archshrk

Tom’s letter on the tsunami in 2005…relevant in light of the recent earthquake in Haiti*

I have had a few months to reflect on the tsunami that killed upwards of 250,000 people in Southeastern Asia . I have heard sermons, read obituaries, and seen images that evoked a range of emotions. I have talked to people that tell me we should celebrate the life of the deceased and not dwell on the death. And I have attended a memorial in the past with this same sentiment. The memorial service was celebrating the life of a former college professor of mine who died prematurely and in “celebration” the service was held on the beach at one of his favorite surf spots. I suppose this memorial service was intended to be a kind of subtle reminder of the new day we all have as we reflect on another’s death

The Death of Celebration

*Thanks for the reminder Iris, and thank you Tom for writing this letter.

The many faces of Corbin

One Third Of Paving Completed On Unpaved Road To Grand Canyon West, Hualapai Tribe To Move Forward With Second Phase Of Paving.

The first phase of paving Diamond Bar Road, the infamous road leading to Grand Canyon West, is now completed. The Hualapai Tribe with cooperation from Mohave County Public Works, successfully reconstructed and paved 4.5 miles—nearly one third—of the previously unpaved 14-mile stretch of road. Diamond Bar Road is owned by Mohave County and is the primary access road to Grand Canyon West. The first phase of the project cost $7.5 million which was paid for by the Hualapai Tribe. The second phase that will reconstruct and pave the remaining portion of road is expected to go out to bid in Spring of 2010 and cost $40 million, which will also be financed by the Hualapai Tribe and possibly government grants. Until entirely completed, Mohave County Public Works is regularly maintaining the remaining unpaved driving surface of Diamond Bar Road. These improvements have dramatically increased the functionality and safety of the road.

“Paving Diamond Bar [Road] has been a long time in the making. Years even. It’s a big relief to us and our visitors,” said Wilfred Whatoname Sr., Chairman of the Hualapai Tribe. “The completion of this first section of road was a highly anticipated step to increase safety and accessibility to Grand Canyon West.”

“Seems like every year we are getting more and more within reach,” said Robert Bravo Jr., General Manager of Grand Canyon West. “Once projects like the road [Diamond Bar Road] and the Hoover Dam Bypass [expected to be completed at the end of 2010] are done, it will significantly reduce travel time. In most cases, like with visitors from Las Vegas, it will shorten the trip by up to two hours roundtrip….the new segment of paved road already saves visitors 30 minutes.”

The Diamond Bar Road project started more than 12 years ago. Environmental considerations, coordination between multiple government agencies, and funding were all essential components that were years in the making. The reconstruction and paving of the road began in May 2009. The project met extensive EPA compliance, which included the relocation of native plant life as well as many other environmentally conscious precautions. The collaboration between the Hualapai Tribe and Mohave County Public Works, particularly the assistance of Mike Hendrix, Director and Monte Wilson, Engineering Manager, has been instrumental to the current maintenance of the remaining unpaved driving surface.

One of the features of the Motorola Droid (and other Google phones I guess) is that you can use your Gmail contacts as your phone contacts. I talked about importing my old phone contacts before but one of the results was a plethora of duplicate contacts and overlapping contacts.

For instance, I usually had one phone contact for couples and used the pink phone icon for the wife and the blue phone icon for the husband. This made it easy to search and since my old phone had a 99 contact limit, I saved room for more contacts.

Of course, when merged with my Gmail contacts, there’s a lot of editing involved but nothing too difficult. That is, until I discover how many phone numbers I have for certain people. There are even cases where I have an entry for Bob and Carol Smith as well as Carol and Bob Smith – but there are different numbers between them.

That’s why this past Sunday, I spent several hours combing through my Gmail reviewing every contact I have for accuracy and repetition. What I discovered was that Gmail remembers too many contacts.

As it turns out, if you send or receive someone an email , Gmail seems to keep them as a contact, even if it was only once. I had several contacts from craigslist postings and customer support emails. And while those are easy enough to identify for removable, the other contacts typically had names or appeared worth keeping.

The real difficulty for me is that my wife and I share our Gmail account so many of those contacts could be people she knows and wants to keep. In fact, we use our one Gmail account to handle several different email addresses from personal accounts to the websites I manage. Thus we had over 900 contacts to sort through. I can only imagine what those power users have to deal with.

