the-hills.org

Lots of our friends have heard us complaining about the slew (sp?) of relatively minor problems we've had with our Jeep, a 2002 Grand Cherokee. For those who may not be aware, a non-exhaustive list of the problems is:

• the regulators in both front power windows have had to be replaced
• the power steering pump has had to be replaced
• a resistor in the blower motor has blown twice and needed replacement
• one of the blend-air doors (part of the A/C failed and needed to be replaced

OK, I'm a fan of The Office. In a recent episode, I enjoyed Jim and Pam making fun of Dwight for playing Second Life. I thought, "I can do this!", and because I could, I thought that meant that I should.

Photos from our trip to Atlanta are up on the Gallery. We took a ton of pictures because we're trying to figure out how our new camera works. The old one, a Sony DSC-S90, has gotten tired and worn out...the ring which used to protect the area around the lens from being penetrated by dust, sand, and other tiny objects, was lost at some point, and the zoom feature (somewhat important on a point & shoot camera) has become inoperable about half the time.

The Gallery is finally back, after surviving a hard drive failure. While we were away on vacation in Hilton Head, SC, our home server's hard drive decided to fail in a catastrophic manner. I got home, heard "click click click," and knew that the drive was in serious trouble. We have recovered all of the photos, but weren't able to recover the Gallery database itself. We'll be going back and adding captions, and that kind of stuff. If you had registered for an account on the Gallery, please re-do the registration, because all of that information was lost as well. One day soon, we'll get around to uploading the photos we've been saving since the hard drive died.

We finally got home from our "vacation" yesterday (also known as a "road trip" including 2-year-old). Including only the long-distance drives (over 100 miles), we went about 1700 miles, from Oviedo to Fredericksburg, VA, then to Banner Elk, NC, and finally back to Daytona Beach, FL. We learned several things about driving long distances with a 2-year-old:

Our photo gallery has changed. We used to have one account that everybody who wanted to see our photos would use. We'd give somebody "the password" whenever we wanted them to be allowed to view the photos. The problem with that setup is that people can't make comments on the photos, and do other things that require the Gallery software to know who the user is.

So, I've changed the way Gallery works. The next time you visit it, click on "Register" to setup an account for yourself. The system will verify your e-mail address is correct, and you'll have access to the site. You can leave comments about pictures and stuff. I'll get notified when you setup an account, and if I don't like you (or, more likely, if I have no idea who you are), I'll just delete your account.

You may have noticed that this site has been slightly overhauled. Truth is, I couldn't take any more abuse from my co-workers about having a site that a 6-month-old could probably put together faster than i did. So, I've updated things a bit. Other than the looks, nothing has changed, other than the fact that there's a real front page. So, it will probably stay like this for another 5 years until somebody makes me feel embarrassed enough to change it again.

If you like jazz music of any kind, but especially Latin Jazz, you need to see Calle 54. Directed by Fernando Trueba, it's a documentary about Latin jazz. Trueba loves Latin jazz, and wanted to capture the magic he'd seen in his filmmaking career in its own movie. He basically takes a bunch of famous musicians and their bands, follows them into a studio, and films them. Sounds pretty simple, but it's amazing to watch. If you have some time, and want to hear some incredible Latin jazz, check it out.