All pictures in one album

I decided that having one spot for all my church pictures is better than having them all over this website.

See the Churches Photo Album.

I had no idea that I had taken pictures of that many different churches.

More to come...

And the Daveism way...

Sometimes I think maybe I have too much of a sense of Justice. At least, I hope I have a sense of Justice, but maybe it's too much.

During one of the many times we went camping when I was an assistant Cub leader years ago, I had to come up with something to keep the boys busy for a bit. Remembering my love of "cowboys and indians" or "cops and robbers" when I was a kid, I thought that we'd play a little "shoot 'em out".

Divided into two teams and setting the rules--each kid gets a 'gun' (a stick) and a 'grenade' (pine cone)--the idea presented to the kids was to defend their team's fort whilst trying to capture the other team's fort.

Hey, it was a quick set-up and the kids were all enthusiastic--this is before the time of video games and gun violence in schools--I don't think I'd do the same type of game today.

Anyway, the kids tackled this with much enthusiasm--there was running, yelling, knees and elbows getting dirty from crawling behind trees and buildings, and enjoyment was had by all.

That is, until Jake--one of the kids--comes up to me and says, "guys on the other team are picking up pinecones off the ground--some of them have 3-4 in their pockets!"

What?? That goes against the rules!

So here I am, all Patton-like, marching across the 'field of battle'--kids running all around me, falling down and playing dead--and I get to the other side.

There were a few kids huddled behind a little hill, all snickering like they have a fun little secret. Then they see me. Their eyes wide like they were caught with their hands in the cookie jar, the pile of pinecones sitting there between them.

Well, combined with my finely honed sense of justice is the fact that I'm also a softie. I come by it honestly--one just needs to look at my dad to realize that the nut doesn't fall too far from the tree.

Anywho, no yelling or screaming--I just let the kids know that 'cheaters never prosper' and that they had to get rid of the pile of 'grenades'.

The game went on after that and we all had a great time.

Here's the thing of it--my sense of justice, really doesn't deal with me directly--I'm never part of the equation. When I think of what I believe is Just and Right, I try to remove my self and my own personal feelings/motives/whathaveyou from the equation. The better question, for me anyways, is 'What's best for my family? For my friends? For my community? For my country? Ultimately, what's best for my world?' Yes, the possessive 'my' is used, because it does come down to how I see life.

The pile of pinecones really didn't affect me personally. Why should I care? Sure, it was me that was running the game, but, in the end, it didn't affect me.

On the other hand, the fact that one side was cheating--having an unfair advantage over the other side--that's just wrong. And if something is wrong, or Unjust--no matter what it is--that's where I put my energies.

So thru the years I find myself continuously "removing" myself from situations and think, "What's the right thing to do here--not what's right for me, but what's right for the team, for the business, for the institution?" Once in a while it's in the realm of relationships with other people, though in this particular case, I've found what's best for them is usually, in the end, what's best for me as well. So no harm, no foul.

And sometimes this "finely honed sense of Justice with the disregard for self" gets me into trouble. When I see something wrong, I act to try and fix it without thinking about the possible ramifications to, well, me.

I don't worry about it too much 'cause I always seem to land on my feet.

I have thus far.

Donkeys???

The place?

Sparky's and Sandy's Abode (which, of course, is where this website that you're viewing right now is served from, so it's almost like you're home with us anytime you're viewing our website...)

The time?

A little after 1 a.m. Why that late? Well, therein lies the story...

Sandy and I were pretty tired. We didn't sleep well on Friday night, mostly due to the fact that we were pretty excited that two of our very good friends were moving from 'The 'Sauga' to Hamilton. Well, the excitement stemmed from the idea that not only were they moving to Steeltown, but to the next condo complex down the street from us! Yippee!!!! A less than two minute walk from our front door to theirs! I've never had very good friends live that close before!

Anyway, the tiredness was also attributed to the teeny tiny bed that Sandy has at her old place in Mississauga--we slept there on Friday night so we wouldn't have to get up insanely early to drive from Hamilton to help with the move.

The move from Mississauga to Hamilton actually went quite smoothly and we were done around 3-4ish in the p.m. Sandy and I bid our new neighbours 'adieu' for now and we walked the whole two minutes back to our place.

I was pretty much wiped from the move so I went for a little nap. Well, the nap turned into me waking up at 7ish, which cut into my night-time sleep--Grr!!

We have dinner, we clean up a bit, we watch the telly and then we go to bed around 11.

