Thanksgiving Weather / Self-Hosting Websites! / Winning Black Friday
Outside of another wonderful Thanksgiving with my family, it's been another quiet few weeks around here. I gave my family their copies of the DVDs made from their old VHS tapes, and we even put a few on to watch. I'm so relieved that that monster project is done. The weather is really beginning to turn and last night, we got down to 10 degrees F (-12 C). The local media claims this is the coldest Portland temperature in decades, setting new low-temp records state-wide. There was even snow on the ground a few days ago. Thankfully, our vehicles are holding up and the heaters in our apartment do the trick. If anything, Nicole and I only worry about our local wild squirrel population; wondering how they're weathering this weather. Winter is here!
It's been a very long time since I worried much about the domains and webspace I own on the Internet. I do less and less with the websites I own and it seems like every year, they get a little more expensive to rent space to simply host the websites. To combat this, I learned how to use my personal home network to store the files that Internet users see when they go to my domains. That right there saves me over $80 a year. Next up, I'll be moving my domains to a new, cheaper registrar. It'll be a little rough because some of the email addresses that I've been using for more than a decade will stop working, but that's the price I have to pay to save a bunch of money on this stuff year over year. It's been a big timesink lately and I'm just ready to be done with it.
Since I don't know if my parents read this blog or not, I can't exactly talk about how I won Black Friday last week. I haven't been able to participate in the shopping free-for-all that is Black Friday since 2010, as the last few years I've been working night shifts through the Thanksgiving weekends. This year, my brother, Ryan, had an idea for a pretty amazing set of gifts to get my parents this Christmas, and although I initially resisted, there wasn't much I could say. The "toys" Ryan wanted to get my folks require some learning and I'm worried I'll be the teacher. The thing is, I lived with my parents for the better part of three decades, and for many years, I enabled my parents not to have to learn how to use their computers and televisions because I was always so willing to help set things up and explain for the hundredth time how to copy and paste a photograph into an email. So yea, I'm a little concerned that my folks will get these toys and give up with them or stop using them or constantly call me to help them or not enjoy them to the fullest extent possible. All they have to do is learn to use them completely without my help, and I'll be proven wrong. A tall order. Then there's the whole discussion about whether or not my parents even need just expensive toys...
Anyway, I've diverged far away from the whole reason I brought up Black Friday, to talk about how I succeeded in getting everything without missing Thanksgiving dinner to do it. Since I can't reveal exactly what I got, I guess it won't make a very entertaining story until I can. So, I guess this is a story that'll have to wait until after Christmas. Stay tuned...
It's been a very long time since I worried much about the domains and webspace I own on the Internet. I do less and less with the websites I own and it seems like every year, they get a little more expensive to rent space to simply host the websites. To combat this, I learned how to use my personal home network to store the files that Internet users see when they go to my domains. That right there saves me over $80 a year. Next up, I'll be moving my domains to a new, cheaper registrar. It'll be a little rough because some of the email addresses that I've been using for more than a decade will stop working, but that's the price I have to pay to save a bunch of money on this stuff year over year. It's been a big timesink lately and I'm just ready to be done with it.
Since I don't know if my parents read this blog or not, I can't exactly talk about how I won Black Friday last week. I haven't been able to participate in the shopping free-for-all that is Black Friday since 2010, as the last few years I've been working night shifts through the Thanksgiving weekends. This year, my brother, Ryan, had an idea for a pretty amazing set of gifts to get my parents this Christmas, and although I initially resisted, there wasn't much I could say. The "toys" Ryan wanted to get my folks require some learning and I'm worried I'll be the teacher. The thing is, I lived with my parents for the better part of three decades, and for many years, I enabled my parents not to have to learn how to use their computers and televisions because I was always so willing to help set things up and explain for the hundredth time how to copy and paste a photograph into an email. So yea, I'm a little concerned that my folks will get these toys and give up with them or stop using them or constantly call me to help them or not enjoy them to the fullest extent possible. All they have to do is learn to use them completely without my help, and I'll be proven wrong. A tall order. Then there's the whole discussion about whether or not my parents even need just expensive toys...
Anyway, I've diverged far away from the whole reason I brought up Black Friday, to talk about how I succeeded in getting everything without missing Thanksgiving dinner to do it. Since I can't reveal exactly what I got, I guess it won't make a very entertaining story until I can. So, I guess this is a story that'll have to wait until after Christmas. Stay tuned...