Tag: randomness

While I was busy writing the previous post, a message came to my inbox among a slough of others. Somehow, the message didn’t trip my “Important” filters–oh, how I wish it had. So, I continued to write and relive the experience of yesterday in my mind, wondering if I’d hear back–wondering if I’d have a dream come true…

…well, it did!

A little over a half-hour ago, I received an offer for employment with the aforementioned business. Of course, I accepted it… 😉

I just can’t believe it!

…guess I’d better go and set my email filters to flag everything from their domain as important, now!

So, I interviewed for a dream job yesterday… knowing my luck, just saying this is enough to jinx it… 😛

I’d have to say the interview was the most awesome experience that I’ve had in my life–coming close to rivaling becoming a father! (Well, maybe not that close, but you get the idea.)

I don’t know; it’s kind of hard to try and think of words to describe how great it felt. With most interviews–even the ones that lead to asking someone if they’d like fries with their order–I end up feeling a bit nervous and apprehensive. For this interview, I felt rather calm and comfortable; about the only thing I did feel–and think I hid somewhat well–was a sense of wonder and disbelief that I was actually being seen by a business and industry that I’ve always had an interest in and fascination with. I have to admit that I did let some of my goofy enthusiasm and awe slip at the end of the session just before I left the office of the boss; out of nowhere, my inner child just had to speak up and say that he’d always dreamed of being a part of that organization. It was slightly embarrassing, but true.

I walked through the door and was greeted by the initial interviewer–the gentleman that would be my immediate superior. At that moment I felt so comfortable and welcome–and it felt so genuine, as well. If either of the guys end up discovering this silly little post, please take this bit of advice away–don’t ever change that; the mix of professionalism and “family” or “fraternal” openness that you exude is just so perfect and inviting. After the nice introduction, I was taken back to a separate room where I was introduced with some greater detail to what position I was applying for, and what further opportunities could be made available while being in their employ. Conversation also went into some of the duties and responsibilities that I have in other areas of my life, questioning whether there would ever be conflict between the two; that was an interesting little piece of the interview that I’d never experienced before, either. With other potential employers, most don’t seem to care about conflict and simply assume that they will always be number one, period. In this instance, I was asked if my other responsibilities would have to take precedence, or whether I would be able to manage them from their operations. I explained that my other responsibilities are mainly done in the background, and that the likelihood of conflict was extremely low.

Following this portion of the interview, I was given a tour of the facilities and introduced to the equipment, as well as two other employees. As far as the tour, things were pretty much as I expected–I’d taken a “virtual” tour of the location some time ago, as well as a tour of a former incarnation of the business many years ago. Having interest in the industry that the business operates also allowed for the tour to be near expectations as I’ve seen much of the equipment–or pieces like it–in magazines, catalogs and the like. Honestly, I saw a piece of equipment that I might have sold to them when I was employed at the local RadioShack!

After the tour, I sat for a very brief period to wait for the boss. Not once did I get nervous! And the interview with him went quite well. I don’t recall stammering or using any space-fillers in my speaking with him; everything just seemed to flow. What’s more, when it came time for the inevitable Q&A session, most of my questions leaned toward the business–essentially, I tried to “talk shop” with him–and that, too, came quite easily.

After a total of nearly 45 minutes, I walked away, feeling quite confident and sure of myself–something that I’ve never really felt in an interview before.

“Things will get better.”

“It will be okay.”

“It’s hard, but you’ll pull through.”

“These things happen.”

“It just takes time.”

These words–we’ve heard them all before; all intended as some soothing comfort for a variety of circumstances that have led to bringing a person down. The words don’t mean much, and rarely, if ever, are they truly effective in making one feel better about a situation; still, it is nice to hear them on occasion. After a certain period of time, however, they too can become as painful as the event which has turned the troubled individual’s world upside down.

That’s where I’m at.

Each time that I hear these phrases or something akin, a dull, heated awl pierces my skin and plunges deep into my heart. Though it may have been a syringe of atropine that Nick Cage’s character injected into his own heart in order to save himself in “The Rock”, my mind’s eye paints a very similar scene; lying on the floor, convulsing, writhing in agony, and forcing something so unnatural into my chest.

