FPX Forum Poll

The original FPX forum is still having technical difficulties.  Vote at the following link whether to remain at the original FPX and hope the problems are worked out or move permanently to the Alternate FPX:

http://frictionpowered.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/fpx-forum-poll/


For those of you not already registered there, it is NOT necessary to enter a phone number.  Just click the PASS button a few times until it stops asking you.  I will activate your account as soon as I see your registration, and you will be able to log in and post.

Alternative Forum

I don't know what the problem is with FPX, but if it's still down tomorrow, we'll use the alternative forum.

Link to FPX:  http://frictionpowered.hqforums.com/

Link to Alternative FPX:  http://frictionpowered.freeforums.org/

Forum temporarily down

I've received a few emails expressing concern about the discussion forum being currently unavailable. The reason for this is that HQ Forums (the hosting service) is changing servers. FPX should be back online in a day or so. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

Scout

Update:  I expected the forum to have been back online by now.  Until it returns, everyone is welcome to post at the alternate site:  FPX II.



FPX is back in business.  Thanks for your patience, everyone!

FPX Now Open

The hijacking issue at the original FPX appears to have been fixed. The forum is now open to posting. Please notify me of any problems. You can post a message in the comment thread of this blog entry or send me an email through the contact form by clicking the small envelope in the sidebar of this blog.

Scout

Forum Temporarily Closed

The Friction Powered Information Exchange is closed until further notice due to intrusive ads and hijacking problems. I apologize for the inconvenience and any frustration it has caused. In the meantime, everyone is welcome to post here at the blog in the comment section of this entry. As an alternative, there is another forum available to anyone who wishes to register.

Click to go to the new (perhaps temporary) Friction Powered Exchange forum. If you choose to use it, be patient with me while I get accustomed to the Admin panel which is more complex than the one I'm used to using.

If the original FPX reopens, I'll post a notice here and at FPX II.

Important addendum:

I just became aware that the registration form on the new forum is asking for full name and birthdate. I would alter that requirement if I could. As it is, all I can say is I would not provide such personal information. As long as you provide a "name" and a birthdate that makes your age greater than 18, I don't think there will be any problem.

The original FPX forum is currently open. Please proceed there to participate in the discussion.

LINK to FPX forum

Experiencing Technical Difficulties

The Friction Powered Exchange forum is down. I don’t know if it’s temporary or permanent. It isn’t my doing, and I don’t know what the problem is.

Interesting timing.

Update: 9:36 PM

We're open for business!

Whatever the problem was, it now appears to have been fixed.

Friction Powered Forum

It may just prove that I'm crazy, but I've decided to give this a go and see how it works out.

http://frictionpowered.hqforums.com/

If nothing else, it'll be a learning experience. Y'all behave now.

ETA: Registration is open but requires Admin approval for account activation. Please be patient, and I'll get to you as soon as I can.

Last Ditch Effort

Tomorrow will mark two weeks since I made the following post in the comment thread of Michelle Young Murder: Rage or Planned?

There are some questions I would like to ask before I publish your comment. I can set up a private blog entry here that is password protected. You and I can discuss this matter on the comment section of that entry. All I need from you is for you to give me a password and agree not to share that password with anyone else. I will set up the private entry with the password you provide, and I will agree to not share the password with anyone else. When we are done with the discussion, I will delete the entry and the discussion if you so choose.

If I've heard no response from you by 5 p.m. tomorrow, I'll accept your silence as a rejection of my offer and publish your comment per your previous instruction. I hope that one way or another you'll participate in the discussion the subject of your comment is sure to touch off.

Update: September 28, 2007

Your comments have been published.

Trying Out Wordpress

I'm testing my blog on Wordpress to see if it's a good fit. Your browser will be redirected to frictionpowered.wordpress.com in 10 seconds. Let me know what you think of the new digs.

Update: September 10, 2007

I have removed the redirect script from the blog template, so visitors to this blog will no longer be automatically redirected to the Wordpress version of Friction Powered. Use the above link or the one in the sidebar if you want to check it out. I'm leaning toward keeping the Wordpress version, so I'm considering closing the comment threads here. Thanks for your interest.

Transmission Suspension

[personal message redacted]


To all readers:

I am enabling Comment Moderation for the time being. All new comments will be held in moderation until I approve them for publishing, so don't be alarmed if you post a comment and it doesn't show up for some time. I will get to them as soon as I can. Anything unsuitable for publishing will be deleted.


