Love these two videos, old school and a remix allegedly done by a Serbian DJ.

First old school…

And now the remix….

Which do you like better?!

Oh wait, I forgot Jessica!

I play a Holy or Discipline spec’ed priest in WoW.  I’m a healer. That means when people die, it’s my fault. Doesn’t matter if the tank didn’t hold agro or DPS gained agro — it’s my fault.   So this is my little cheat sheet so when I do a random, I can quickly review the things I need to remember.  I’ll edit it over time most likely.  So this is mainly for my own purposes more than a tutorial.

The Nexus

Entrance at lower level at Nexus in Coldarra (if needed)

• Grand Magus Telestra: Cast Prayer of Shadow Protection (PoSP) before battle, AOE damage
• Ormorok the Tree-Shaper: Beware of crystal spikes – stay directly under boss, AOE damage
• Anomalus: AOE damage
• Keristrasza: PVP trink if chained, stay to side of dragon (not front or back), keep moving to avoid cold debuff, mana can go fast in this fight
• Commander Kolurg: (optional, Heroric only) Cast Fear Ward on tank before battle. Basic TaS (tank and spank)

Utgarde Keep

• Prince Keleseth: Cast PoSP if needed. Stay behind boss. Skeleton adds can be shackled. Beware of Frost Tombs, 20 sec plus dmg unless broken by damage by other player.
• Skarvald and Dalronn: Ensure PoSP is up. Can’t shackle skels on Heroic mode.  Stack on boss in normal, stand at range on heroic.
• Ingvar the Plunderer: Ensure PoSP is up. When he starts roar cast, stop casting. Cast shadow fiend at beginning of phase 2.

Ahn’kahet: The Old Kingdom

• Elder Nadox: Adds will attack others, hard for tank to keep agro, use Holy Nova to dps adds if mana avail
• Prince Taldaram: PoSP, spread out until he vanishes, then bunch up. (Heroric) Bubble, don’t heal anyone in Vampiric Drain
• Jedoga Shadowseeker: After first trash, go into center. When she re-levitates one add will walk towards center. Wand the add.
• Amanitar: (heroic, optional):  Kill a healthy (non-green aura) mushroom to clear debuff
• Herald Volazj: At 66% and 33% health he casts insanity. Unequip weapons before cast finishes. All players are cloned and then attack.

Violet Hold

Not all these bosses appear in each run. Last boss always appears.

• Erekem: (arakkoa). Simple tank and spank, as long as DPS takes down boss first
• Moragg: (floating eye). All parties should stay as close to the boss as possible.
• Ichoron: (water revenant). Big danger of gaining threat until he hits 25% and enrages. At that point, be ready to heal loads. Elemental adds explode and do dmg when they die.
• Xevozz: (ethereal).  Stay away from spheres. Tank should kite Xevozz away from orbs. Try to stay ahead of tank.
• Lavanthor: (core hound). Tank and spank, stay away from front of him. AOE damage.
• Zuramat: (void lord). Pray first. Cast PoSP if needed. Target boss, dispel magic when he gets darkness buff.  Kill sentries if you can see them if void shifted (holy nova). Use PoM a lot. Bubble a lot. Don’t run out of mana. If a player gets more than 5 darkness debuffs, negative healing happens. Tell group not to DPS him if he gets that buff and to wait until it is dispelled.
• Cyanigosa: Tank and spank, stay to side of dragon.

The Oculus

Entrance at upper level of The Nexus in Coldarra

• Drakos the Interrogator: Best done as Holy due to mult player damage
• Varos Cloudstrider: If hit by laser beam, move away from source but avoid crossing it thru another player. Stay clear of tank if he’s in center or outside. Be ready to group heal.
• Mage-Lord Urom: Keep anyone hit with Time Bomb healed to max. Keep HOTs on all players. Get out of LOS (behind a pillar) if arcane explosion is being cast. If tank kites boss, stay in front of the boss and tank’s direction.
• Ley-Guardian Eregos: Drake fight.  Emerald drake is healing one but can use any of them. In heroric, during a planar phase, don’t bother healing or DPS and stay away from anomalies — basically run away until planar phase is over.
  • Red Drake: Tank – Spam 1, 2, and 3 whenever CD is up
  • Amber drake: DPS – Channel 3 until 10 shock charges are up, then mash 1.  2 is used to stop time
  • Emerald drake: Healer – 3 heals targeted party member, 1 when you can, 2 if health is near top

