I made a few changes, but not enough to warrant the change in name, so I ended up just calling the GitHub project “MumbleReader.js“. I’d like to think that as an example implementation of CVP, my changes make it a lot easier for those familiar with HTML to mix it into their own website – but then again I’m not exactly looking at the code with fresh eyes.

I did get to play with my first experience with GitHub’s “Pages” feature, which is actually quite nice once you get the hang of it. Having some sort of revision control on web pages is actually a sane and simple solution if your needs aren’t great.

The heat and the crappy mattress we’re sleeping on isn’t doing me much good. I feel like there’s a whole Back pain seminar‘s worth of complaining in my lumbar region, and I’ve been trying to stretch it out and exercise the muscles but I really think the mattress is the chief culprit. It becomes a difficult decision though – do I spend money on a mattress we can’t take with us when we go back to the states, or do I just put up with it?

In the course of bolting, they managed to break a couple of fences. The end result was that instead of getting the one fence we were going to fix, fixed – we ended up with two extra fences to fix.

Yesterday we went down to fix those two fences, and to move a couple of the metal bath tubs my parents are using for water troughs. Duncan absolutely adores being on the 4 wheel motorbike, so it wasn’t really work for him despite the heat. He had a hat and sunscreen on, and doesn’t appear to have copped any sunburn which is good.

But after working all day in the heat, I’m feeling a little worse for wear today. I thought living on a “ranch” was supposed to be all pork & beans and singing acoustic guitar songs.

Anyway most of what I found was things like fruit picking, Waiter/Waitress Jobs, that sort of thing. I’m not sure what I want to do yet, but at least there are things available nearby.

Mum was talking to me yesterday about how she wants a “whirly-gig” for the attic in the pantry to bring down the summer temperatures a bit – there’s a big one on the house, but the attic isn’t connected to the top of the pantry, and one of the big ones would be a bit too much airflow for such a small area. She pointed out one on the roof of a camper on the back of a ute, and I suggested that if I’d wanted to buy something like that in the states I’d go to the local rv repair place.

Apparently there’s a caravan supplies place in Ballarat, so maybe if Duncan cooperates while driving we’ll look at picking one up out there too.

I ended up using it the last 2 weeks on Verizon with CyanogenMod on it, which I adored. Upon our arrival to Australia, my Dad had arranged to get us a couple of Telstra (the only network with reliable service where they live) SIM cards which I tried to activate in the D2G without much luck.

I ended up figuring out that CyanogenMod wasn’t asking me for the SIM unlock code (Verizon subsidize the phone, so you have to ask their permission to use the SIM slot), so I SBFed back again and entered the code without issue and I was able to call and text, but no data.

It took me a couple days of Googling to figure out that Telstra have a smartphone configuration site – I put my details in as having a Milestone 2 (apparently the closest relative to the D2G) and it sent the configuration over. Still nothing.

I tried again from a desktop PC with wifi off on the phone, and suddenly the 3G came up. I ended up putting it on GSM only, because it doesn’t seem any slower than Verizon and the UTMS eats battery like noone’s business.

It’ll take some getting used to with not having unlimited texting and data, but so far i’m liking it. I haven’t tried CM7 again now the SIM on the radio is unlocked, but I may give that a shot. In fact now I think of it, simply sending the config over from Telstra’s website may have done the trick.

We blew through security at the Indy airport really quickly, and it was a surprisingly friendly experience. I’d heard horror stories, but apart from having to remove my shoes and my belt we went through completely without issue. We didn’t have to clear security again until after we’d arrived in Sydney, at which point we had to go through a secondary screening before boarding our transfer.

When we arrived in Tullamarine we had to declare things to customs, things like medication, large amounts of currency, gold bars, and food. Uh oh, food – we’d brought a whole bag of snacks and things to keep Duncan occupied during the flight. I didn’t think that all the pre-prepared snacks we’d brought would qualify as things they’d throw away, but I declared them anyway.

It’s probably just as well, as the detector dog they ran over our baggage hit on our snack bag, so we had to step out of line while they searched it. It turned out that nothing in there was of any consequence, and we skated right through the rest of the way and out to the car trip home.

Well a while back I discovered, via Reddit, Twitter’s “Bootstrap” project – an all-in-one CSS marvel that pretty much slaps Web2.0 style onto markup with a minimum number of keystrokes. I toyed with the idea of re-rolling our new panel using Bootstrap, but I simply bookmarked the page and forgot about it, writing it off as “too much work”.

A couple days ago, I happened upon it again while cleaning out my bookmarks, so I decided to take another look at it. I made a new HTML file on my desktop and mucked with it, and after all of five minutes, I realized how powerful it was for what I wanted.

The next day I worked on the panel so much I thought about wrapping myself up in incontinence products so I wouldn’t have to leave my desk. Thanksgiving day, while everyone was buzzing about the kitchen and dining room, I sat with the laptop and worked some more.

The end result so far: I’ve re-done what was previously 6 weeks worth of on-again-off-again work in two and a bit days. I love it, I think it looks the best our panel ever has, it has a few new features that our older panel didn’t have, and it’s just all around a positive thing.

I can’t wait to get it beta tested with a few users, then push it live.

The only downside is he’s obsessed with pressing buttons that go “boop”. When his grandma pulls money out at the ATM, if he’s present she has to grab his little hand and make him push all the right buttons, or there will be hell to pay. Now he needs to learn to take off with the cash!

I originally picked it up as an early birthday present for my brother in law – I didn’t know he had an account, and I certainly don’t think he had an email address that he would keep sure to attach to the account, so I just bought it under my account and let him play on it.

I tried it here and there, and thought it was pretty fun, but not something I could really get into. Then someone on Reddit explained how two people can play on the same (insecure, so hackers/griefers can get on it, but it’s LAN only so that’s okay) server with the same account, and holy shit.

It was at 3am, while looking on the Wiki for howtos on log cabin decor and crafting recipes, while strip mining a cavern a few hundred meters underground that I realized it might be time to admit something’s wrong. This is not a one-time occurrence either.