Scribblings from Steve
Well we are well on the way to planning Christmas. The Booze has been ordered (which is one of the most important things) and we’ve done a lot of the shopping.
Should be picking up a tree sometime this week – there is a shop close to us which delivers them, which saves you having to mess the car up shoving a tree in and out of it
vandalise other peoples property?
Heading out today after the frost had cleared I noticed that the windscreen on my Saab 95 Estate has been smashed. It was OK when I parked it at 6:20 on Friday evening but I didn’t use it over the weekend and the weather was so bad I didn’t notice it as I was dashing in and out to my other car over the weekend.
Some low-life has wacked the windscreen right in the middle of the drivers side – windscreen is broken beyond repair so I’ve got to get it replaced.
This is the second time that I’ve had a window smashed in recent months. The previous time it was my other Saab (a 93) which was wacked on the passenger side.
The cars are usually parked on opposite side of the road and in both cases the vandalism has been on the road side of the vehicle – so I guess they just drive (or cycle) down the road and smash windscreens as they go.
The police have been informed but what can they do – the yobs in Cheltenham seem free to roam around doing what they like and the police seem incapable of stopping them.
So that’s another expense I didn’t really want – especially coming up to Christmas.
So thanks a bunch who ever did this. Serves me right for living near the cess pit that is Whaddon I guess
NOTE: Kieran has made a newer version of his plugin which works with WordPress MU and integrates by using an embedded Calendar tag to display the calendar.
So basically I’m abandoning this plug in and suggest you get Kieran’s new version instead. That is what I’ve put on this site.
This is basically Kieran O’Shea’s WP Calendar plugin for WordPress tweaked to work with WPMU with a couple of additional features.
1) Calendar table created for each user
2) The Calendar is wrapped to work in multiple templates without needing a file in each template. See the section below for more on this
3) Input and Display date formats on the Admin screen can be changed by the administrator.
1) Drop the files from the archive into the matching folders in your WPMU installation
2) Edit the edit-calendar file and change the $eddateformat and $eddatesep variables to match your date format (by default it they are set to d/m/Y and / as I’m in the UK).
3) Enable the Plugin
4) Edit your .htaccess file and add the lines in the add.htaccess file towards the top
5) If you want to use my template wrapping then you need to use the wp-calendar.php file that I have provided along with the two tag files (edited to support your templates). If you dont want to use it then you need to install the calendar file manually into each template (but you dont need the tag files)
I use Template Wrapping a lot – it allows me to easily drop cross blog functionality into the blogs without having to create a new page template in each blog. For example the calendar page only exists at the top level – there are NO files in any of the templates for the calendar, the structure of the page round the calendar is created using the two tag files and a couple of calls in the file containing the call to the calendar code
To enable template wrapping you need to do the following:
1) Drop the wp_opentags.php and wp_closetags.php files into the top level of your WPMU installation
2) Create a new file from the empty_page.php file
3) The new page can now be accessed from each blog.
You will find that you need to edit the wp_opentags and wp_closetags files to work with your templates. This can take a while due to the way different people build their templates and no hard and fast rules on opening and closing DIVs in the header,page and footer.
A Zip file of the various files including my wrapper files is available for download
If you have any comments, suggestions etc then please post them as comments.
You can see the calendar in action here
If there is one depressing thing about Thanksgiving it is what comes afterwards – yes that’s right: Christmas, or as they say in America “Holidays”.
Now I know the UK is far from perfect but we don’t leap into the “Happy Holiday Spirit” the way our American cousins do. Right after Thanksgiving the “Holiday” adverts begin. Holiday specials on jewellery, on power tools, on cars – yes they have Holiday Specials on the latest Ford Trucks. Its Madness.
But the madness really shows through when it comes to the Radio. Take 94.9 WHOM (Portland, Maine’s “America’s Superstation”) for example. It normally plays music that is OK to listen to… but not now, oh no, its now broadcasting “100% Christmas Music”. Yes you read that correctly – 100% Christmas music.. from now until Boxing Day… and its not even sodding December yet.