She's instantly asleep. Since she wanted a really good sleep, she took a little tiny pill that's suppose to help with the sleeping thing, so she was gone when her head hit the pillow.

I, mostly due to the nap earlier, wasn't feeling sleepy at all. So after tossing and turning... turning and tossing... I decide that maybe I'll catch a little more telly--haven't watched SNL in a long while so I figure it's now a good time to see what's going on in the Lorne Michael's universe.

Well, I was somewhat disappointed. I mean, I appreciate Horatio, but no Tina Fey for the news??? That's just wrong in my books!

Anyway, I promptly do the guy thing--grab the remote and just surf the channels randomly.

Oh wait! C.S.I.!!

Figuring I'm set for the hour, I grab a blanket and a pillow and snuggle myself into the futon for some serious Grissom, Kate, Warrik, Nick and Sarah watching. The problem--this episode really disturbed me--some guy draws 'comics' of the murders he comits--really freaked me out at 1 a.m. So now I'm really awake. Channel surf some more, hoping to find an episode of Holmes on Homes 'cause I really like the show (Marks' not gonna appreciate that). But nope--nothing but 'Baby Blue 2' (not linking any of that stuff here) type movies and shows on a variety of channels, and those that didn't have nudity were selling ad spots for '976' numbers, which is just as bad.

Debated if I should hit rewind on the VCR 'cause we taped last weeks GG episode...

Nyaah, maybe I'll crawl back into bed to see if I can sleep.

So I get to the bedroom. During the time I was watching the tube, Sandy, in her sleep, had sprawled herself across the four corners of our bed--arm here, leg there, oh look, another leg and arm over there... Took me a bit to find a free spot in which to curl up where I was actually on the mattress, but find one I did--did I mention the pillow top? Mmmmmmm..... pillow-top.... .Gghhahahghahgahhahghahhhhhh.... (Homer Simpson drool)

She must've sensed me in the bed 'cause she started mumbling in her sleep. Didn't make out the first few things she said, but then, quite clearly, she uttered the following words--

"I can't move because a donkey ate my legs!"

Whoda-wha--? *insert Wash quote here*

A donkey ate her legs? What kind of dreams is she having???

I was debating whether to wake her up in case she was having a particularly bad dream, but, on the flip side, she was really tired and she took a pill--I wasn't going to interfere with that unless there were other signs of badness in her dreams. Didn't notice any, so in the end, I fell asleep.

The thing of it is, she didn't move. Not an inch!

The unbiased report card

SilkTide--The Web Development Experts look at S's & S's S

So we failed in a few areas--baah! I've failed before and I'm not above failing again!! Mostly due to the idea that I first created this site back in, what was it--'93? Yeah, things were a little different back then. Everything that's new isn't l33t and everything that's old isn't crap, so I'll stick to what i'm doing--it works for this site.

The bit of the report card I really liked--

"This website is popular (approx #512,346 in the world)"

Hey, like I'm close to the top half-million best websites!!!

Oooooohhh.....

Doncha just wanna hang with us...

St Joseph Roman Catholic Church, Brantford, Ontario

Whilst attending my cousin Charlene's wedding last August, Sandy and I went for a little walk down the street. We took pictures of St. Joseph along the way.

Then, obviously, promptly forgot about them until now.

So here they are--the first church pics in our photo gallery.

The question now, of course, is do we move all the other church pics to the gallery?

Eh, we'll see...

I really appreciated this...

The 5-Year Mission Continues

I just finished watching the one episode you can actually download at this time--4.02, "In Harm's Way".

It was really good! The story was some pretty good sci-fi, the dialogue was smooth between the characters, and the sets--fantastic! The actors did a good job without making it too campy--another part I appreciated.

I think a true Trekker would like it. I know I did, and I hope the production staff will continue to make more episodes.

Hey, if Paramount doesn't feel like making Trek, then I say 'boldly go' to the 'New Voyages'.

I'm going to try to find the first one now.

Live long and prosper

or one of the many reasons...

The discussion is regarding the relative merits, or lack thereof, of the newer 'Google produced' web-tag, "nofollow".

You really don't need to be web savvy to understand how this 'nofollow' thing works. The base principle is that when Google, or other search engine has a look at your website, an index of words and phrases is made--kinda like building up an index for a book. Every link to other websites on your website is also indexed by the search engine.

This is done for so that you, as a web search engine user, can go to a search engine, type in what you want to serch for, and get the most appropriate results. If Google sees that many different web pages had links to your website, well then your website must be great! Your website gets to be listed higher in the page ranking! Yippee!!!