In the meantime:

You can set your minds to work on what one reader termed "that awesome riddle". Then you will know something that I know. It's easier to solve than you might think. It's not like I wrote it in Mandarin, after all.

Message Box Help

If you're having trouble sending and receiving private messages at the CourtTV or Websleuths forums, you probably need to clean out your box. It's necessary to clean out both the Inbox and the Sent Items folder. Otherwise, your box will fill up with sent messages and you won't be able to send or receive anything new.

1. Click on "user cp" near the top center of the page.
2. Click on "Private Messages" at the far right of the User CP navigation bar.
3. Delete any unwanted messages in your Inbox. Just check the boxes to the right of the message labels and click delete at the bottom of the list.
4. Select "Sent Items" from the "Jump to folder" dropdown menu on the right, just below the navigation bar.
5. Delete any unwanted messages in your Sent Items folder in the same manner that you deleted Inbox items.

I've been told it's also necessary to clear the Message Tracking items, but I'm not sure that function affects mailbox capacity. Tracking items can be viewed through the "Jump to folder" menu.

A Tender Tail Tale

Remember Aesop's fable, The Lion and the Mouse? It's the first thing I thought of while watching this video at MSNBC.com. Enjoy!

Lion gets a hug

Jan. 12: An African lion has struck up a close friendship with the woman in Colombia who saved his life.

Growing Pains

I stabbed myself in the foot this morning. Literally. I was putting away the clean dishes and inadvertently let slip a kitchen knife from my hand. Not a big butcher knife or a little paring knife. Just your standard average-sized kitchen knife. It's nothing I haven't done before, but I'm usually quick enough and cognizant enough to move my foot out of the way. Not this time. My foot stayed put. I don't know why. Maybe the synapses didn't fire, telling my foot to move; maybe my foot just didn't respond; maybe I misjudged, thinking the knife would miss and moving my foot would be unnecessary. Of course, it hurt. But it was more of a bruising pain. Glancing down and seeing the knife on the floor and no blood, I assumed that it had hit hilt-down. So I just picked up the knife and went on about my morning routine. Later I noticed, while taking a shower, a small blood-filled hole in the top of my foot. There's a little bruise beneath it. The knife must have bounced off my bone instead of impaling itself in my flesh. The injury is no big deal, but I keep puzzling over why I didn't move my foot. I must be getting old. Maybe this incident will go down in my personal history as the day I first realized that I really am middle-aged.

10:45 am
On second thought ... Naaahh! If last year's dirtbike spill didn't do it for me, why should a little hole in my foot make a difference? It's all in the attitude, right?

The Morning After

This morning, I awoke to the radio DJ wishing me "Happy Holidays!" followed by Bing Crosby dreaming of a "White Christmas". The first thought that occurred to me was "How long have I been asleep?!"

I mean, come on, people! Can't we even have a little break before starting the whole Christmas thing? I'm still recovering from Halloween, forcryinoutloud! I started my Christmas shopping a long time ago, but I refuse to listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving. Don't get me wrong; I love Christmas music, but I have no intention of combining Thanksgiving with Christmas. I will celebrate Thanksgiving fully and on its own merits, thankyouverymuch! Just give me a few days to take down the Halloween decorations and cause some of the Trick-or-Treat booty to vanish first.

Speaking of which, the kids looked great in their costumes, and we had a wonderful evening despite the cold, windy conditions. After we'd had enough, we came home and handed out candy to all the other spooks and goblins. I hope your Halloween was as much fun as ours.



Here's the welcoming crew. I should have taken the photo earlier. Frankie was already starting to cave in on himself. All that warm weather leading up to the big day was just too much for him.

Happy Halloween!

I realize that some of you are waiting to hear about our trip to Chattanooga, but I'm just too swamped to deal with composing an entry about it right now. I've got to make a trip to the Pumpkin Patch, attend school Halloween parties, man a caramel apple booth at the Fall Carnival, assemble costumes, carve pumpkins, dig a grave (sort of), and buy candy -- all in the next few days. There's probably some other stuff that I'm forgetting about right now, not to mention all the regular domestic stuff that is piling up. I'm not sure who I relate to more -- Ichabod Crane or the Headless Horseman. Probably both, alternately. So have a happy Halloween and I'll see you on the other side!

Click this link to Carve a Pumpkin!

Columbus Day

It's Columbus Day, and I'm feeling adventurous. So I got to Googling around on the Internet and found out that The NIÑA is going to be in port at Chattanooga, Tennessee this month. My kids are fascinated with tall ships right now because they're into all things pirate. I'd love to take them to see The The NIÑA firsthand. It won't matter a lick to them that it's only a replica of the original.