I don’t know.

It’s been 87 days since my former wife and I separated; 14 days since I was divorced.

It’s been roughly 75 days since I began talking to someone, and seeing them as a potential light in my life. It’s been 38 days since I lost that someone, because I chose to help my children’s mother after her boyfriend attacked her.

It’s been 64 days since I was advised to fling poo at my ex’s door. I was also advised to try to go ahead and move on and find new love; the following day I began to express a deeper interest in that someone I eventually lost 15 days later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QuowOoJqZw&t=26m15s (my call begins at 26:15)

It’s been 7 hours and 15 days since someone took their love away from Prince.

I don’t know.

I’m finding it hard to believe that I might find someone after this. After all of this. I’m struggling to see that things will be better for me in life and love, honestly. It’s just very difficult.

…and to top it off, I’m to think of it as “pure joy” in trying to move through all this, as the testing of my abilities will make me persevere. (paraphrase of James 1:2-3)

I’m trying to persevere…

…but there’s nothing about it that I find joyful.

 

If you’re not in the know, I’ve been tinkering with writing a little story…

I’m not gonna tell you what, exactly, I’m trying to write–though the title of this post should give you an idea. (…and, no, that’s not the title–heck, my working title for it is Untitled #1; and, sorry to disappoint a few, it isn’t a BDSM fantasy, either…)

So far, I’ve written the tale in fragmented pieces; an odd way of going about it–a method that would undoubtedly make many of my former English/Literature teachers cringe. I’m hoping that I’ll soon be able to stitch the thing together; but until I fully develop my characters and the plot, it will have to remain a disjointed mess. Fortunately, I do have the main idea, most of the conflict and a general idea of the resolution in mind.

Currently, the total word count of my separate pieces places the work in the novelette category, with 15,027 words; just a few thousand more, and I’ll be entering novella country! I’m hoping that I can get the thing knocking on the novel-length door… (well, at least NaNoWriMo novel length–I know others think novel status comes at twice that length!)

…in other-somewhat-related-news…

I stumbled across a hilariously scathing review of Fifty on Goodreads, and am now going through the reviewer’s history to get ideas of what she–and others–may think of what I’m writing. While that reviewer is not going to be my target audience, I want to–at the very least–be able to get someone like her to read the entire thing through. (I don’t necessarily want to try and please everyone–I know I won’t; I’d like to give just enough to make someone want to hold their commitment to reading it–even if it turns out to be the worst piece of literary tripe imaginable.)

I’ll also be looking into what books worked for that reviewer–and for reviewers that gave similar marks…

…this should be a fun little journey…

 

If you didn’t know, nearly all of my blog posts originate from my home computer…

“Duh,” you might say, while thinking, “where else would you be writing the posts from.”

…no, I don’t just mean that I write them at home–I serve them from home as well; or, at least I used to…

Several years ago, I had installed XAMPP on our main PC and opened up the ports on the firewalls, so that I could run my own self-hosted installation of WordPress. (There were other reasons behind my creating a server–one was using a script to do automated posts to the @harrisonema twitter account; I had previously been running this script on the EMA’s host, but they threatened to shut me down because of resource abuse. Funny, I ran the script on an old Windows machine and never had any problems!)

…anyway, I began to write and auto-generate content from my home-server, and had it send out my posts to other connected blogging services–that’s how this post now appears on WordPress.com and LiveJournal. Neat, huh? (Yeah, I know, not really…)

Recently, I’ve been having more and more traffic hit the “server”, causing tons of problems with the connection to our ISP. Though I enjoy the thought of receiving a ton of traffic, it becomes a pain when the episode of Star Trek you’re watching keeps having to rebuffer.

So, later on tonight, I’m going to shut down my server’s connection to the outside world. 🙁

If you’re one of they few that actually read this blog or visit my dyndns.org address, this may have an impact on you. How? Well, first, I’m only planning on writing at WordPress.com; this means that none of my posts will be shared at LiveJournal, Blogger, etc. Secondly, if you’ve been one of the few that were granted access to resources hosted on my home-server, you’re not going to be able to reach them anymore–this includes family photos, books, etc. Sorry.