Perkins Cove
It was a wonderful sunny day and we had things to do. Kathy wanted to see the coast and I needed to get my shoes replaced and we needed to do some Christmas shopping.
So lets combine them all into one trip.
We headed off early in the morning down the interstate towards Portland. Our first port of call was LL Bean who are a huge supplier out outdoor clothing, hunting equipment etc. They never close and none of the shop doors have locks on them! Part of their guarantee is that if something goes wrong within the life of a product they will replace it. Well the middle of the sole on the right foot of the boots I bought from them las year had separated, the rest of the boot and the left boot were fine. So we took them back.. they told me to get a new pair. So I did and they were cheaper so they gave us a gift card for the difference – which we then spent on other things we needed in the store.
After that we headed to Portland and Tony’s Donuts which does a wide range of freshly cooked donuts. So after a breakfast of donuts and coffee we headed off to Kittery and The Stonewall Kitchen where we picked up Christmas Gifts for people.
We then headed back up Route 1 to Ogunquit and Perkin’s Cove
where we went for a walk along the Marginal Way which is a coastal path than runs just above the rocky shorefront. I’ll be adding some photos to Flickr soon.
Having had a good dose of ocean views, smells and sounds we continued heading north on Route 1 and stopped for lunch at Maniax Restaurant before continuing up Route 1 through Kennebunk to Portland where we got back on the Interstate and headed back to Sue and Jeff’s.
In the evening we went to Maria Libra’s Italian Restaurant which is just down the road in Hallowell. Extremely good food in a friendly environment – but if you want the Lasagna it’s advisable to book your portion in advance as everything is made fresh on the day and quantities of some dishes are limited.
Well its the day of too much food and too much turkey, and too much beer.
The Antacid manufacturers must love Thanksgiving and Christmas!
We are at Kathy’s parents for Lunch and then we will head back to Sue and Jeff’s where we will basically turn up at the end of their meal so it will be a second round of deserts for us
Apparently whilst we were getting rained on in Maine it was snowing in England. Typical!
Anyway it started snowing here yesterday – it did about half an inch and its still lying on the ground this morning and we have had a few smatterings this morning. They say that its going to be like this for a couple of days so it looks like a white Thanksgiving for us this year.
Sue and Jeff got back from their cruise last night – they were about an hour late due to delays at the airports. Still at least they made it home – it looks like the delays on this day before Thanksgiving might be much longer than that
Well the rain has all gone now and the skies are clear. With clearing skies the temperature has dropped. Overnight it was 19°F (-7°C), it is currently (10am) 34°F (1°C) and temperatures are supposed to be staying low for the next few days. Still at least we are not on top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire – yesterday it was 4°F (-15°C) with the windchill taking it down to -28°F (-33°C).. brrrrrrrrrrrrr.
The other big difference is that the humidity is very low – often below 50% which means everything is very dry and the amount of static you can build up is pretty amazing.
It was raining last night and it was raining this morning. We flew several thousand miles and all it can do is rain 🙁 Although at one point the rain also contained some rather damp snow flakes we didn’t actually get any snow – according to the Weather Channel it looks like Augusta was on the southern edges. However they have said we might get some snow over the next day or so along with some colder weather.
It was another lazy day today, we spent some time up at Kathy’s parents before heading over to the Lions Club in Manchester to check the building out as Jen is planning on holding her wedding reception there next May. After that we came home, had some supper and settled down to watch “National Treasure” on TV.
It looks like we have slightly more planned for the weekend – including driving down to South Portland.
Sue and Jeff’s
Kathy’s Parents
Sue and Jeff live outside Hallowell, and even though the interstate is quite close there is no direct access and its not actually that noisy
As you can see from the photo the neighbours are slightly further away than they are at home. When we aren’t here we are spending time over at Kathy’s parents who live on the other side of Augusta. Her Mum makes a mean mug of coffee and always has lots of food to nibble on.
The big tree on the corner of the property by the turning into Sparrow Drive has recently come down as it was leaning dangerously, and the small shed in the garden has also gone.. actually its been gone for a while now so I guess the satellite image is quite old