I also came across The Wonders of Rock City, which is just south of Chattanooga, at Lookout Mountain in Georgia. Looks like a grand place for an adventure, no?



Now if I can only talk my husband "HAL" into a trip on such short notice. I'm having flashbacks to our other foray into Tennessee. Once upon a time, in an October of yesteryear, we decided to see Memphis, Nashville, and Gatlinburg. (Well, it was my idea actually. HAL just happily went along with my spur-of-the-moment notion.) Clueless hicks that we are, neither of us had any idea that October is the busiest season of the year in the Great Smoky Mountains. HAL was dumbfounded when he learned that we couldn't get a room in Gatlinburg because the leaves were changing. Yes, people come from far and wide to view the autumnal transmogrification every year. After spending half the night driving around, we ended up finding a room on the west side of Knoxville and returned to Gatlinburg the next day. Aside from that one little setback, we had a great time. Of course, we were childless then, making the driving around half the night a tad less troublesome. Reckon he'll remember that little adventure less fondly and say, "No way!"?

Stand by and I'll let ya know.

Update: 5:02 pm

Okay, you're gonna love this. HAL suggested we borrow a travel trailer and go for it. We are the epitome of the blind leading the blind. He did have enough sense to hedge with, "We'll talk about it tonight." So, of the two of us, he might actually be the brighter bulb. Time will tell.

Crikey Doesn't Cover It, Mate.

Damn that guy.

I woke up to the news this morning that the Crocodile Hunter is dead. Shock. Sadness. Anger. All at the same time. He's got a wife and two little kids who adore him. Can you imagine having a folk hero for your Daddy? Folk heroes usually die tragic and untimely deaths, I guess. But damn it anyway.

The world will miss him. Not half as much as his family will, but miss him we will.

Steve Irwin: One-of-a-Kind.

Poor Pluto

Pluto is dead," said Mike Brown, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology who spoke with reporters via a teleconference while monitoring the vote.
...
The vote involved just 424 astronomers who remained for the last day of a meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Prague.

"I'm embarrassed for astronomy. Less than 5 percent of the world's astronomers voted," said Alan Stern, leader of NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto and a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute.
...
Stern called it "absurd" that only 424 astronomers were allowed to vote, out of about 10,000 professional astronomers around the globe.

"It won't stand," he said. "It's a farce."

Stern said astronomers are already circulating a petition that would try to overturn the IAU decision.

You tell 'em, Mr. Stern!

A Ray of Sunshine

After following events of the last week and delving back into the details and botched investigation of the Ramsey case, a story like this is a welcome change.

About 1 a.m. Tuesday, Sharon went into sudden labor in the bathroom of their Canby home and yelled to her husband there was no time to get to a hospital.

In a matter of minutes, the baby was born. But instead of warming to a healthy pink, she was pale and struggling for air.

As paramedics raced to the Ellis home, Boe, 29, followed instructions from 911 operator Tammy Shaver. He cleared his daughter's breathing passage, blew two puffs of air into her mouth and gently pressed on her chest to stimulate her heart.

Finally, Boe tapped on his daughter's feet, and Bridget took her first light breaths as Pulford and fellow paramedics Val Codino and Tighe Vroman arrived.

They found the baby's pulse and respiration were slow, so they left her connected to the umbilical cord and receiving oxygenated blood from her mother while they continued resuscitation. Over the next 18 minutes, they provided physical stimulation and supplemental oxygen.

But the paramedics all agreed that Boe Ellis saved his baby's life and protected her from brain damage or other long-term effects.

Bridget Ellis was doing fine with her mother at Legacy Meridian Park Hospital in Tualatin, with her father and her 2-year-old sister, Brooke, all smiles.

Sharon Ellis, meanwhile, said she was still amazed at her husband's calm response: "I thought for sure he would have passed out in a situation like that."

Read the full article at MSNBC.com.

Happy 4th of July!

I hope you and yours get to enjoy all the festivities of the holiday weekend. We are celebrating with family gatherings, eating, swimming, and the close supervision of very, very minor explosives. If we're not too exhausted by Tuesday evening, we'll head out to the lake for the big show.


If you can't make it to a live show, there's always the Capitol celebration on PBS and the always grand Boston Pops Spectacular on CBS. NBC and ABC are airing similar celebrations. Take your pick!


And if things are really slow for you, you can take this little quiz.

Do you have what it takes to become an American citizen?

Have fun and be safe!