a lot of time with Ruby on Rails and I love it. I love it so much that I hate ASP and PHP more than anything. Rails takes all of the crap about programming that I hate and gets rid of all of it. It lets me avoid doing all of the database-to-form mapping and validation stuff that I hate and instead lets me focus on the presentation and design of the site.https://bphogan.com/2005/07/22/from-mom/Fri, 22 Jul 2005 05:07:29 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/07/22/from-mom/Mom says: I’m going for the bone marrow transplant after all. I keep hearing all these success stories and I figure I’m too young to give up. I just have to recover my normal blood counts and that won’t happen ’til at least August. In the meanwhile, I get platelet transfusions and shots that produce white blood and red blood cells I completely support her decision, but I am really worried.https://bphogan.com/2005/07/16/history-of-the-laugh-track/Sat, 16 Jul 2005 14:19:09 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/07/16/history-of-the-laugh-track/Much of the “canned laughter” used on the soundtracks of sitcoms is said to have come from tapes that were originally recorded during broadcasts of “The Red Skelton Show” in the late 1950s and early ’60s. It is eerie to realize that when we encounter a laugh track (or “sweetening”) in a recent show, some of the people we hear laughing may have been dead for decades. Yet their guffaws go on forever.https://bphogan.com/2005/07/14/learn-physics-with-mario/Thu, 14 Jul 2005 14:17:06 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/07/14/learn-physics-with-mario/This awesome flash animation is a fun and very well done way to learn about some physics concepts like frequencies and amplitudes. Check out the movie here.https://bphogan.com/2005/07/13/fun-movie-stuff/Wed, 13 Jul 2005 18:53:01 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/07/13/fun-movie-stuff/ Dr. Doom reviews “Fantastic Four” movie. The Sith Explainedhttps://bphogan.com/2005/07/06/mmmmmm-recirculated-air/Wed, 06 Jul 2005 17:47:36 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/07/06/mmmmmm-recirculated-air/The AC is in, and the house is much more comfortable. I slept great last night, so great that I didn’t even want to wake up. I had to take the morning off because the electricians had some more work to do and I wanted to be there when the big stuff was going on. I left them to their work about 11:30 or so, and I guess we’ll see how much of my house is left when I get hom.https://bphogan.com/2005/07/01/raiden/Fri, 01 Jul 2005 14:26:01 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/07/01/raiden/Raiden was one of my favorite platform space shooter games when I was a kid. Now, some enterprising Flash developors have made a wonderfully accurate (and great-looking) remake that you can play online. Play RaidenXhttps://bphogan.com/2005/07/01/no-ac-yet/Fri, 01 Jul 2005 14:23:14 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/07/01/no-ac-yet/I was all ready to have my AC installed today, but because of the storm, XCEL Energy (the local energy concern) decided to cancel my service and inspection. The electricians need to have the power company come out and shut things off for them so they can work, and all of the crews are out of town working to restore power to other people’s homes. But screw them… I’m hot!https://bphogan.com/2005/06/29/burning-the-candle/Wed, 29 Jun 2005 22:49:02 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/06/29/burning-the-candle/It’s late and I should be sleeping. It’s cooler in the house than it’s been the last few days, but I am still sweating a bit. I’m tired because I’ve been working on very little sleep; the weather has been making it difficult to get comfortable. I’m trying to finish up the rnr site this week and I’m working on a very frustrating project at the office as well. I’m looking forward to Thursday, when I will just be able to sit back and relax while the contractors install my new electrical and central air systems.https://bphogan.com/2005/06/27/update-kde-on-white-box-enterprise-linux-4/Mon, 27 Jun 2005 15:10:41 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/06/27/update-kde-on-white-box-enterprise-linux-4/You must be Root to do this. You must also not be running KDE when you do this. At the graphical log-in screen, press CTRL+ALT+F1 to get to a prompt. Install YUM. If you don’t have this installed, place the 4th CD in the drive. Look for the file ‘yum-2.2.0-0.fc3.rpm’ and copy it to your home folder. Once copied, install it using the standard rmp -ivh ~/yum-2.2.0-0.fc3.rpm Add the repository to your /etc/yum.https://bphogan.com/2005/06/26/transitioning/Sun, 26 Jun 2005 06:59:04 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/06/26/transitioning/This site is going to take a while to get under control. I have a lot of pages to convert. One nice thing is that my site finally has a search, so I plan to start posting a lot more useful information on here now that I can actually find it. I’m glad I made it to the new blog without losing any posts because I have a lot of interesting things in there.https://bphogan.com/2005/06/24/supreme-gives-companies-the-right-to-bulldoze-homeowners-houses-for-minimalls-and-the-like/Fri, 24 Jun 2005 14:47:34 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/06/24/supreme-gives-companies-the-right-to-bulldoze-homeowners-houses-for-minimalls-and-the-like/Boing Boing: Supreme gives companies the right to