The problem, however, comes when spammers figured out how to increase their web 'page rankings' on the search engines. See, the more links pointing to their web pages they have out there in the internets, the higher their web pages will be displayed when a search is performed. One of the easiest way for spammers to get links out on many different web pages is to spam blogs.

Seriously, it's pretty easy. Go to any blog that allows comments and post a comment. There. You've added words and phrases to that web blog. Now post a link in a comment--point that link to this website (or other website of your choice). The next time the blog is 'visited' by a search engine, that link and your text gets 'indexed'. The more blogs you comment on--the more links to your web page that you put out there--the higher that site may appear in a search. If your comments/links had nothing to do with the subject of the blog that you just posted on, you would be considered a spammer.

But watch out! Here comes 'nofollow'! If the blogger uses the nofollow attribute on your link, the search engines will ignore it!

Almost sounds like a good thing. I mean, why give spammers a higher page ranking in a search engine.

The problem is, you just posted your little text and link on someones blog. If it wasn't spam and actually related to what the blogger was going on about, shouldn't your link be 'indexed' on the seach engine? I personally think so.

Thus the discussion ensues. To 'nofollow' or not to 'no follow', that is the question.

On the 'nofollow may not be good but really causes no harm' side of the issue is this articulate blog--

Nofollow considered harmless--

"Google introduced the rel="nofollow" attribute earlier this year; most blogging platforms now support it. Its initial promise of ridding the web of blog comment spam has not happened, and there has been a lot of conspiracy theory about the “real” reasons Google would do this. But it’s hard to see what all the fuss is about."

On the other side (and very close to my opinion), using 'nofollow' defeats the 'laissez faire' of the internets--

Nofollow revisited--

"I will show today that Google’s nofollow initiative has not resulted in a reduction of link spam, but instead has had much more insidious effects on the Internet."

I posted a comment on both blogs stating pretty much the same idea--if the reduction of spam is the goal, the way to do that is to actually reduce the spam. Either by deleting spam that is currently there or by not allowing it to be posted in the first place should be everyone's focus. 'Nofollow' is 'smoke 'n mirrors'--fun to look at but basically accomplishing nothing in the reduction of spam. Furthermore it hurts the page ranking of legitimate commenters and bloggers.

In the end, I'm not following the 'nofollow'.

Newly Uploaded

Our good friend Calum was kind enough to take our engagement photos and what a fantastic job he did.

We have spent lots of time looking at over 500 photos and have chosen our favourites.

Originally we posted about 12 of those in our photo album but we have now posted many more.

If you want to take a look, click the link-- Official Engagement Photos

and the Great Hype

New on-line axiom--for every action, there's an non-equal and opposite over-reaction.
-The Koudys Manifesto

Sure I'm as guilty as some where reacting to Spam is concerned. Just click on the 'H4x0rZ Blog' to the right to see the numerous entries regarding my personal war on spammers and hot-linkers and any other nuisances that plague the internets.

Here are some pertinent points to ponder--

First, from Mark Glaser and his Bloggers Declare War on Comment Spam, but Can They Win? blog--

He had a list of great ways to thwart spam. His final analysis, however, states

"So, in the end, will comments on blogs survive the onslaught of spammers? Duncan Riley, editor of the Blog Herald in Australia, thinks the dynamic will likely shift in the blogosphere, with mid-tier bloggers abandoning comments altogether."

Abandon comments? I think not. The reasoning is simple--comments are what makes blogs, well, blogs. A Blog without comments is just an on-line diary--"Dear Diary, today this happened to me and this is how I feel about it." Without the ability to have feedback, why even bother putting it out there for all to see? It'd be like the vacation slides of yore--"Here's the family on the beach. This is a picture of us standing knee-deep in water. Oh, here's our young munchkin opening the hotel door for the first time..." Great if you're a grandparent (maybe) but pretty much 'Meh' for the random Joe. Now picture the idea that you have the ability to critique, to add your little exposition to the pictures--"Wow, who's the babe on the beach?? Were there sharks in the water?? How old is that brat??" And then the conversation can ensue.

People like dialogue. People like to talk about ideas. Basically people like to yap-- to hear their own voices (I, for one, adore that part). Having a discussion between folks is infinitely preferable than listening to a single voice.

But that's just me.