Gundrak

• Slad’ran: (snake) Snake issue. Lots of adds.  Hope people AOE them well or there will be problems.
• Drakkari Colossus: Keep moving, stay out of green pools
• Moorabi: Burn cooldowns when he gets to 50%.
• Gal’darah: When boss in rhino form, stack on top of tank, against a wall if possible.
• Eck: Stay away from front of boss

Utgarde Pinnacle

• Svala Sorrowgrave: Throw DPS on 3 priests when player is suspended before sword descends. Stay away from sword if it descends to ground, AOE dmg
• Gortok Palehoof: Fight 4 mini-bosses first…
  Massive Jormungar: DPS against tank will increase during the battle
  Ravenous Furbol: Cast Fear Ward on tank before battle.  Will attack random player
  Ferocious Rhino: Stay outside of stomp radius.
  Frenzied Worgen: May be high DPS if rogue or hunter don’t dispell
  Gortok: Race against time. Player max health is decreased. Add DPS if poss, bring out pet.  Stay away from front of him.
• Skadi: Stay away from side of hall if frosted, pick up harpoons to kill Skadi’s mount
  Avoid Skadi’s whirlwind, which targets a random player
• King Ymiron: Bane buff to king will reflect damage to players, cast prayer of shadow protection before fight

Forge of Souls

• Bronjahm: Be sure Pray of Shadow Protection is on all, stay on side of platform until at 30% when he teleports to center, then move to center as well, heal through AOE effect.
• Devourer or Souls: If people start dying, others should run down stairs to reset encounter and res dead ones.

Culling of Stratholme

First time players should do their team a favor and first go to the Caverns of Time, enter CoS and do the first quest and accept the second and watch the little skit. There’s no danger and then when you re-enter with a team you can all port ahead and skip that bit.

• Meathook: Constricting Chains will stun for 4 secs. Targets party member with least threat allegedly.
• Salramm the Fleshcrafter: Ensure PoSP is up, Tank and Spank, adds may target if DPS sucks
• Chrono-Lord Epoch: TaS - If afflicted by Curse of Exertion, spell cost doubles. Hopefully a druid or mage will remove the curse
• Mal’Ganis: Equip PVP trinket and use if put to sleep.  Dispel Vampiric touch from boss.
• Infinite Corruptor: (Heroric only) – simple TaS but to get him must rush through instance and reach him within 25 minutes.

At my other job I was given a Mac laptop to fix that wouldn’t boot.  It just sat there on the spinning wheel and never came to the logon screen.  So first thing I did was to boot in verbose mode by holding CMD-V down after the boot sound.  This shows boot messages.  Doing this revealed the boot process was looping with an error message of:

Couldn't find root user.  Sleeping and trying again.

I tried Googling for it and didn’t get promising results. Only fix is to re-install. But I was not discouraged. Besides, re-installs are a pain because all programs need to be re-installed and all settings are lost — plus you can lose all user data if not careful.

So I rebooted the Mac into single user mode by holding down CMD-S after the boot tone. This allows you to poke around the file sytem — if you are comfortable with Unix or Linux.

Consensus on the few items I found online was that it’s a problem with netinfo and to remove the directory from /var/db. I made a backup of that directory first, tried it, and still didn’t help.

Thankfully, a lot of Mac OS X is open source code named Darwin.  The error message was being produced by the memberd program. Going back into the open source archive at Apple for 10.4.,  I found the error message and confirmed it was trying to do something with the directory service.   So I hit a dead end — for a bit.

I rebooted and followed the boot messages and further upstream in the messages was another error from dyld saying it couldn’t load libz.1.dylib.   I went into /usr/lib and lo and behold, found a bad symlink….

libz.1.dylib -> ?~

Bingo!  I relinked it to the actual library file that was in the same directory

ln -s libz.1.dylib libz.1.2.3.dylib

Rebooted the Mac, and IT WORKED!!!!

So here’s hoping if someone else gets stuck with a similar problem on an older Mac running Tiger (10.4) and Googles the message like I tried, they’ll happen upon this and it will hopefully help.

Weave has been my nickname ever since some guy named Frank Kros set me up a user account in 1982 on a Burroughs mainframe that I was to do some contract COBOL programming on. The college I was attending at rented time on that system.  Since he forgot how to spell my last name, he just gave me a user account named “weave” on it — and I’ve been using that name ever since.

In 1999, right smack in the middle of the dot com boom period, domain names were selling like mad, with some fetching millions of dollars. It got tough to find short domain names for reasonable prices.  I did manage to get weaverling.org and weaverling.com then because I have a fairly unusual last name. But anything weave.* was just not going to happen.