bulldoze homeowners’ houses for minimalls and the like Where do I start? Eau Claire has a few run-down areas that I’m sure the city would like to just plow over. Wal-Mart is probably really upset that they missed this opportunity to build a “Super Center” near Germania and Birch Street. I should be quiet… we don’t want to give anybody any ideas.https://bphogan.com/2005/06/22/house-updates/Thu, 23 Jun 2005 04:34:44 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/06/22/house-updates/We’re going to get our electrical upgrade taken care of on Thursday of next week. The air conditioning will go in on the same day. It could take more than one day but I’m really excited to get this done. Tomorrow will be another hot day, with a high of 95 or so. That’s going to be rough, although the house hasn’t been terribly warm yet.https://bphogan.com/2005/06/21/uncle-dan/Wed, 22 Jun 2005 03:40:27 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/06/21/uncle-dan/My uncle died this weekend. My mom’s brother, and the one who taught me a lot of neat things when I was very young. My mom was at school and my dad worked, so he lived with us and took care of me during the day when I came home from school. We would always look at the stars together, and I remember one time when he woke me up at 3:00 in the morning to go watch a meteor shower.https://bphogan.com/2005/06/21/back-again/Tue, 21 Jun 2005 20:45:21 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/06/21/back-again/After almost two months, I am blogging again. This hiatus was imposed by Blogger, who have been unable to get my blog publishing again. I found a workaround and have migrated everything to WordPress. However, this means that some things on this site are not going to work quite right. I have to convert all the pages from ASP to PHP. I might lose the GPA calculator because nobody uses it anymore.https://bphogan.com/2005/05/01/100-times-better/Sun, 01 May 2005 13:49:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/05/01/100-times-better/Wow! Now that the bathroom has been patched, repainted, and decorated, it looks so much better than it did before. I spent about 10 hours in there yesterday patching, priming, painting, and fixing things. I managed to stabilize the showerhad a bit with a shim. I then shot some caulk into the hole to keep it from moving.https://bphogan.com/2005/04/28/all-moved-in-2/Thu, 28 Apr 2005 06:16:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/04/28/all-moved-in-2/We just finished the move. We’re in the process of setting all of our stuff up, and I’m in a lot of pain. My students helped me paint my house last weekend and in order to prepare for that, I had to do a lot of hands-on renovation like pulling up carpet strips and other assorted crap. I ended up with a lot of cuts on my hands and they really hurt.https://bphogan.com/2005/04/26/see-you-soon/Wed, 27 Apr 2005 04:27:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/04/26/see-you-soon/Going offline for a few days. Lots of moving to do!https://bphogan.com/2005/04/24/346/Mon, 25 Apr 2005 01:33:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/04/24/346/Painting’s done. Thanks to Dan, Travis, Erich, Josh, Kristi, Matthew, and Titus who came by on Sunday to help out. It was good to see Titus. I felt bad that we couldn’t go out and do something, but at least I got to see him. We all had pizza and beer to celebrate all of the hard work and we enjoyed the evening. I still have more painting to do, but I am so burned out right now that I don’t even want to think about that.https://bphogan.com/2005/04/22/dead-tired/Sat, 23 Apr 2005 03:29:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/04/22/dead-tired/I just spent the last two days working on this house and I hate it. I’m frustrated that I didn’t get nearly as much done as I’d wanted to. We did get the carpet strips removed, but I found that I have a couple of broken stairs, some slivered wood, and a bathroom that is worse than I feared. Upon removing some loose paint around the tub, I managed to pull off the top layer of the drywall underneath the showerhead.https://bphogan.com/2005/04/19/dirty-walls/Tue, 19 Apr 2005 13:37:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/04/19/dirty-walls/Josh, Eric and I finished washing the walls in the living room and dining room tonight instead of practicing Karate. The walls were so filthy that we went through about 30 gallons of ammonia water for just two rooms. The color of the walls has changed quite a bit, and I think we may have actually taken some of the paint off of the walls too. That’s alright though because we will be painting it this weekend.https://bphogan.com/2005/04/18/floors-from-hell/Mon, 18 Apr 2005 14:17:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/04/18/floors-from-hell/Carissa, Ana, and I spent the weekend over at the new house doing some work. We pulled up the carpet that was in the living room, dining room, and hallways. There was so much dust underneath the carpet that I couldn’t breathe. The smoke smell was awful and when we took the carpet outside to get it out of the house, I nearly threw up from choking. THere was almost an inch of dust on the floor where the carpet had been, but after we cleaned up the dust, the floor looked pretty decent.https://bphogan.com/2005/04/14/closing-time/Thu, 14 Apr 2005 19:12:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/04/14/closing-time/We closed on the house today. It really wasn’t a very big deal. We