Certain links to media embedded in previous posts may disappear–I’m not 100% certain on this… Many of the pictures that I’ve included in my posts are being hosted at WordPress thanks to the “Photon” portion of the JetPack plugin I have in use on my home server. Where the originating address will no longer work, WordPress may decide to perform “clean-up” and remove the media from their servers…

…sigh…

If you’d like to continue to read my ramblings, head on over to kg4vma.wordpress.com–I plan on publishing all future posts there…

…as for friends and followers on Facebook, Twitter and Google+; I plan on having WordPress push status updates for my posts from kg4vma.wordpress.com…

…well, I guess that’s it for now. Hope to see you over at WordPress!

 

…don’t ask how or why I came to notice the copyright statement listed above–I honestly can’t remember. I can tell you that the site is a favorite of mine to visit from time to time…

So, why am I calling your attention to this notice? To be a smart-ass, mainly–and to express why I think such a statement is, well, a little ridiculous.

The site is–for the most part–an archive of information that was created for the purposes of sharing information (unless I am being extremely obtuse); furthermore, the grandest portion of the information that I have seen posted to the site is either factual–thus negating copyright–or already in the public domain, where copyright does not apply. Don’t believe my statement on factual information losing copyright?

Am I going to challenge Mr. Naff’s declaration of copyright by tossing all of his files up on another server? No, of course not–doing so would be a “true” copyright violation (which is what I think he was trying to convey–exact duplication/distribution without permission); but his statement–as it is currently written–tries to claim that if I wanted to include a quote of anything published on that server I’d be in violation of copyright law.

Um… No…

…as for this post…

Have I violated copyright by copying his copyright statement? Neah…

Though I did not get express written consent to capture an image of his copyright statement, I am protected under “fair-use” doctrine; this post is being written as a personal commentary for the express use of educating the public and is being published on a site which does not generate any profit…

…I could always go further and write something like:

The content of kg4vma.dyndns.org, kg4vma.wordpress.com, & kg4vma.livejournal.com has been written, compiled, transcribed, abstracted, extracted and/or edited by Jeremiah Palmer, except for content which has been submitted for use at the site by unpaid volunteer contributors or where otherwise noted, and he maintains all rights in these web pages as defined by the copyright laws of the United States of America.  No content of this website may be used at or viewed through any other website without the express written consent of Jeremiah Palmer. Persons violating this statement of copyright will lose all access to teh interwebs–which is like a series of tubes–and further agree to have sheep thrown at them; additionally, persons found in violation of this statement no longer can has cheezburgers.

…if I wrote something like that, I would then have grounds to argue that I would be covered under “fair-use” by means of parody.

I respect Mr. Naff’s desire to say, “Hey, I put a lot of time and effort into this–I want you to ask me before doing anything with it!”; trolling through the pages of information shows a man that put in countless hours of work–transcribing text of books; there’s dedication! But to try and put such a grip on all the material… Why bother publishing it? It’s like opening up a soup stand, and then screaming, “No soup for you!”

…c’mon, Mr. Naff…

Re-think your copyright statement–or at least make some clarification on which works are truly yours…

…or better yet, change the attitude of your site altogether, and declare the works as licensed under Creative Commons, which would be more aligned with what I perceive as your goal of sharing information–factual and historical information, at that!–with the world. (a creative commons license would also allow you have similar recourse–i.e. lawsuit–should anyone decide to profit from your work… go check out the different license types for details…)

…and, with regard to copyright, anyway….

Though the law is written so that *nearly* anything under copyright by its creator as soon as it exists, doesn’t one need to file with the Copyright Office in order to have a better leg to stand on?