So in answer to this one, will bloggers win the war on spam? Well, this one will. Why? Because I care more than the spammers where my website is concerned. Whatever reasons spammers have for doing what they do, they cannot take away my appreciation for this website. It's akin to people who love their garden--they'll toil under the noon-day sun to rid the garden of weeds, and take care of the plants/shrubs/trees/etc. that they want to flourish.

Or think of spam as graffiti--if you love the place where you live and someone spray painted graffiti on it, would you allow the graffiti to remain? Absolutely not. Haul out the paint brushes/cleaning solutions and it's bye-bye to the illegal 'artwork'.

On top of that, bloggers have tools that, if implemented correctly, allow them to thwart the spammers before they can do their nasty deeds. Because I appreciate this little website, I work on it--it's a hobby. A hobby wouldn't be much of a hobby if you didn't want to put effort into it. On top of which, there's a plethora of stuff on the internets that have the ins and outs to secure blogs and web servers. And that's why, in the end, the 'good blogger' will win this war with spam.

There was another website that talked about the war on spam, discussing various implementations of bloggeres and blogging software, as well as how Google is helping where they can--

Bloggers spam war continues

The author basically stated the same thing--

"This again raises the question on whether unmoderated and instant posting of comments will now become a thing of the past. With high traffic blogs it is obviously hard for someone to moderate all posts, even with a simple registration service there is nothing to stop the user using disposable email addresses - this will only stop automated submissions."

Will unmoderated and instant posting of comments continue?

Again, at least as far as I can see, on this site they will. Sure I don't have the traffic flow of some bloggers out there, but I check my access logs. What do I see? A slew of various spam sites and automated hacks/scripts trying to post on this very blog. In the past 2 days, this website received 100 'spammed' attempted posts to the comments and trackback section of this blog. How many actually got posted?

Zero.

Hey Spammer, you enjoy beating your head against a brick wall?

My 'filter' may not catch all the spam all the time, but each and every spam that actually gets posted to this site is analyzed and added to the 'exclusions' list. Thus, that particular spammer will never be allowed to spam here again. Furthermore, the spam is removed immediately. Pretty easily, actually--one file deleted and that's that.

Now I'm not going to win every single battle--the spammers keep changing things around. However, I'll win the war. Why? Because this is a hobby for me. Because I like working on this website. Because I enjoy learning about web servers and how things work the way they do (and this 'war' really helps my research). Mostly, however, I will win because I care about what happens to 'Sparky's and Sandy's Space'.

The spammers can't say that, can they?

ain't what it once was...

I mentioned in an earlier blog about the epic story surrounding the found 40 dollars. Did anyone call? Nope--the 40 bucks is still sitting in my wallet, but as we say on Earth, "C'est la vie!"

Well, continuing on that same theme (and with 4 part harmony and a little orchestration just in time for American Thanksgiving in honour of my favourite guitar player/story-teller, Arlo...) here's what happened last night--

Well, before we start with the end of the story, I guess I should lay out the relevant details. Sandy and I are happily living together as most of the reading audience knows. She liked my house so much that she moved in on April 3rd, 2005 (so now it's 'our house').

However, most of her stuff didn't move in on the same day. Actually, it was an ongoing 'Summer Project' to get all the contents of the storage unit to our abode. Many trips in the Mighty Dodge were undertaken, carrying totes and boxes full of stuff to our place.

Then the sorting began. I took this time to go thru my clothes and such as well--I mean, if you're going to start, might as well do it all.

In the end, after a summer of sorting, there were bags full of clothes, blankets, cups/mugs/plates, books and other such related stuff that neither of us wanted or needed.

What to do with it all? Well GoodWill of course!

Quite the coincidence, we received a phone call from Goodwill looking for donations on the very day we were finished sorting! What serendipity!! What happenstance!!! What good movies those two were!!!

So we let the person know that we have loads of stuff ready for them. I'm excited! Sandy's excited!! The person on the phone is excited!!!

Then she asked me to verify my address. Turns out that their database still had me living at my old place... Goodwill wasn't canvassing our new area at this time!

Denied!!!!

Eh, so much for that.

So the bags 'n boxes 'n books sat in the back of my truck for a few days whilst we wondered what to do. We had to come up with something pretty soon due to the booking of said Mighty Dodge to move freezers and dressers on the weekend!

"Hey--a Goodwill drop off area!"--perfect suggestion from Sandy. The nearest one, according to 'everyone', is right in Stoney Creek! Wonders of wonders--for we just happened to live close to there. The plan implemented--after work, drive to the GW and drop off good used clothing for those that may need it.