signed a lot of papers and read a lot of legal forms, at which time we were handed the keys. Dad and I spent some time this morning coming up with a game plan of how to handle some of the repairs that need to be done. But now I have to spend some time doing some work.https://bphogan.com/2005/03/28/its-on/Tue, 29 Mar 2005 02:05:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/03/28/its-on/We are officially buying a house. Unless something horribly wrong is found during the inspection, we’re all ready to go. The offer was accepted today, and it’s been faxed to our loan officer. After I was told that it was accepted, I told Ana and she was just thrilled, but then she said “Daddy, I’m going to miss this place.” That’s when it sunk in; the fact that this place that I live in now, the place I’ve called home for almost three years, will no longer be my home anymore.https://bphogan.com/2005/03/26/update-on-the-house/Sun, 27 Mar 2005 01:54:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/03/26/update-on-the-house/Brian from Scheppke Real Estate called today. He’s taking care of our purchase while John is on vacation. He said that the reason the house is so cheap is because they’re settling an estate. That’s great news for us because the people who have to accept the offer have to come in from out of town to look at it. Hopefully they’ll just want to get it over with and we can get moving.https://bphogan.com/2005/03/26/celebration/Sat, 26 Mar 2005 16:41:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/03/26/celebration/We spent about two hours going over paperwork and signing forms. We made our offer and John had already talked to the seller’s agent about the offer. John seems very confident that they will accept the offer. If they do accept, we will move in around April 20th, which will give us a week to paint and move. We grabbed some pizza and watched The Holy Grail with Erich and Josh.https://bphogan.com/2005/03/25/so-i-hear-you-want-to-buy-a-house/Fri, 25 Mar 2005 19:16:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/03/25/so-i-hear-you-want-to-buy-a-house/John (our broker) called. We’re going to buy a house! We discussed how much to offer and I decided to take 2% off of the asking price. I think that should be more than fair. John seems to think that this is a great house as well, and he thought it was clear and away the best house we looked at. We have a meeting at 4:30 today to sign an offer.https://bphogan.com/2005/03/25/go-buy-a-house/Fri, 25 Mar 2005 18:06:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/03/25/go-buy-a-house/The loan officer just called and said that we should make our offer! I’m really excited now.https://bphogan.com/2005/03/25/waiting-2/Fri, 25 Mar 2005 13:50:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/03/25/waiting-2/I just talked to the loan officer at the bank. He’s going to do the paperwork for us to get preapproved. We had already applied and were approved for a loan two years ago, so he just pulled that application and had me give him some updated information.https://bphogan.com/2005/03/24/this-sucks/Fri, 25 Mar 2005 04:04:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/03/24/this-sucks/I can’t believe how long this homebuyer course is. It’s taking forever and we have to do these stupid quizzes after each section. Soon I will be done, and I will be one step closer.https://bphogan.com/2005/03/24/buy-it/Fri, 25 Mar 2005 03:47:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/03/24/buy-it/My dad’s first comment to me and Carissa was that we should buy that house. They went through the house today with the camera and my parents were both really excited! I’m inclined to agree. My dad sees a lot of things we could do to improve it but he seems to think that the house is in great condition and it’s really a steal. We’re still wondering why the house’s price is so low, but we really can’t pass this up.https://bphogan.com/2005/03/22/ct-scan/Wed, 23 Mar 2005 02:33:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/03/22/ct-scan/I had a CT scan today so they could look at my sinues. The headaches are still here and they really bother me. I’m a little worried that they are going to find something serious though. I’m probably just worrying over nothing.https://bphogan.com/2005/03/21/finished-looking/Tue, 22 Mar 2005 00:33:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/03/21/finished-looking/Most of the houses we saw were just awful. We were starting to feel like we weren’t going to find anything good in our price range. The house I was exited about just isn’t big enough. It’s very nice and really well designed, but it’s pretty small. We did find one place, though. It has five bedrooms and a huge basement. It doesn’t have air conditioning, so I’m very apprehensive about that.https://bphogan.com/2005/03/21/looking-at-houses/Mon, 21 Mar 2005 19:45:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/03/21/looking-at-houses/We’re going to look at some houses today. We’ve rounded up seven houses and we’ll be spending the afternoon with our current landlord who we have hired as our broker. I’m really excited to look at one house in particular, although it looks like it may already have an offer so it may be off the market. It has a really niced finished basement with a family room. I would love a finished basement.https://bphogan.com/2005/03/02/waiting/Wed, 02 Mar 2005 21:05:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/03/02/waiting/I’m