I haven’t finished sorting through the list but I did make great progress. Soon I’ll start asking people for more info like birthdays, street address, webpages, etc so my contact list is more complete and easier to maintain. But for now, I have 791 contacts still to go. Check that, 789.

One question that comes up often for expectant parents is “Do you know what you’re having?” and the other is “Have you picked a name yet?”

Let me tell you this now so you don’t become one of those people…you can’t learn the baby’s gender until around 20 weeks, aka – the half way point. As for names, every parent is different so some may have a name ready before they met their spouse while others can’t decide until the last minute (or a few days later). For us, the final decision came at Corbin’s birth. We looked at him and realized he was more Corbin than the other name we were considering. And no, I won’t tell you what the other name was because we might not be considering it this time and I don’t want to mislead you.

I can tell you this…there are 100 names we won’t be using because I would hate for our second son to have a common name (no matter how cool you spell it). But if you’re curious about name popularity, then check out the Baby Name Voyager below.

OK, so technically its a trike but he took to it like a champ. One thing we’ve noticed is how much Corbin loves anything with wheels. Corbin got lots of other great stuff this year (and more tomorrow) and this wasn’t necessarily his favorite but this is something you have to capture as one of those precious moments.

I’ll follow up with a complete list of Corbin’s Christmas haul when we get back from my folks and for those who are wondering, its Schwinn Roadster 12-Inch Trike.

I’m very happy to have read this message in my admin panel just now

Downloading update from http://wordpress.org/wordpress-2.9.zip.

Unpacking the update.

Verifying the unpacked files

Installing the latest version

Upgrading database

WordPress upgraded successfully

It means I’ve finally managed to upgrade my database from MySQL4 to MySQL5 – something of a feat when hosted by 1and1.com. Typically, I love 1and1 hosting because it’s very cheap affordable. The problem is, they’re very cheap. While I get to host several domains for one low price, the features/functions I need as webmaster are not really there. They don’t keep up with the latest version of software/program language and access to basic data (like error logs) is not available.

For the most part, this isn’t a problem – but when there is a problem,it becomes a big one. Take for instance the latest upgrade for WordPress (2.9 in this case). This version pretty much requires SQL5 to run smoothly. In fact, it does require MySQL version 4.1.2 or greater. I had 4.0.

Now the process for turning your database into MySQL5 is pretty simple. Just export the existing MySQL4 tables and import them into a new MySQL5 database. Then point your WordPress install to the new database. The problem is, my database was too big to import.

I followed the online instructions exactly but kept getting a “no SQL query” message. So I contacted Tech Support and they offered their less than stellar help, which is sadly – very typical. They asked for the “dump” file, and gave some advice which didn’t work. Then they asked for the database names (which I already gave) so they could look more closely. Their response was to use SSH (Secure Shell Access) to import the tables.

If you’ve ever worked with SSH, you know it’s not typically as easy as it sounds but I gave it a shot. After several mis-steps, I simply gave up and tried a new approach which someone else had mentioned earlier. Create smaller dump files and upload them one at a time. So here are the instructions for anybody having similar problems.

Upgrade WordPress and MySQL with 1and1 hosting.

I just did this (with 1and1) the process is not as easy as it should be.
Step 1) create a new MySQL5 database (this will take a few minutes to finish)
Step 2) export your database tables from the old database. Make sure you use gzipped compression and keep the final output under 2Mb (about 8Mb uncompressed).
Step 3) Import the handful of files to the new database (should be ready by now)*

At this point you should have 2 databases with the same data. One will be MySQL4 (existing) and the other MySQL5 (new). Now to point your WP install to the new database.

Step 4) Backup and change the database info in your wp-config.php file (Top level of your existing WordPress install)

Step 5) That should be it.

Now about the upgrade process. There is another problem with 1and1 which is php Memory Limit is too low and you can’t change that. So you’ll need to do a couple of things.

Step 6) Deactivate all plugins. This helps free up the php memory so you can perform the upgrade.

Step 7) Use the built-in upgrade feature to install WP 2.9. Once upgraded, reactivate all you plugins.

Enjoy your new WP install and database.

*In theory, you could export the whole database and import it using SSH but SSH isn’t very user friendly for beginners or casual bloggers. For instructions on how to import/export check with the 1and1 FAQ.