The domain weave.org expired a few months ago due to non-payment by original owner. Once that happens, as with other domains, there’s a grace period where the original owner can reclaim it. After that, it’s released and various scum bag companies that collude with registrars and hence have hooks into the entire domain process can snap it up and offer it for resale to the highest bidder.

That is what happened to weave.org.  38 people besides myself put in an initial offer for the domain. One guy topped me, with username of rogabiz.  I googled that and found out that user is most likely a domain speculator, attempting to buy low and resell high.  I also saw that weave.info is for sale at $1,697 at another site.

So I figured I was doomed. weave.org would have to have more value than the name in the lesser known TLD of .info.   But I decided to give it a try and was worried I’d get too carried away and pay too much.  I was hoping to not go higher than $500 but might have went a bit over that if needed.

But I had a bit of potential good luck on my side.  The domain auction was listed to end on December 31st at 15:55. Hoping that most serious speculators would not be “working” on New Years Eve.   I set out to try sniping in a bid at the last minute. But timing was the key. Any bids submitted during the last five minutes increased the bid deadline by another five minutes. So I dropped my bid in with six minutes to go, at 15:49.   I then sat there for 6 minutes anxiously waiting to see if anyone submitted a higher bid.

Until eventually, bam — it was MINE MINE MINE!  So now you can email me @weave.org too!

I don’t believe in curses. But on the other hand, how many times does something have to happen before you start to wonder if there’s something to it.  Then again there’s the self-fulfilling prophecy angle. But trust me, some of these events I couldn’t have subconsciously made happen.

It doesn’t happen every year, but way too often some disaster falls upon my on New Year’s eve. Some are much more worse than others. You decide. Cursed or not?

The Key Incident

My girl friend and I booked a combo at a local hotel where you could eat dinner, then have an open bar with entertainment to midnight, stay the night in the hotel, get a late breakfast the next day, and a late checkout.   Good fun, with no worries.

That is until about 10pm.  She needed me to make a run to a convenience store to buy something the hotel didn’t have. I had her keys with me from earlier when I had to get something out of her car.  I went to get them later, and realized THEY WERE GONE.    I searched all over the hotel and grounds, everywhere we had been, and couldn’t find them anywhere.

Needless to say, the rest of the evening and next morning didn’t quite go as I had hoped it would.

Punched in the Gut and Left to Die Incident

OK, not literally. That would have actually been less painful.  I was engaged to get married at the time. My girl friend and I were out of state on New Year’s Eve. There’s a long back story to this that I won’t get into (and of course I’m totally blameless!), but the hammer dropped about 10 minutes to midnight. We had just checked into our room and she let me know that she didn’t want to get married to me and that no one ever understood her like this other guy at her work did.  I just turned on the TV, sat at the edge of the bed, and watched the ball drop — and felt absolutely nothing — as if I had died inside.

It wasn’t technically a break up, but it was never the same after that and we slowly drifted apart.

The ER visit

Went to First Night, was a “first date” situation.  I met her there, since we really didn’t know each other yet and I wanted her to feel comfortable — oh and I didn’t own a car at the time so that was a bit awkward to come out and admit at the time and I didn’t think she’d want to be picked up on a motorcycle in the Winter.   But that wasn’t the problem.  In fact, we hit it off really well and was one of those situations where it was like the rest of the world didn’t exist. We found a quiet corner and talked and talked.   Then I started to get this weird feeling in my stomach.  Oh no, it wasn’t butterflies, or a feeling that I found Ms. Right.  Nope, it was not to be because IT WAS NEW YEAR’S EVE.

My stomach felt like it was going to explode. I politely dismissed myself and tried to find a toilet — fast. I ended up running to the side of the building and barfing my guts out.  I walked back and was out of it. Unable to pay attention to what she was saying or responding much because of the pain, I must have looked like I was bored. The pain got worse. I finally started to think more about how I was going to survive more than anything. I finally just told her I had to go. It was 11pm. I ran to where the DART buses were to get a bus home. The driver said none would be leaving until midnight. I stepped off the bus, leaned against a building, and started throwing up until I was dry heaving. I stumbled back on the bus, looking drunk of course. I went to the back of the bus and wished for death. A little while later I heard fireworks, while dying inside a bus. I mumbled “Happy New Year.”

A few hours later I was on a stretcher in the ER for several hours, waiting to be seen amongst the other casualties of New Years Eve.  I got X-rayed and checked. I was given some pills to take and released to my sister’s husband to give me a ride home. I stepped outside the ER and threw up the pills.