sitting here in the classroom having just finished up the lab for the day, and I am completely in awe of the fact that I haven’t received any work-related emails today. This means that either nothing happened, or nobody is telling me about it. Either way, that’s fine with me, as I am going to be grabbing some beers with two of my good friends in a few hours.https://bphogan.com/2005/03/01/cheeseburgers-at-night/Tue, 01 Mar 2005 22:31:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/03/01/cheeseburgers-at-night/Cheeseburgers at Night Originally uploaded by bphogan. During our Oracle training, we discovered how great this place was and our instructor wanted to go there for lunch. We told him that it was only open at night, but he insisted that it was open. Upon arriving, he saw that the lights were on so he did a victory dance only to immediately discover that the doors were locked. I took this photo that evening as a gag.https://bphogan.com/2005/02/25/firefox-tricks/Fri, 25 Feb 2005 21:18:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/02/25/firefox-tricks/These tips were found over at the Firefox Support Forums site. The ones listed here are the ones I use all the time and so I thought I would share. If you’re not using Firefox yet, you should. CTRL+T (Control + T) opens a new blank tab. Instead of clicking the Back or Forward buttons, hold down the Shift key and turn the scroll wheel to back or forward. You can also usehttps://bphogan.com/2005/02/25/new-ipod-software/Fri, 25 Feb 2005 20:13:00 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/02/25/new-ipod-software/There's a new version of the iPod software available for download today. It adds some new features to all of the iPod models, including my old G2 model. On the G3 and above, it adds a new “Import Photos” option that is supposed to be used with a new camera accessory that will be coming out in the next few months. This could be a great thing for photographers. I've always wanted the ability to store photos on my iPod.https://bphogan.com/2005/02/25/sick-and-tired/Fri, 25 Feb 2005 19:01:01 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/02/25/sick-and-tired/Lately, I’ve been busy doing things other than playing online, such as taking care of a sick Ana and getting some rest myself, as I seem to have caught a bit of what she had. This Sunday, I leave once more for some Oracle training. This is the last time I have to go, and I’m really looking forward to it. I’m going to miss my family but I love to learn.https://bphogan.com/2005/01/23/settling-in/Mon, 24 Jan 2005 03:37:28 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/01/23/settling-in/I just finished getting settled into my hotel room and I went for a walk around the outside mall which is located right outside the back door of the hotel . The hotel is really nice. I have three wireless Internet access in my room so I can sit on The chair or on the bed and do my e-mail or write an entry in my blog. Have a look at my pictures that I posted on the site.https://bphogan.com/2005/01/23/server-service/Sun, 23 Jan 2005 21:23:46 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/01/23/server-service/The Windows Server service allows a computer to share printers and files with other computers. It’s a resource hog that you may want to shut down and disable if you don’t plan to share files or printers with others. However, you may want to enable this service temporarily to share some files. Here’s a quick script I wrote to let you do just that. @echo off sc.exe config lanmanserver start= auto sc.https://bphogan.com/2005/01/23/heading-out/Sun, 23 Jan 2005 20:35:18 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/01/23/heading-out/Here I am, writing an entry in the blog when I should be finishing up all of the things that I have to do before I go away for one full week of Oracle training. This is week one of three, and this one should be relatively easy since I already know my way around SQL pretty well. I’m still interested in this class because half of the material will be completely new to me.https://bphogan.com/2005/01/12/political-science-lesson-fascist-regimes/Thu, 13 Jan 2005 02:29:29 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/01/12/political-science-lesson-fascist-regimes/Political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt recently wrote an article about fascism (“Fascism Anyone?,” Free Inquiry, Spring 2003, page 20). Studying the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile), Dr. Britt found they all had 14 elements in common. He calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism. The excerpt is in accordance with the magazine’s policy. The 14 characteristics are: Powerful and Continuing Nationalismhttps://bphogan.com/2005/01/04/happy-birthday-ana/Tue, 04 Jan 2005 17:20:03 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/01/04/happy-birthday-ana/Today is Ana’s 5th Birthday. She was born on January 4th, 2000, so it’s always easy to remember how old she is!https://bphogan.com/2005/01/02/happy-new-year-2/Sun, 02 Jan 2005 06:10:17 +0000https://bphogan.com/2005/01/02/happy-new-year-2/I hope everyone had a good holiday season. I know I did. I took two weeks off of work and have been having a great time with my wife. Ana’s been gone these last two weeks and I really missed her, but she’ll be home tomorrow and then I can give her the presents I got her for Christmas. She’s going to get some more presents on Tuesday when she turns five.