…and–with specific regard to items on Naff’s site, like the Harrison Heritage News–certain items are “owned” by the person/organization that commissioned the work, not the persons that published or were otherwise involved in the authoring/editing/compiling/etc. of said work…

…hey, wait a minute…

…wouldn’t that negate an even larger portion of Mr. Naff’s claim to copyright? 😉

By the way, if the title of the post isn’t clue enough–I’m not being entirely serious with this post… Oh, and if anyone wants, feel free to copy this post, change it around, and profit to your heart’s content… but you may wanna get permission from Mr. Naff… 😉

…another poorly written recipe–made through copying, pasting, and a whole lot of trial and error–this time for the Cynthiana Democrat. (It doesn’t really work anymore…)


'''
Cynthiana Democrat Calibre Recipe
'''

# Import the regular expressions module.
import re, string, time

# Import the BasicNewsRecipe class which this class extends.
from calibre.web.feeds.recipes import BasicNewsRecipe

from calibre import strftime
from datetime import timedelta, date
from time import sleep
from calibre.web.feeds.recipes import BasicNewsRecipe
from calibre.ebooks.BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup, Tag, BeautifulStoneSoup

class AdvancedUserRecipe1371040942(BasicNewsRecipe):
title = u'The Cynthiana Democrat'

# A brief description for the ebook.
#
description = u'Cynthiana Democrat web site ebook created using rss feeds.'

# The max number of articles which may be downloaded from each feed.
#
max_articles_per_feed = 100
filterDuplicates = True
ignore_duplicate_articles = {'title', 'url'}
scale_news_images_to_device = True
recursions=0
# The max age of articles which may be downloaded from each feed. This is
# specified in days - note fractions of days are allowed, Eg. 2.5 (2 and a
# half days). My default of 1.5 days is the last 36 hours, the point at
# which I've decided 'news' becomes 'old news', but be warned this is not
# so good for the blogs, technology, magazine, etc., and sports feeds.
# You may wish to extend this to 2-5 but watch out ebook creation time will
# increase as well. Setting this to 30 will get everything (AFAICT) as long
# as max_articles_per_feed remains set high.
#
oldest_article = 7

# Number of simultaneous downloads. Speeds things up from the defualt of 5.
# If you have a lot of feeds and/or have increased oldest_article above 2
# then you may wish to try increasing simultaneous_downloads to 25-30,
# Or, of course, if you are in a hurry. [I've not tried beyond 20.]
#
simultaneous_downloads = 20

# Timeout for fetching files from the server in seconds. The default of
# 120 seconds, seems somewhat excessive.
#
timeout = 30

# The format string for the date shown on the ebook's first page.
# List of all values: http://docs.python.org/library/time.html
# Default in news.py has a leading space so that's mirrored here.
# As with 'feeds' select/de-select by adding/removing the initial '#',
# only one timefmt should be selected, here's a few to choose from.
#
#timefmt = ' [%a, %d %b %Y]' # [Fri, 14 Nov 2011] (Calibre default)
#timefmt = ' [%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M]' # [Fri, 14 Nov 2011 18:30]
timefmt = ' [%a, %d %b %Y %I:%M %p]' # [Fri, 14 Nov 2011 06:30 PM]
#timefmt = ' [%d %b %Y]' # [14 Nov 2011]
#timefmt = ' [%d %b %Y %H:%M]' # [14 Nov 2011 18.30]
#timefmt = ' [%Y-%m-%d]' # [2011-11-14]
#timefmt = ' [%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M]' # [2011-11-14-18-30]
auto_cleanup = True
auto_cleanup_keep = '//*[@class="content"]|//*[@class="slide-wrap"]'
#auto_cleanup_keep = '//div[@class="subsection-photo"]|//div[@class="top-news-pic"]|//div[@class="slide-wrap"]|//div[@class="source"]|//div[@class="news-sidebar"]'

# Author of this recipe.
__author__ = 'kg4vma'

# Specify English as the language of the RSS feeds (ISO-639 code).
language = 'en_US'

# Set tags.
tags = 'news, sport, blog'

# Set publisher and publication type.
publisher = 'The Cynthiana Democrat'
publication_type = 'newspaper'

# Disable stylesheets from site.
no_stylesheets = True
masthead_url = 'http://www.cynthianademocrat.com/sites/www.cynthianademocrat.com/files/cynthianalogov2.png'

# Specifies an override encoding for sites that have an incorrect charset
# specified. Default of 'None' says to auto-detect.
encoding = None

