Bugimus.com's database and DNS operations experienced and are experiencing technical difficulties. Servers crash, hard drives die, and other such nasty things happen from time to time. This is one of those times and it looks like it might be a total of 2 weeks before things get back to usual operations. We're sorry for any inconvenience this outage may be causing you =)
I'm not wanting to stress about this so I'm not. The database will be back when it's back. I'm going to be patient.
It seems like a lifetime since I've last done anything meaningful on the web. I am slowly working my way back to normalcy in that regard.
A lot has happened since the last post. A lot of you are waiting for new pictures of Kianna and that is coming once Wella gets a few moments to upload them. Kianna has grown so much and is starting to talk full sentences in baby talk of course. She is learning to say "please" and "thank you" and when we forget to pray before our meals she reminds us to do so. She will be 2 years old come this September and it is true that time goes by very quickly as your kids grow up. I must admit that I am glad she is growing up fast because I really appreciate seeing the *person* that she is developing into.
Taking care of our little girl has been one of the main reasons we have been away from our normal web activities as long as we have. I have been extra busy with work the last few months, actually I have been swamped with stuff and by the time I get done with it on any given day I am too brain dead to do much else but have an adult beverage, watch a little TV, and then call it night to start it all over again the next day.
Another big thing that took up so much time was that we totally re-did our home office. We bought all new furniture from IKEA and got new computers to boot. It has been a lot of work to get that done but we are extremely pleased with the results. The goal is to have a nice looking office but at the same time avoid having it degrade into "clutter-ville" by "having a place for everything". To that end, we have plenty of CD/DVD shelves, book shelves, 2 three drawer cabinets on casters, 1 large filing cabinet, lots of desk space, 4 large display shelves and a supply cabinet on casters. Each computer is hanging on a CPU rack underneath the desks and I have a new laptop with a docking station and D/View stand as my main computer with a second 19" CRT to go with it soon to be replaced with a more space efficient flat screen.
We decided that if we were going to spend some money to upgrade the office we should go all the way and do it the way we've been talking about for a few years now. It's the kind of upgrade that will last for several years to come and that is the kind of thing we don't mind spending a little extra money and time on so it will last.
To be honest, when all your normal workstation setup is in flux so is your work. I had to keep telling myself it was all going to be worth it and I kept calling it a "retooling" effort in my mind so I wouldn't get to upset about disrupting all the things we normally do. But retooling is a vital part of staying up to date with the latest trends and technology too. I needed to get our network and computers up to speed so we can continue to crank out cool stuff. Personally, I want to continue my DHTML, Photoshop, and Bryce efforts and Wella needs to keep the FlowerBuds on the right track. That means we didn't need our obsolete office situation getting in the way.
I also added a wireless network to our setup. With the laptops we use, it is very good to be able to move around the house and not worry about dragging a few hundred foot CAT-5 cable with you (that is what we were doing... DOH!!!) So I got two Linksys access points and setup a very nice little network. I have one in the living room connected to the cable modem and router. So any laptop can connect to that access point but in addition I have another access point setup in the upstairs office acting as a bridge to the one in the living room. The office is still interconnected via cable to maximize transfer speeds and since the only access via the wireless if for internet we're fine because only get about 700K/s from that anyway. It's really quite spiffy! And it's very reliable which surprised me a bit. I expected more problems with setup and operation but it's been on 24/7 for a while now without incident.
So what else did we do during our absence? Well, the San Diego ComicCon in July of course. We couldn't miss that for the world. So we all went down this year and we had a very good time. We stayed at the Marriott next to the convention so that really helped because Kianna is still too young to be able to handle a full day walking around a vendor floor and listening to boring (to her anyway) panels on upcoming comic books and TV shows or listening to the latest activities of the CBLDF. I'm not sure if I'll be getting my con report up anytime soon but that's not too much of a problem since I really don't have anything really that great to report this year anyhow. Don't get me wrong, it was a blast... hopefully I can explain that better when I get a bit more time to jot it down... later ;)
I'm going to see if I can get a few pics up of the new office layout for yas. Hold tight.
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