Out of Gas

No first date this New Year’s Eve. I had been dating this gal for about a year. She was throwing a big party for her friends. I was on my motorcycle heading to her house.  I was running low on gas. I went from gas station to gas station looking to fill it, but they were all closed. (Gee, I wonder why).  I finally ran out of gas at the bottom of a hill on Route 7 near Christiana. I somehow pushed my bike up the hill, and another couple of miles while watching my watch go past midnight.  I finally found an open station, got to her party after most of her guests went home.   She wasn’t happy at all. I couldn’t call her because this was the days before cell phones.

She had a point, I was an idiot for running out of gas, and I had embarrassed her greatly as her friends all thought she got stood up for the night.  That was the beginning of the end and six weeks later, we were history.

Who Needs Power?

This actually happened last year.  I had gone a few years with no incidences. Thought it was all behind me. That was simply not to be.

Where I work was scheduled to have a new emergency generator put in. Other electrical work was also supposed to occur, so my servers (and email) would be down. It was estimated to be about a day.  I knew I was in trouble when I talked to the contractor and when I mentioned that I’d be back in later in the day to bring up my servers, he laughed.  Said it’d take a COUPLE of days to do this job.

Oh struth, you gotta be kidding…

So we were down. For days. And so was email. And the people were mad. Real mad. And I sat there and wondered about my curse. But how could it be? It struck days earlier. And lo and behold I was given hope. Because on December 30th the power was restored and we were back up!

But alas, on December 31st, a strong wind storm blew in to the area. And it knocked out the power at work. And the new emergency generator did not get a county inspection yet and was still off line. And the servers went dark. And we were down again — on New Year’s Eve.

Worst New Years Eve. Evar.

MiniPuss, not feeling well.

I’ve saved the worst to last. It was December 30th, 2002. My cat, shown here in a picture from that day, wasn’t feeling well.  She had gone missing for two days and I finally found her here hiding in the linen closet. She wasn’t very responsive. I figured she just wasn’t feeling well and gave her some water and tried to get her to eat.   She responded slowly, and the next day (December 31st) she jumped down and made her way to the bedroom to her favorite window perch. I figured she was feeling better and was happy.

A little later I heard the most horrible scream I’ve ever heard. It sent a shiver down my spine. I never knew a cat could make that kind of noise. I ran towards the noise and saw her on the floor flopping around like a fish out of water, screaming in agony. There was blood and puss mixture all over the window, her perch, walls, and floor.  Linda and I quickly gathered her up in a blanket and head to a nearby animal 24hr emergency room.

They took her into the back, where I heard some more screams, then silence.  They finally sedated her and gave her something for the pain.  The vet came out and said she had a huge abscess on her lower back that had popped. He said he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get enough skin to be able to close it up, but would see what he could do.

I looked at my phone. It was almost midnight.  So we sat there, in the waiting room alone, wondering whether my cat would live, as others were ringing in 2003.

The next two weeks were hell. She had a huge wound with a draining tube. We tried to take care of her at home for a few days, but she constantly tried to get out of her “cone head.” Since we couldn’t watch her while at work, I checked her back into the vet for a week of recovery.  I went and visited her every day at lunch and after work. She was the cutest thing and tried to sneak into my backpack each time, as if trying to get me to sneak her out of there.

<<< Pic of the wound. Click at your own risk. It’s nasty.

Happily, she recovered and she’s still with us, and healthy.

What Next?

So tomorrow is New Years Eve again. Will I survive another one?   Hope everyone enjoys their evening. As for me, I’ll be in my basement, on the floor, under the stairs, in the fetal position, sucking on my thumb.

Happy New Years!

First of all, it’s really stupid I have to write a blog post on how to install the free Microsoft SQL express package, but it just isn’t that easy to do.  It’s nice they give it away for free for people like me to learn it all, but they assume you already know it in the limited instructions you are given.  The big problem is, there are a ton of pre-requisites that — if not already installed, will fail the installation and leave your install in a bad shape.  For example…. this lovely error:

An installation package for the product Microsoft SQL Server Native Client cannot be found. Try the installation again using a valid copy of the installation package ’sqlncli.msi’

10 Step Install

All of this assumes a fresh install of Windows XP in a virtual machine with one gig RAM allocated to it.

