The Harpswitch Blog

Go check out a web site I did for a friend of mine. It's at http://www.samsride.org and it's the official site for Samantha Gilley's 'Sights Unseen Tour'. Samantha is a 17-year old young lady who has survived cancer nine times in her short life, is totally blind and is partially deaf. Despite her physical challenges she has a determined, purposeful attitude that puts most of us able-bodied people to shame.

Anyway, Samantha plans to ride a tandem bicycle from Chattanooga to Memphis, Tennessee, in October of this year, to raise funds for St. Jude Hospital, where Samantha has been a patient many times.

So, go visit the site and read about this remarkable young lady! And while your there, find out how you can donate to the cause!

Got a call from our alert system at work this morning around 1:45. It said the temperature in the computer room was high. Since there is about a half-million dollars worth of equipment in the room I got dressed and headed in to see what was the problem. Yeah, I was in a hurry, but I got a call from the guard who had managed to get the computer room door open and had strategically placed some box fans so that some cooling air would get it to the room and stabilize things.

So, I wasn't in a hurry anymore. I was making my way up S. Broad Street in Chattanooga, a nice, divided 4-lane highway. I was doing about 45 mph on a highway where normal traffic runs 50. The patrol car was parked in a dark lot and I was the only vehicle on the road at the time so when he started moving, I knew he was after me.

I pulled over and the officer approached and informed me that he pulled me over for ding 46 in a 35! He asked me how long it had been since I had gotten a ticket. I told him about 12-13 years. Why do cops ask such stupid questions? I thought maybe with a question like that he might figure I didn't get tickets regularly and that maybe he would run my license and tag through the system, find no problems then let me go, or give me a warning or something. But then another cop car pulled in behind -- I suppose I looked like a terrorist or something -- and after about 15 minutes of wasted time, the first cop reappeared with the ticket for me to sign.

So, to the Chattanooga cop who scribbled his name and badge number so as not to be legible, thanks for not giving a poor working stiff a break! I was stone sober, didn't give you a hard time, any lip or any reason to suspect that I was up to something. You could have done the decent thing and let it slide, but thanks to you, I'm sure I'll owe the City $150 or so.

Too bad the cops didn't see me almost get killed in a near head-on collision on St. Elmo Avenue just 3 minutes earlier by an obviously drunk driver in a red Camaro running at least 60 mph. Had to pull up on the sidewalk to avoid him.

I guess I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time! Too bad that the cop was too!

Welcome to the official Harpswitch Weblog. I can't imagine that there is an unofficial one!

I really don't have all that much to say these days, but doing the 'blog' thing seems to be all the rage lately so I figured 'why not'. Anyway, it gives me a chance to play around with some cool open-source software. I'm using the Serendipity package running, of course, on my faithful Linux box. Maybe one of my 'low-cost' clients will want a blog on their website someday and at least I'll be able to say I've done one.

Check back from time to time and maybe I'll have something interesting to say, but that's not the safe way to bet!

Later