Feeling pretty good about the plan, we went to sleep that night and didn't get up until the next morning when we noticed the severe weather! Yipes!! Thankfully my truck bed has a (home-made) cover!

So went to work yesterday--put in a nice long day so I was good and tired that night but a plan is a plan! After work I went in search of the elusive 'Goodwill'.

Didn't find it, even after a few phone calls to certain folks who have lived in the mighty Creek their entire lives--they all said it was right where I drove to, but alas, no Goodwill.

"Right beside the Value Village", states everyone.

Well, my mighty Dodge was beside the Value Village but no Goodwill.

So I went in to ask someone who works at the Value Village where the GW was, if, indeed, it ever existed at all.

"Long gone" was the response.

Hmmm...

Now what am I to do?

Waittaminit--I'm at Value Village--a place noted for taking used clothes and books and such! Perfect (again!)

So I says to Matt (the guy behind the counter who sort of looked like he was running the joint that evening for he just answered a bunch of questions asked by a bunch of different people whilst I happened to be standing there wondering what to do), "Matt," I says, "I have a whole pickup truck full of used clothes, books and other such stuff. Any ideas?"

Matt, with the shaved chin but exceedingly long moustache (looking like Lazarus from that one Star Trek:TOS episode), informs me that if I take my truck around the back of this building, there'll be a loading bay door that's open and 'the guys back there' will help me unload the boxes/bags/books of bounty.

So I get back into the mighty Dodge, drive behind the building (I may remind you that this was after work--around 7 p.m.--it's dark, and the weather hasn't been pleasant over the last few days) and look for this supposed opened loading bay door. Well, I find one loading bay door (scrawled with graffiti) with one small light above it and big signs on each side stating, "Donations gladly accepted! Used clothing, books, hardware..." etc.

I must be in the right spot.

Piled high in front of that loading bay door were bags of what I presumed were clothes, some tables/chairs, lots of boxes, and stuff that I would consider to be just trash, but what do I know?

I get out of my truck and walk up to the bay door. I then knock on the bay door.

"What do you want?" someone shouted on the other side of the door.

"I'm here to drop stuff off--bags of clothes and such," I reply.

"Who are you?"

K, wasn't ready for that question--"Matt sent me," says I.

*pause*

"Leave the stuff on the ground."

Again, not really ready for that kind of answer.

"I have a pickup truck full of clothes and books..." I state.

Nothing.

Well then.

Not wanting to drive away into the night looking for a place to put all the stuff in the pickup, and figuring that one big pile is better than two little piles, I decided to take all the boxes/bags/books out of my pickup truck and did as the gentleman said--left all of it on the ground. In front of the bay door. In the rain and cold. At night.

Now friends, many things could have happened better and smoother in this little epic of mine (telling it for one, but that's neither here or there). Twice in the same number of weeks I've been 'burned a little' when I try to do something 'right'--either returning lost money or donating to those less fortunate, the results--0 and 2 for not me.

The only good news in all of this is that, in the end, there's a new expression in town--that which does not kill me makes for a great blog entry.

'cause I can

Here's how to analyse your webserver log file--

dsl121-121-121.fastxdsl.nl - - [14/Nov/2005:16:59:35 -0500] "GET /images/rtl0105/p005868.jpg HTTP/1.1" 200 157213 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)"

So you take this one line from your web server's log file.

The bits--

dsl121-121-121.fastxdsl.nl -- the host name (the person coming to your web site)
[14/Nov/2005:16:59:35 -0500] -- Date/time and hours before GMT
"GET /images/rtl0105/p005868.jpg HTTP/1.1" -- actual request--what they requested
200 -- the response code--200 means served, no errors
157213 -- size of file requested
"-" -- referer--very important--more on this later
"Mozilla/4.0 -- extraneous stuff

Few things to note--the size of the file requested here is 157213 or around 150 kilobytes. Not huge, but if that file is requested thousands of times over an hour, that's a severe impact on a web server's performance. If you're paying for the bandwidth used by your web server, there's some coin used up right there.

Since we're just talking about image theft, I'm focusing on image entries in web server access log file. The file requested here is p005868.jpg--a picture of one of our LEGO events.

The 'referer' (don't come down on the spelling--by 'web server' standards, it's spelled right) is the important bit when you're trying to find if your images are being stolen/hotlinked.