1. Do it inside a virtual machine and snapshot it before the install so if it fails, you can start over easily.
2. Go into Add/Remove programs, Windows Components, check IIS, install it
3. Install .NET Framework 3.5 – I just went into Windows Update, optional installs, and it was listed there.
4. Go to Windows Download page, search for MSXML 6.0 and install it
5. Google “ms sql express download” and pick the appropriate link from Microsoft’s site. When I did it I went to: http://www.microsoft.com/Sqlserver/2005/en/us/express.aspx
6. Click the link for 2005 express download. That took me to http://www.microsoft.com/Sqlserver/2005/en/us/express-down.aspx
7. Do NOT install the Advanced Services option. I had errors doing that.
8. Download and install SQL Server Express (sqlexpr32.exe), take all defaults.
9. Download and install SQL Server Management Studio Express
10. Reboot

Hopefully that will do it.  The SQL Server Management Studio program will be in the program menu.   I’ll write more blog entries as I figure it out myself.

This is a guide to how to get a prepaid phone that works in the United States if you plan to visit here.  Information about how to do this is hard to find because the phone companies don’t want you to just use a phone for a week or so and toss it basically.   I had similar difficulties getting a prepaid phone in UK for my trips there, but I’ll warn you, this is much more of a hassle.

First thing you need is an unlocked GSM phone. For people outside the U.S. this is probably something that doesn’t need explaining. Most phones sold in the U.S. are locked though. As an alternative, you can just buy a cheap prepaid phone in the U.S. for about $20-$50 to get you started (which includes a SIM).   If not, you’ll need a U.S. prepaid SIM to put into your phone.

The goal, of course, is to get up and running as fast as possible after landing in the U.S. so you probably don’t want to go running around looking to buy a phone and if you go into a shop and want to buy a SIM you’ll most likely be looked at very strangely.  eBay sellers have prepaid U.S. sims for sale. For this example, I’ll use AT&T’s prepaid service called “gophone” — so do an ebay search for gophone or prepaid sim. Try to find one with model/sku # 71234 — this is the latest AT&T 3G SIM as of August 2009.  I paid $3.99 for mine from snscommusa. Sounds like they will ship internationally if you contact them before payment and find out how much to add for shipping.

Once you get the SIM, you could activate it online at www.att.com/activations/ before you get to the U.S. but I suggest waiting until you arrive for quite a few reasons. However, I consider getting the SIM the biggest hassle so doing that before your trip will cut down on your agro once you arrive.

The reasons why you want to wait to activate your SIM until you get to the U.S. are:

• Once activated, you’ll be emailed a PIN to manage your account online. First time you logon, you’ll be sent a new PIN via SMS — which you won’t get if you are not in the U.S.
• MMS/data settings for your phone probably will get sent to your phone and setup automatically the first time it “logs in” to the network. It worked great on my Nokia N95.  If not, you’ll need to set those manually (settings for most common phones are on att.com’s website. Go to support, then phone/device support.)
• Topping up (refilling) the phone is a hassle if not in the U.S.  You might be able to buy a topup card over ebay.  The credit card topup/refill route, however, appears to require a U.S. credit card and address as well.

Once you get to the U.S. you’ll need to get online to activate, or call 1-866-895-1099.  Then you’ll need a refill/topup card.

As part of the activation process at www.att.com/activations/ you’ll need to enter the SIM number from the SIM plus your phone’s IMEI number (found inside the phone or you may be able to get it from typing in a code to your phone. Like on Nokia’s it’s *#06# )

You’ll be asked for a zip code of where the phone will be in service.  This will determine what area code your phone number will be in, which basically is the small location in the U.S. where land line phones can call it for free.  U.S. cell phones can call usually can call all over the U.S. for no extra charge, so it’s no big deal where the number is.  Just google around for addresses if you want a number in a certain area, or use 10001 (Midtown Manhattan, NYC).

Next up is a U.S. mailing list and email.  Of course you probably don’t have a U.S. mailing address. Actually, you will for a few days. The hotel you are staying at! But do enter in a good email address. You will be emailed a PIN to logon to att.com/mygophone where you can manage your account.   Note: When I googled for this info I saw several mentions of needing a PIN to activate your phone.  When I got my prepaid SIM it had no PIN with it and I wasn’t asked for one when activating. I am assuming the PIN is only if you buy a combo GoPhone phone and SIM package.

Next is to top up the phone.  The top up situation in the U.S. pretty much sucks.  Nothing like what I’ve encountered in the U.K.  ”Refill” cards are sold all over, like in drug stores (chemists) and other shops. But the weird thing is, they give you a card and a voucher with a PIN number in. THE VOUCHER IS WHAT IS IMPORTANT. That card, for all I can tell, is useless, although I haven’t tried taking the card back into the shop and asking to have it refilled to see if it’s any easier.

