Kyle M. Perkins

Sorry for the bad pun, but that's the way it seemed today. We saw that it was snowing last night, so Keat got up a little early and found out that classes were on a 2-hour delayed schedule. So what did we do: we slept for 2 more hours. We finally got up at around 9:30 and got our things together to leave. I didn't want to get out of the comfy, thick, warm covers. I thought "the world can end before I'll get out," but Keat had to get to class.

There was snow on the ground, and more falling every minute. My hands were about to freeze off. After working up the courage to brave the cold, we went to my car only to find out that my doors were frozen shut. What luck. I went inside and got a pitcher of water to pour on the ice. I went back outside, and Keat had the passenger doors open. I guess that side was facing the sun. I focused back on the pitcher, and poured it on the driver-side windows and doors. After some wiggling, the doors finally opened and I started up the car. It was a little squeaky due to the cold, but we made it to HCC.

I dropped Keat off at class and I went to the Mill Pond to take some pictures of a snow-covered mill house on a pristine lake. What a picturesque moment! Too bad my phone doesn't take very good long-distance photos. I was driving to the office when Keat called me saying her class was over. Apparently, the teacher was just collecting papers. I went back to her and dropped some more stuff off. Then, I went to the office again.

I caught up on my email, RSS feeder, and other related interests. A few main things I wanted to take care of were the Uptime status report on the ShadowDev.com site, "Latest Comments" on the blog, and a few other items.

According to Pingdom, the new server has a surprisingly decreased downtime as compared to the old server. The report said that the old server had a 99% uptime ratings, and so far, the new server has a 74% uptime. So much for the guarantee...

I found out that there were a few things that didn't transfer from the old server to the new server, including some of the recent changes I made to the blog. I played "code catchup" for a few things (including re-referencing the format_link alrorithym from the old server to the new; apparently, the new server couldn't find the right file and couldn't parse the functions, so the Twitterfeed fetcher and RSS maker wouldn't work), then worked on the "Latest Comments" section, which took the most time. I put in the following code to retrieve the title of the responded entry the comment was left for:

$sql="select `title` from `journal` where id=$id";
 
list($title)=mysql_query($sql) or die("Error 30: ".mysql_error());
 
echo $title;

and ran the code. It didn't turn up what I expected. As a matter of fact, it didn't turn up anything! The source code, the output buffer, the error reporting...all were blank. I spent the next hour trying different things to figure out the issue. I finally gave up and referenced the PHP online documentation. What I found made me felt stupid. I had to add one line to the above code for it to work properly:

$sql="select `title` from `journal` where id=$id";
 
$result=mysql_query($sql) or die("Error 30: ".mysql_error());
 
list($title) = mysql_fetch_array($result);
 
echo $title;

Wow, did I feel stupid. I put that in, and it worked like a charm. Only then did I find out that there were 4 spam-based comments that I had to moderate.

Keat got out of class, we had lunch, then back to the office. We also found out that the next time our neighbors' dog starts being mistreated, we can call the Asheville Police and file a complaint, which allows the landlords to file a violation as well. This is great because now we have a plan of action instead of wildly guessing our next step.

Anyway, while she worked and took a nap, I watch Danny Phantom, Season 3 (which I have not seen before) and worked on the Expo report (which is due tonight) and the VIM coloration issue. On the old server, the VIM editor would automatically add colors to the proper code segments while editing. The new server didn't support this, and it was getting very confusing when I would edit files. After searching Google for about 10 minutes, nothing turned up. Apparently, I was calling it by the wrong name and should have been searching for "Syntax Highlighting." Long story short: the VIM version I had (7.0) was compiled with the TINY option, which is basically a minimalized installiation. I tried to re-compile it, but the configure file was missing. So, I tried to update it via yum, but yum said it was up-to-date. The latest version was 7.3, so I knew something was off. I downloaded and compiled VIM 7.3 and compiled it with everything under the sun. Therefore, I was guarenteed to get the Syntax higlighting I so wanted. After some initial testing, I also found out that the command vi was defaulted as a minimalistic editor (7.0), while vim is the full-fledge editor (7.3) with syntax highlighting included. So I fixed a few bugs and have the most up-to-date version for editing, along with a backup for emergency fixing. No harm done.

I then decided to check Facebook (for the heck of it), and while trying to get used to their new profile layout, saw that a friend of ours was having some trouble on the snowy roads in Asheville. I asked her to keep us updated, becasue we still have to come home. We had a small discussion and she posted photos of the snowy roads. After I saw the photos, all I thought was "Aw crap." Based on her reports, the roads were snowy and icy, and people were sliding all over the place. And me without my current car insurance card (it's in the mail and should be here within the next few days). Keat and I decided to try to find her teacher so she could possibly miss class if need be. We frantically searched the traffic reports and saw that I-40W was slow and I-40E was clear. However, that didn't say how the road conditions were. I was thinking back to last year when Keat and I had to walk to the nearest working grocery store, and how I didn't want to drive through that.

We drove to her school and tried to find her teacher. The roads weren't that bad (although that was a 5 mintue drive). After searching and waiting for about 45 minutes, the teacher finally arrived and wasn't too sure about class. We then decided to gain the courage and drive home. Keat didn't want to stay the night at the office.

We got on the highway and I followed a truck for about 10 miles. Thinking the roads got worse the further we got near the city, I was mentally prepared to face the icy roads. We finally passed the truck I was following since the roads weren't that bad (just a little snow dusting), and kicked it up the rest of the way home. Turns out the roads in West Asheville weren't bad at all, just had a little dusting. The roads in South Asheville had the brute of the storm and had icy roads. Luckily, we weren't in that area.

We got home, took care of the kitties, and Keat worked on a presentation and paper she had due. My laptop was used to catch up on our shows, and I played PS2 while I waited.

Chi's still in heat and it's driving us nuts! We are going to call the spaying service and get an appointment asap!

The temperature is in the mid-teens (with a wind chill of 3!) and there is a light flurry outside. This isn't right for NC! I just wonder how things will be different tomorrow with the class schedule. I still have to get the Expo report done and send it in before the SMDC meeting on the 8th. Wish me luck!