# Sets whether a feed has full articles embedded in it.
use_embedded_content = False

# Removes empty feeds - why keep them!?
remove_empty_feeds = True

feeds = [(u'News', u'http://www.cynthianademocrat.com/todaysnews/rss.xml'),
(u'Did you Know', u'http://www.cynthianademocrat.com/rss.xml'),
(u'Features', u'http://www.cynthianademocrat.com/features/rss.xml'),
(u'Obituaries', u'http://www.legacy.com/services/obitrss.asp?Source=cynthianademocrat'),
(u'Opinion', u'http://www.cynthianademocrat.com/todaysopinions/rss.xml'),
(u'Business', u'http://www.cynthianademocrat.com/news/business/rss.xml'),
(u'Sports', u'http://www.cynthianademocrat.com/sports/rss.xml')]

#cover_tag = 'KY_LHL'
#def get_cover_url(self):
# from datetime import timedelta, date
# cover = 'http://webmedia.newseum.org/newseum-multimedia/dfp/jpg'+str(date.today().day)+'/lg/'+self.cover_tag+'.jpg'
# br = BasicNewsRecipe.get_browser(self)
# daysback=1
# try:
# br.open(cover)
# except:
# while daysback<7:
# cover = 'http://webmedia.newseum.org/newseum-multimedia/dfp/jpg'+str((date.today() - timedelta(days=daysback)).day)+'/lg/'+self.cover_tag+'.jpg'
# br = BasicNewsRecipe.get_browser(self)
# try:
# br.open(cover)
# except:
# daysback = daysback+1
# continue
# break
# if daysback==7:
# self.log("\nCover unavailable")
# cover = None
# return cover

…a very poorly written recipe–made through copying, pasting, and a whole lot of trial and error–for the Lexington Herald-Leader.


'''
Lexington Herald-Leader Calibre Recipe
'''

# Import the regular expressions module.
import re, string, time

# Import the BasicNewsRecipe class which this class extends.
from calibre.web.feeds.recipes import BasicNewsRecipe

from calibre import strftime
from datetime import timedelta, date
from time import sleep
from calibre.web.feeds.recipes import BasicNewsRecipe
from calibre.ebooks.BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup, Tag, BeautifulStoneSoup

class AdvancedUserRecipe1371040942(BasicNewsRecipe):
title = u'Lexington Herald-Leader'

# A brief description for the ebook.
#
description = u'Lexington Herald-Leader web site ebook created using rss feeds.'

# The max number of articles which may be downloaded from each feed.
#
max_articles_per_feed = 100
filterDuplicates = True
# The max age of articles which may be downloaded from each feed. This is
# specified in days - note fractions of days are allowed, Eg. 2.5 (2 and a
# half days). My default of 1.5 days is the last 36 hours, the point at
# which I've decided 'news' becomes 'old news', but be warned this is not
# so good for the blogs, technology, magazine, etc., and sports feeds.
# You may wish to extend this to 2-5 but watch out ebook creation time will
# increase as well. Setting this to 30 will get everything (AFAICT) as long
# as max_articles_per_feed remains set high.
#
oldest_article = 1.5

# Number of simultaneous downloads. Speeds things up from the defualt of 5.
# If you have a lot of feeds and/or have increased oldest_article above 2
# then you may wish to try increasing simultaneous_downloads to 25-30,
# Or, of course, if you are in a hurry. [I've not tried beyond 20.]
#
simultaneous_downloads = 20

# Timeout for fetching files from the server in seconds. The default of
# 120 seconds, seems somewhat excessive.
#
timeout = 30

# The format string for the date shown on the ebook's first page.
# List of all values: http://docs.python.org/library/time.html
# Default in news.py has a leading space so that's mirrored here.
# As with 'feeds' select/de-select by adding/removing the initial '#',
# only one timefmt should be selected, here's a few to choose from.
#
#timefmt = ' [%a, %d %b %Y]' # [Fri, 14 Nov 2011] (Calibre default)
#timefmt = ' [%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M]' # [Fri, 14 Nov 2011 18:30]
timefmt = ' [%a, %d %b %Y %I:%M %p]' # [Fri, 14 Nov 2011 06:30 PM]
#timefmt = ' [%d %b %Y]' # [14 Nov 2011]
#timefmt = ' [%d %b %Y %H:%M]' # [14 Nov 2011 18.30]
#timefmt = ' [%Y-%m-%d]' # [2011-11-14]
#timefmt = ' [%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M]' # [2011-11-14-18-30]
auto_cleanup = True
auto_cleanup_keep = '//div[@class="aside"]|//*[@class="story_content"]'