The refill PIN may be entered online or by dialing 611 from your phone WHILE IN THE U.S. and entering in the refill PIN on the voucher you receive.

More on the Top Up hassle

My O2 prepaid card from U.K. is a dream. I just have to make a call from it at least once every six months to keep it active.  I just make sure it has about 20 quid on it before I return back to the U.S. and to make a call before the six months is up.  That starts the clock ticking and I’m good for another six months.

Not so with any prepaid plans in the U.S.   There are multiple hassles and ways to lose your money. First is credit expiration. Depending on how much you top up with will determine when that credit will expire. You can “roll over” unused credit (with AT&T) if you top up again before the expiry date. The expiry date can be anywhere from 30 days (for a $15 top up) to 365 days (for a $100 top up).  If your credit expires, you lose it — and then 60 days after that you lose your phone number and the account is deactivated.

Next you have voice plans. Usually it’s pay per minute, or pay per day. I recommend per day. For $3.00 a day you can get unlimited calls all day. You are not charge on days you don’t use the phone. For a tourist, that’s probably your best bet.  For casual use, the $1.00/day plus 10 cents a minute is a better deal.

For bolt ons, which are called feature packages, it’s another expiry hassle.  You can by text packages or data packages. They only last 30 days but if you renew the package before then, any unused messages or data will roll over to the next month.    To add a package, dial 611 while in the U.S. and follow the voice prompts.

So the only way to keep one of these puppies alive after you leave the U.S. is to put $100 refill in the phone and then it’ll only last a year. So if you’re not returning to the U.S. again for at least a year, it’s best just to let it go and repeat the process for your next trip.

Example of U.S. Mobile Refill Cards

This picture shows a rack of mobile refill cards. This particular one was inside a grocery store. Usual procedure is to take it up front to a cashier who will activate the card for you, and possibly hand you a voucher with a PIN on it that you will need to refill the prepaid account.

Calling Back Home

Forget it! Very pricey.  OK, that’s not an option.  When I travel, I have a phone that does WiFi and has a VOIP service attached. I use gizmo5.com and their client on my Nokia N95.  Even the iPhone will dial internationally for cheap if you load an app like Fring on it and associate it with a VOIP account.  So my suggestion is, have some sort of phone with WiFi/VOIP service on it and just call home while leaching someone’s WiFi signal somewhere.  If you’ve been looking for an excuse to buy a nice unlocked Nokia that include WiFi, now’s the time if you intend to call home any. You’ll save enough most likely to pay for the phone and when you get back home you’ll still have a nice phone to use!

There’s an interesting boycott war going on out there right now, all over Glenn Beck.   It all started (I believe) with this video.

Apparently it has had some success as some advertisers are pulling out of the Beck program, because many people are offended by the guy or something. These offended people set up other websites to push the boycott.

This has lead to other groups and websites, like defendglenn.com to get involved and promise to boycott any advertiser that caves in and removes their advertising from the Beck program.

So what is an advertiser to do?   Seems like they can’t win no matter what they do.  No matter what they are going to lose customers by advertising on these programs instead of gaining customers.

The answer is simple. Any sane advertiser will simply stay away from anything remotely controversial in the first place and hence we’ll all end up with boring mushy non-controversial programming.    I think the entire “boycott because I’m offended” movement is ridiculous. There should be a wall between editorial content and advertising, otherwise the latter will influence the former, and then everyone loses.

On Saturday, July 25 I hiked about 8 miles of the Northern Delaware Greenway trail from downtown Wilmington out to Cauffiel Parkway at Gov Printz Blvd.  I had hope to get to Fox Point Park but despite what the Greenway map says, doesn’t look like it’s doable.   This is my report and review of the trail and a few difficulties along the way.  This trail is also part of the East Coast Greenway, but unfortunately nothing on the trail is marked as such.

Below is the map of the trail I followed (click for a larger version).

I started at downtown Wilmington and followed the red trail up through Brandywine Park, Alapocas Run park, over near Blue Bell Barn, through Rockwood and Bellevue and finally out to Governor Printz Boulevard.  Refer to my Flickr set map for locations and photos referenced in this blog post.

The hike started at Market Street bridge over the Brandywine River (above). I crossed the bridge and followed the road along the northeast side of the river, past the zoo, under the underpasses for the Washington Street, I-95, and Augustine Cutoff.

Some of the views under the bridges were incredible, as show above. This shot is from under Washington Street Bridge.

