phpBB Cookies

So, something bad happened to my forum I run last thursday night, which completely deleted all of the data in my database. That sucks, but we'll move on. My problem now is I upgraded to the latest verson of phpBB, and now my cookie settings seem to be all fuggered up. This means i can't access the administrator panel to let me in to make the forums/usergroups again! So far I've tried everything I can think of, and even posted on the phpBB.com support forums. Hopefully i can get this figured out. What it looks to be doing is writing the wrong domain name in my cookie, instead of www.domainname.com, I get .www.domainname.com, see the extra . in front? That's not suppose to be there!

MythTV

So, I'm trying to build myself a box to run MythTV on out of my old PC. I've gotten everything i need, but the DVD drive I bought won't boot any of my bootable linux CDs :( I'll have to swap my cd burner into the machine sometime here and then give it a try.

Bored at Work?

Try this

Go George!

Since I had today off work, I spent the morning watching the 15th stage of the Tour de France live on OLN (Okay, cable isn't all bad...). This morning was a great one to watch, it was a mountain stage which is fun to begin with, and this one was great! There was an early break away like usual, and one of the Discovery Channel team riders managed to get in it (George Hincapie). There were 14 of them to begin with, and they built up a lead over everyone of 18 minutes before the peleton decided it was time to chase them down. Over the next almost 3 hours they were chased, but the final 2 men of the breakaway Hincapie and Pereiro finished 5 minutes ahead of Basso and Armstong (Basso is one of Armstrongs strongest threats, along with Jan Ulrich in the Tour). Hincapie out sprinted Pereiro to win the stage. Today was the first time since 1999 a member of Lance's team who wasn't Lance had won a stage. George also becomes the 8th American ever to win a stage in the Tour de France!

Watching it on TV made me realize how strange it must be to be one of the first riders up a mountain, when you're not with the peleton. The commentators were saying how today looked to be the biggest crowed of the Tour so far this year, and watching how packed the final mountain climb was, I can believe it. While the first riders were going up through the crowed, people would be packed in the road, and only push back at the very last second, leaving enough room the cyclists and the motorbike that was pacing them through before closeing off the space. As they would ride up people would run along side them, yelling, sometimes dumping water on them (which probably felt good), and then some people would reach out and grab/slap their butts as they rode by. Sometimes it even looked like they'd grab on to the saddle, and give a little push up the hill. Of course, none of the riders were phased by this at all. I can't imagine how long it took these professionals to get used to this!

I also watched some fan running along behind Ivan Basso and Lance Armstrong trip and get run over by a camera crew on a motorbike. That was actually pretty funny to watch(I'm a bad person)! Luckily for him it wasn't one of the chase cars, because he did seem to get up and walk back off the road, but I imagine his leg won't be feeling good tomorrow.

Hiking and Surgery

My vacation went well, spent Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday morning hiking in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We had great weather for it, and only got rained on one night. The first and last nights, it actually was pretty chilly. I was warm enough in my 40 degree bag, so it didn't get too cold, but I did end up cinching it around my head.

I had Keira stay with my parents for the last week and a half, and then I went and picked her up after we got done with our hike. When I had picked her up at the beginning of June from being boreded, I had noticed that she had a bit of a limp, but didn't seem to be sore as I felt her leg, but she seemed to get better after a few days, and wasn't limping noticeably any more. I thought she must have done something to it in the kennel. It turns out that wasn't the case.

Mom and Dad would take her and our other dog on a walk every morning, and by the end of it she was limping along, and then when dad touched her hip, she yelped, and ran away from him. Normally she loves him, and will run and jump up in his lap when he's sitting on the couch, so this was kind of strange for her. Mom made a vet appointment to have her looked the day we were starting to hike. The vet looked at her, and checked the movement on her leg, and Keira wasn't to happy about that, so the vet recommened we get her X-rayed. Since they don't do x-rays at the vet in Bluffton, we had to make an appointment to have her done at the Ottawa clinic. I was done hiking the day before her appointment, so I was able to go when we took her to get checked. It turns out she either has necrosis of the head of the femur (it had some name that started with A which I can't remember), or it could be hip displasia, which is something miniature austrailian shepherds can be prone to. Basically, on the ball and socket joint of her left hip she is missing the ball part.

Now I get to have a Femoral Head and Neck Osectomy done on her, which is where they will go in, and cut off the part where the ball should be, but which looks more like a thumb bone. This will remove all the bone to bone contact which is probably painful for her, and then scar tissue will form a false joint. It works best on dogs under 35-45 pounds, since there is less weight that needs to be supported on them. She's too small to have a total hip replacement, so that's one good thing, but it will still cost me about $500 for the surgery. Hopefully we can get it scheduled for the beginning of August. She'll be staying with my parents for a few weeks while she has it done, since they're not back in school yet and have time to look after here the few days after she has it done.