A dash in quotation marks ("-") means that it's a 'stand alone' request--no worries. If you see your own domain name after the response code and file size, it's perfectly fine as well.

However, what is not fine is something like this--

121-121-121.gene.com - - [14/Nov/2005:14:04:26 -0500] "GET /images/elin/elinscan2.jpg HTTP/1.1" 302 225 "http://forums.name-removed.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/17233/an/0/page/42" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0)"

We'll do the same type of breakdown--

121-121-121.gene.com -- the host name (the person coming to your web site)
[14/Nov/2005:14:04:26 -0500] -- Date/time and hours before GMT
"GET /images/elin/elinscan2.jpg HTTP/1.1" -- actual request--what they requested
302 -- the response code--302 means rewrite to a new location
225-- size of file requested
"http://forums.name-removed.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/17233/an/0/page/42" -- referer
"Mozilla/4.0 --extraneous stuff

Note how the 'referer' is an external web site--it isn't 'sparky.i989.net' or even "-". This is someone linking a picture on my site directly on their site.

As stated before, one or two pictures that are viewed occasionally woundn't be an issue. However, I've noticed that most times when my images are 'hot-linked', they're hotlinked on well-read message boards, and when a person hot-links images from my site, they just don't do 1 or 2, they hotlink many.

As well, isn't it rather rude of someone to post images stored on your sever on their website or message board without a "May I please?"

The good news, however, is right in that analysis above--

302--the response code means that this request was rewritten to a new location and, as per the previous blog, that's exactly what the web server was suppose to do--any image requests sent to Sparky's and Sandy's Space that didn't come from our website (or a few other chosen websites) are denied access to those images. The image requests are 'rewritten' to show this--

And, lo and behold, it actually works!

So I struggle with it...

In my continuing quest to thwart the spammers, the band-width stealers, the post padders, I keep a pretty close eye on my log files and my web traffic.

Actually I rather enjoy it. It's amazing what you learn when you keep at something, and the simple idea that I really love our little tiny corner of the information superhighway--well, so much the better.

Except today.

A few weeks back, I finally got my configuration of our Apache web server to the point where it was putting the ki-bosh on image thieves (or 'hotlinking' as some call it). Image thieves basically just put a link to your image on their website/blog/newsgroup. This causes an increased usage of bandwidth without having anyone actually visit your site--they just see the picture.

Anyway, not liking that I set up Apache's 'mod rewrite' to cut down on image stealing/image hotlinking.

- - -

# mod_rewrite
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !imagehost\.gif$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?sparky\.i989\.net [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?news\.lugnet\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?leasticoulddo\.com [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !google\. [NC]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !search\?q=cache [NC]
RewriteRule \.(jpg|gif|bmp|png)$ http://sparky\.i989\.net/bars/imagehost\.gif [R,L]

- - -

Basically the last line tells it like it is--any picture request that doesn't come from the listed sites above will be denied--this picture will show up in place of any other picture--

That was the nifty part.

The not-so-nifty part was when, in my other continuing quest where our webserver is concerned, I tinkered with increasing performance.

"Oh," I read on one web site discussing Apache performance issues, "I should take look at my HostNameLookups"

See, this little part of the Apache configuration allows your webserver to 'look up' the domain name, or host name, of the people surfing to your website. Instead of seeing just an IP address in your log files, you'd actually see a host name--much better if you're trying to figure out what's going on with your website.

Looking up the Host name, however, uses resources and decreases performance. Easy to understand--You, as the 'host', surfs to a website. The webserver receives your request for a page. Then, for each image and file on that page (if HostNameLookup is 'on'), the webserver asks your ISP for your 'host name'. If there are 20 different pictures and files on a web page, that's 20 HostName lookups!

So here's what I had before--

- - -

HostnameLookups Off
Files ~ "\.(htm|html|php|cgi)$">
HostnameLookups On
/Files>

- - -

In my server configuration, I turned HostnameLookups off. Basically telling our webserver not to request host names.

But then the other bit--for any actual web page files--files ending in htm, html, php, or cgi, I wanted to look up the host names for requests of those pages.

I thought that this would save our web server tonnes of host name lookups, seeing as how I'm not doing the lookups for any graphics on Sparky's and Sandy's Space (and I'll be the first to admit that our little website is pretty graphic intensive)

Which brings me right back to the beginning of this blog--today I noticed that all the supposedly blocked image thieves were no longer blocked!

Grr!!

So I revisited the web server configuration file, looked at the rewrite rules and couldn't for the life of me figure out why the hot-linkers weren't being blocked anymore.