Well this didn’t look good. Mind you I still had no idea that I was even on the Greenway trail. No signs exist anywhere. But comparing the location to the trail map told me this was probably it. And alas, it’s a dead end.  I decided to press on regardless. What I found at the end was a bit of gravel and then a dirt path that climbed half way up a steep hill and then down the other side. At one point it went through a fence that had a hole cut out of it.

Finally at the end of this mess it appeared to become part of a legitimate maintained trail. I turned around and found the sign below prohibiting people from going further (there was no such sign on the other end).   Total length of the forbidden connector was 0.3 miles.  I read on the greenways site that the nearby condo association erected a fence across the trail and the ownership of that piece of land is under dispute.  So officially that part of the trail doesn’t exist, but there is a way through it at least — for now.

The next portion of the hike took me past the Bancroft Mill and a large rock face that one could do rock climbing with.  Yeah, nice, but no thanks. (This was also the area where one of my staff just got married!)

Just beyond this place the trail hits a junction where a trail map is on a board. At this point those who want to go out towards Bellevue need to turn right and head up a steep hill.  As the point the trail crosses over Alapocas Drive, there’s a schematic map.  It says “To Bellevue” .. I was hopeful this was true since some maps I saw indicated that part of the trail were not completed yet.

Beyond this point it was mainly wooded with some gorgeous pedestrian bridges over tiny creeks.  The bridges look to have cost a fortune and I found myself wishing they had spent a few dollars on some trail markers instead.

Eventually the trail came out of the woods and into the US 202 and SR 141 interchange that was recently constructed.  At the roundabout the trail continues across the road and then under the underpass (again, no trail marker or sign indicates this).  Up on the hill to the left is Blue Ball Barn. At this point I was starting to get thirsty so I walked up the hill and into the barn. A small break area with vending machines is here, plus clean toilets!. A good place to take a break and refresh.

An interesting thing about this hike I hadn’t expected was the lack of services along the way. I had expected with the crossing of major roads there would be places to grab a drink here and there, but I was wrong.  So take some water with you if you do this hike.  Unfortunately I didn’t have any singles or coinage with me to get some water for the road, so I ended up doing the next few hours without a drink.  Not the smartest thing to do really.

Now this was a nice place to park for a bit.  The temperature that day was 88 and sunny, but this underpass below US 202 was very cool and refreshing!

After going under this underpass and crossing the next side street, follow the ped path up the hill along that side street. Yet again, no trail marker indicating that this path continues the Greenway trail.   The trail curves around a parking area and then zig zags along a golf course, hugging the various fairways until it ends up going along a housing development and hitting what appears to be another dead end.

Once again, not a single trail marker or indication where to go.  Cross the road and go down the hill. The road has no sidewalk but at least has a hard shoulder. After passing under what is I-95 and a railroad underpass one must continue past Little Rock Road where the trail picks up. It parallels Tally Road for a bit, then hooks to the left and enters Rockwood Park. Yet again, no trail marker indicates this.

Inside Rockwood Park, at first, still no trail markers for the Greenway Trail. I followed the Ice Cream Trail for a bit, then wandered up towards a building hoping to find a map. In this area I finally found a sign that indicated where to go for the Greenway Trail.

The trail eventually crossed Shipley Road, then Carr Road, and entered Bringhurst Woods Park.  If you follow that link for Shipley Road you’ll see the Google Street view of the cross walk.  Besides the pedestrian sign there’s another sign that says to yield to pedestrians and white triangle signs on the road indicating a yield point. Despite that, people don’t stop to let you cross there and if you click to follow the Google vehicle you’ll notice that car didn’t yield to that guy waiting to cross either!

After crossing Marsh Road I finally made it to Bellevue!  But a bit of the hike through Bellevue Park was out in the open with the sun beating down on me, so I started to miss the densely wooded portions behind me.

Finally I started to see signs indicating where to go to follow the Greenway Trail.  Bellevue was fairly well signed at least. Which was good because there are quite a few trails in this park and it would have been easy to get lost here.

After I got out of Bellevue the trail crossed Philadelphia Pike. I had hoped to find a store of some sort here to get another drink, but alas, there was none. Also missing were further signs telling you to go north on Philadelphia Pike a bit, cross the road, then enter the trail on the opposite side of the side street.

The trail follows along Cauffiel Parkway for a bit, then goes into the trees and turns into a dirt path. At the end of this path is the end of the trail.  A huge disappointment. I had hope it continued past I-495 to Foxpoint Park.

Worst, there was no place around here to grab a drink either.  I crossed over Gov. Printz Blvd and looked for a way to get under I-495 but there was nothing.