# Author of this recipe.
__author__ = 'kg4vma'

# Specify English as the language of the RSS feeds (ISO-639 code).
language = 'en_GB'

# Set tags.
tags = 'news, sport, blog'

# Set publisher and publication type.
publisher = 'Lexington Herald-Leader'
publication_type = 'newspaper'

# Disable stylesheets from site.
no_stylesheets = True
# extra_css = '
# .articleHeadline { text-align: left; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.25em; }
# .credit { font-weight: normal; text-align: right; font-size: 50%; line-height:1em; margin-top:5px; margin-left:0; margin-right:0; margin-bottom: 0; }
# .byline { text-align: left; font-size: 50%; line-height:1em; margin-top:10px; margin-left:0; margin-right:0; margin-bottom: 0; }
# .dateline { text-align: left; font-size: 50%; line-height:1em;margin-top:5px; margin-left:0; margin-right:0; margin-bottom: 0; }
# .kicker { font-size: 50%; line-height:1em;margin-top:5px; margin-left:0; margin-right:0; margin-bottom: 0; }
# .timestamp { font-weight: normal; text-align: left; font-size: 50%; }
# .caption { font-size: 50%; font-style:italic; line-height:1em; margin-top:5px; margin-left:0; margin-right:0; margin-bottom: 0; }
# a:link {text-decoration: none; }
# .date{font-size: 50%; }
# .update{font-size: 50%; }
# .articleBody { }
# .authorId {text-align: left; font-size: 50%; }
# .image {text-align: center;}
# .aside {color:blue;margin:0px 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px; font-size:100%;}
# .asidenote {color:blue;margin:0px 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px; font-size:100%;font-weight:bold;}
# .source {text-align: left; font-size: x-small; }'

# Specifies an override encoding for sites that have an incorrect charset
# specified. Default of 'None' says to auto-detect.
encoding = None

# Sets whether a feed has full articles embedded in it.
use_embedded_content = False

# Removes empty feeds - why keep them!?
remove_empty_feeds = True

feeds = [
(u'Top News', u'http://www.kentucky.com/322/index.rss'),
(u'Local News', u'http://www.kentucky.com/164/index.rss'),
(u'Obituaries', u'http://www.legacy.com/services/obitrss.asp?Source=kentucky'),
(u'Nation / World', u'http://www.kentucky.com/1250/index.rss'),
(u'Opinion', u'http://www.kentucky.com/349/index.rss'),
(u'Life / Neighbors', u'http://www.kentucky.com/131/index.rss'),
(u'Entertainment', u'http://www.kentucky.com/684/index.rss'),
(u'Sports', u'http://www.kentucky.com/268/index.rss'),
(u'Business', u'http://www.kentucky.com/101/index.rss'),
(u'Weather', u'http://weather.bloginky.com/feed/')
]

cover_tag = 'KY_LHL'
def get_cover_url(self):
from datetime import timedelta, date
cover = 'http://webmedia.newseum.org/newseum-multimedia/dfp/jpg'+str(date.today().day)+'/lg/'+self.cover_tag+'.jpg'
br = BasicNewsRecipe.get_browser(self)
daysback=1
try:
br.open(cover)
except:
while daysback<7:
cover = 'http://webmedia.newseum.org/newseum-multimedia/dfp/jpg'+str((date.today() - timedelta(days=daysback)).day)+'/lg/'+self.cover_tag+'.jpg'
br = BasicNewsRecipe.get_browser(self)
try:
br.open(cover)
except:
daysback = daysback+1
continue
break
if daysback==7:
self.log("\nCover unavailable")
cover = None
return cover