Well, now that I've put both issues here on one blog it should be plain to see--if I turned off the hostnamelookups for all images, I won't have the host names for the mod_rewrite rules!

Well duh!

Throwing a little performace to the winds, I now have this in our Apache configuration file--

- - -

HostnameLookups On

- - -

Every single request that comes to Sparky's and Sandy's Space gets a lookup!

Eh, I'll do more investigation later--the rewrite rules should have worked no matter what the hostnamelookup was set at, but alas, this is how I got it to work.

In the end, the image thieves are once again denied!

First time for everything

Pops calls me up. He actually wants my help.

I shouldn't feel too good about it 'cause the job entailed shovelling 2 year old 'moo poo' off the trailer and into the garden.

But help my Pops I did, and felt better for it.

Working outdoors this weekend

On the beach, even...

For our 11 month 'dating' anniversary, Dave and I decided to head to Erie, Pennsylvania for a little vacation. THe purpose of the trip, besides to celebrate 11 months together, was to do some shopping as well as to hike at Presque Isle State Park.

Well, the trip down was wonderful--the leaves were in full fall colour splendour. The shopping... well, we didn't buy much of anything, really--some things for our upcoming wedding but nothing extravagant.

The focus of the trip, however, was the hike in the park and we were both looking forward to it.

Little did I know what was to occur on that walk on the beach.

Ever since we started taking vacations together, I have been collecting rocks from all of our walks and hikes. I put these stones in a vase we have back at the house. The vase isgetting pretty full of pebbles found on our various trips--but they're there to remind us of our times together. This rock collecting walk was no different - so I thought at the time.

While Dave was taking pictures, I was searching for the perfect rocks to bring home. After finishing his picture taking, he said he would help me find rocks to bring home. Occassionally he would pick up a pebble on the beach and show it to me. "Too big", "too small", "too plain", I'd tell him.

After a little more walking on the beach, and with an incredible sunset across the lake, Dave said 'I found a rock'. I turned to see the rock he had found and was amazed to see him down on one knee with a ring box opened to display a rock all right--One beautiful diamond solitarie. 'Will you marry me?'. Of course it was at this moment that I would lose my voice and only be able to nod my head yes. The ring was placed on my hand and I became an engaged woman.

I honestly don't remember everything but I do remember, Dave bearhugging me and saying that I had made him the happiest guy in the world. It was about 20 minutes later - after having stared at my finger the entire time, that I had to ask him if I actually said yes.

Turns out that I did.

Well that made the trip substantially different!

By the way, I had to show Dave which finger to put the ring on, but that's okay--it was still very romantic!

Now for the next 11 months of wedding planning!

We're engaged!

Yes! I know the shock'll really get to many of our reading audience but both Sparky and Sandy are engaged! What's more, they're engaged to each other!!

First, see some of our 'Official Engagement Photos'

Secondly, surf on over to our Wedding Page.

Most important, however, y'all'll have to get over the fact that Sandy is no longer available! Too bad for you!

I'm very excited about our future together!

Someone else said it better

I remember...

By Janey.

Seriously, they are

Ever walk up to a stationary one? Ever put your hand on a locomotive to feel how solid it is?

Ever notice how tall and wide and long an engine is?

Do you know that these locomotives are made of thick plate steel and weigh hundreds of tonnes--not little scrap metal that your vehicle is made of?

Well, Joe Moron didn't seem to know all these things.

So here we are, on our way to Pennsylvania last week. It's around 10 in the a.m. and the sky is blue.

For whatever reason we made our way down to the highway via Fifty Road in Winona. Fifty Road, for those of you not 'in the know', is a pretty open stretch of road--farmers fields and fallow ground--especially around the railway crossing.

When I noticed the flashy signals on the crossing gates start to flash, I slowed dwon and stopped our vehicle far enough away from the rails from what I would consider an 'immediate danger zone' should anything hapen. Odds are better to get hit by lightning, but I takes no chances that I dinna hafta!

Well, the crossing gates are now falling and you can hear the train a'comin'...

The gates down, the lights flashing, the train is in view.

Across the tracks from us is the aforemetioned Joe Moron. He decides, after the barriers were down mind you, that now would be a good time to scoot across the tracks in his minivan.

Sandy and I were speechless.

The engineer in the locomotive obviously saw this guy moving across the tracks right in front of him and just lays on the horn.

Without word of exageration, the train missed the back end of the minivan by mere feet.