Well now what?!  I had left my wife behind at DCAD in Wilmington at a class she was taking, which wasn’t over until 3pm.  It was now just 1:45pm so it was too early to call for a rescue, so I decided to hike up Gov Printz a bit and then over to Philadelphia Pike to find something to drink and catch a bus back to Wilminington.

I walked up Sunset Drive, which was a very steep hill.  That one really put a hurting on me!   When I finally got out to Philadelphia Pike, nothing.  I walked north for a bit until finding some frumpy Liquor Store.  Got me some water, went to the bus shelter, and waited for the next bus.

Total time hiking was four hours, not including about 20 minutes I rested at Blue Ball Barn.  I’ve been in this area now for 50 years and the hike took me to some incredibly beautiful places I had never seen before.  Well worth it, although I’d recommend just terminating the hike at Philadelphia Pike and getting a bus back to Wilmington, if that’s where you started.  from.   The DART bus service runs about every 30 minutes past there so it’s a good way to get back to your car or whatever you left at the origin.

This is a hike I highly recommend. Just a shame they don’t sign it better and that there is no apparent access to Fox Run Park and the Delaware River.

]]> http://blog.weaverling.org/2009/07/26/hike-report-northern-delaware-greenway-trail/feed/ 4 http://blog.weaverling.org/2009/07/19/review-bride-lone-wolf-tribe/ http://blog.weaverling.org/2009/07/19/review-bride-lone-wolf-tribe/#comments Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:23:08 +0000 weave http://blog.weaverling.org/?p=389

I had the displeasure of wasting 90 minutes of my life in Atlanta on July 18, 2009 watching this production. It was hosted by the National Puppetry Festival.

In short, this play was crap. No adjectives, no modifiers, just crap.   Of course, who am I to say such a thing?  The production has gotten rave reviews. To be fair, this was presented to a group of a few hundred people who practice the art of puppeteering at a week-long conference they had this week in Atlanta. I was along for the ride with my wife, it was late, I just sat through 90 minutes of boring awards, and I just wanted to go back to our hotel room and get some sleep. But after reflecting on the play over night, I still think it’s crap.

Read on to find out why.

The production was put on by Lone Wolf Tribe.  To start on a positive note, the production and tech was incredible. A lot of talented people worked on this, and it was full of metaphors and symbolism that maybe a tired old guy just didn’t get at the time.  And I wasn’t offended due to any religious beliefs, and I actually think it’s good to stir it up at times, but I think this play was just trying to be bizarre for the sake of it, not because it supported a desired end message or feeling.

Come on…. I know how these overly-artsy productions are supposed to be like. It’s like staring at a Jackson Pollack painting. Most people will say it looks like crap. Some will say it’s brilliant and then your normal person will start to doubt themselves and think “maybe I’m missing something” and in order to appear like you are not some ignorant hick who lacks culture, you start to agree.

That’s all I could think of as the audience broke out in thunderous applause at the end of the play.

Another thing it reminded me of is some rock songs.  You have a few very talented musicians who perform a song that is crap. The guitarist rocks the notes with perfect procession, the drummer is tight, the vocals and keyboard work is incredible, but the bottom line is simple, the song is crap.    Certainly there will be a group of people who appreciate the skill required, but that’s not the point of music.  It’s not a sporting event, it’s a feeling, an emotion, a story.  It’s an entire package that achieves an end.

So that’s what I think this play was really about. A disturbing bunch of random imagery thrown together to appeal to a certain segment of the community that likes to run around pretending they are more cultured than the average person because they can “get” something like this, while all of those “idiots”  can’t.

Art isn’t the only industry that suffers from this, dare I say, elitism.  I’m in the field of IT and it makes me ill when IT people explain things in such a way to appeal to each other and shut out the ignorant masses. There’s just no reason to make most technology discussions with lay people all that difficult, but IT people love to do it.

Academia suffers a lot from this as well.  By golly, I paid a ton of cash for my doctoral in ed degree so I’m going to wow you all with my knowledge of irrelevant bullshit instead of just sitting down and calmly thinking about what problem needs to be solved and how best to solve the probem.

I’m not actually suggesting the play be dumbed down for the ignorant masses.  You could dumb this one down with a monitor off to the side of the stage explaining everything that is happening in great detail, and it’d still be crap.

p.s. The scene where God sticks a gun inside his mouth and tries to blow his head off but fails because he is immortal was particularly touching.   Thankfully I don’t carry else I would have considered doing the same thing.