Joe Moron drives by us--not even fazed and with a cell-phone to his ear.

Brilliant.

I really don't know. Times like that you just want to wring someone's neck and try to knock some sense into them.

I'm getting used to the drivers who believe that on- and off- ramps (and shoulders now) are their personal passing lane. I'm dealing with people who believe that left-hand turns are appropriate after the light has turned red. I'm even not so bad with the revved up Civics 'doin' the scoot' at 140+ thru highway traffic. I might not particularly like these things, but they do happen all the time and I'm gooing to keep my blood pressure down.

However, what I cannot accept is the Joe Morons of the world putting entire neighbourhoods at risk so they can get somewhere 2 minutes quicker. You have no idea what a train may be hauling. If it's railcars full of propane or something toxic, then what? You dont' have to go far back in the news to see that entire communities have to be evacuated due to a train derailment.

I'll say it again--trains are really big. They cannot stop 'on a dime', nor can they swerve out of the way. They are what they are and if you don't respect at least that little bit, give up your license now and stop risking the lives of everyone else.

Oh, so a quick 'If I were in charge' bit--you cross a railway track when the crossing gates are down--immediate suspension of your license.

'Nuff said.

but honestly!!

In the 'That which does not kill me makes for a good blog entry' dept.--

Sandy and I came back to our condo after the hockey game on Saturday--Leafs won 5-3 against the last Stanley Cup champions, Tampa Bay, btw...

Anyway, we come home and park as usual in the underground parking garage.

We open the door to go into the building from the underground parking lot and there, in the middle of the hallway floor just inside the door, is a wad of cash.

Well isn't that interesting.

The wad actually proved to be 40 bucks--all in 5 dollar bills--that's why it looked so big.

So we get up to our condo and I get a piece of paper--

"Sum of money found in hallway--call [insert my cell # here]"

Now I didn't disclose how much money was found or where in the building I found it 'cause the person who lost it should know these things--I could then easily weed out the dishonest folks who may call wanting some 'free' money.

So I post this message strategically in the building--basically in both elevators and by the mailboxes in the lobby.

Good deed done, I slept well that night.

The next morning I get up to go to the Hobby Show and I'm in the elevator. I note that someone wrote over my posted note--

"It's a gimmick-they want to steal your phone service!"

Huh?

K, first if you think it's a gimmick, why leave the original message there in the first place!

Secondly, and more important, this once again drills home the old adage--no good deed goes unpunished.

So it's been a few days. I have no idea of the status of my little post-its in the elevators and by the mailboxes, nor do I particularly care right now. The 40 bucks is now part of the 'Sandy 'n Dave Wedding fund.'

So much for that.

and the pictures thereof...

Friday pictures

Sunday pictures

We were at the International Centre from November 4th thru November 6th showing off our LEGO creations.

It was a wonderful time hanging out with fellow LEGO builders and chatting with many visitors.

Have a look at the pics!

at around 8 p.m.

I was sitting in a movie theatre watching 'National Treasure'.

I just happened to be sitting beside a very attractive woman--moreover we were sharing a bag of popcorn, so it was more of a date.

Well, during the movie there was one scene where the two main actors had to have a clothes change and were doing so behind those changeroom doors so all you saw was the head and the feet.

I just happened to note that the actress had some pretty nice looking feet.

My date looked at me strangely and asked 'You don't have a foot fetish, do you?'

Well, first, I don't--but secondly, I had to come up with something really quick-like to salvage this date---"Oh, I like everything from the top of the head to the bottom of the feet and every part inbetween..."

She laughed and I was saved--whew!

And now, 11 months later, here we are.

And I really do love her--from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet, and every part inbetween

So I lucked out...

You gotta love 'em!

Dave and I are on holidays this week and so far enjoying every little second of it.

There is nothing better than waking up without an alarm clock and not having to go to work. You can stay in bed and relax. You can kick back and watch some TV. You can stretch out on the couch and read a book. Heck, you can stay in your PJ's all day if you want!

Tomorrow we head to the good 'ole USA for a mini-holiday. We'll do some shopping (I'll be cheking out wedding dresses), hike in a State Park, have a nice dinner to celebrate our 11-month anniversary and just about whatever else we want to do because - WE ARE ON HOLIDAYS!

At some point tomorrow we'll have some pictures up on the website from our hike in Presque Isle Park.

Well, it's 12:50 in the afternoon and I think I will go join Dave for a little nap - Yup, I love holidays.