He turned to me…. ❤️
Author: garry.c.stewart
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Sailin’
Fireball Restored
Last year there was a sailboat “incident” where the parts holding the centreboard in place were “lost”. Well, not exactly lost. I know where they are. They are in the bay in front of our cottage in about 40 feet of water, on the bottom.
Since my Fireball is from 1970, the parts I need are no longer available. However, through a couple of connections I located a great company that was able to recreate the parts from my diagrams and specifications.
Yesterday, the parts arrived. Very exciting
Stainless steel bracket for the Fireball Centreboard I won’t be able to install them in the boat until the May long weekend but I’m looking forward to at least one more season of sailing. Hopefully with some Grandkids!
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The Big Upgrade
My Experience with upgrading to WordPress V7, using the Full Site Editor and Block Theme
I’ve been following the WordPress V7 development and using it on some of my other less important blog sites as an experiment, training and exploration of features.
Over the last few days I made the push to upgrade the Tempus Fugit blog, my original blog with a fair bit of history, to the V7 RC2 and a Full Site Editor (FSE) block template. The template I’ve chosen is the Twenty Twenty Five template that is currently the most current WordPress provided FSE block template.
The Bumps
The upgrade was not without a few bumps along the way. First up is a backup of everything, I’ve been burned before so now I’m a big backup believer. Also, my hosting service, BlueHost, offers a tool to create a staging site and also push the staging site back up to production. This seems like a good idea and it is also the 1st problem. I click the button to create the staging site and it gets an error 😕.
After about 1hr with a support agent in a chat session I learned that because my blog was migrated from a different hosting service it doesn’t have the BlueHost plugin. One of the functions of this plugin is to manage the staging site. Who know? Not me.
Plugin installed and the staging site is created. Basically, it copies all the WP files to a new staging sub-directory (/blog/staging/3706), copies all the database tables to new tables with a “staging” prefix and then adjusts wpconfig to point to the new tables with the staging prefix in the same database.
Next up is to apply the new theme which is quite different from my last theme and then continue to make all sorts of adjustments to use templates, template parts etc. A big part of the work was recreating the menu template part. It’s working, but I’m not too happy with the look just yet. More work ahead.
A couple of big processes left. One works fine and the other, well that took a bit more effort.
WordPress V7 RC2
Moving from WP 6.9.x to WP 7 RC2 required installing the WordPress Beta Tester Plugin plugin and adjusting the settings to “bleeding edge” (yikes!) and pressing the “upgrade” button. Turning back is possible, but probably not that easy. The upgrade works and initial testing is good, nothing seems broken. Some more updating of the staging site and I’m ready to promote it to production.
Going Production
Promoting to production is as simple as a click of a button. The BlueHost plugin should copy all the WP files and SQL tables over the current production content. Sadly, this only sort of works. The file copy is successful but the SQL database import to production fails.
Some Googling w/AI and I learn there are several ways to do this process manually. The number one recommendation is to call Bluehost support since it’s their plugin that failed. So, I take the easier (?) way out and chat with support and they are fairly quick to resolve without too much wait time.
So, we’re up and running. I’m still not quite satisfied with the look and feel. There will be some more tweaking in the days ahead. But for now I’ve made the jump to the current WordPress world.
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Already passed from death into life
bible.com/bible/116/jhn.5.24.NLT
This idea really hit me a few days ago from a different devotion and here it is again. The fact that I’m already living in eternity. Not when I physically die but from the moment I accepted Jesus.
““I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life.”
John 5:24 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.5.24.NLT
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Father’s Love
Lifted from Daily Day, so true and encouraging.
Today’s email could just be this wonderful little verse from the classic George Strait song. Because it captures perfectly what we need to be reminded of today and always, as we embark on this difficult but wonderful job.
Let me tell you a secret about a father’s love
A secret that my daddy said was just between us
He said daddies don’t just love their children every now and then
It’s a love without end, amen
It’s a love without end, amen
Not just if you’re a father, of course, but mother, step father, adopted mother, godparent, aunt, uncle, whatever. Not just when things are easy. Not just when they listen. Not just when they conform to your expectations. Not just when they succeed. Not just when everything is going well in your life, or in your job.
Not every now and then.
But always. Without end.
Unconditionally. Even when they hit their siblings, when they lied about a test, when they don’t want to eat their vegetables, when they want to quit something you paid a lot of money for, when they’ve acted in a way contrary to the values you’ve tried to instill in them.
Even if this isn’t what you got as a kid, especially if this isn’t what you got. Even when you’re struggling. Even when you’re pissed off. Even when they have made it so hard. Even when they take you for granted. You have to show them that you love them now and thenand every moment in between.
Love without end.
Amen.
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Social Distancing
One of the few things I actually like that has come about because of Covide-19, social distancing.
I’ve never been a fan of large crowds or being pressed together in a line to get into or out of some venue with a bunch of strangers. I need my space. So, being spaced out is quite nice IMHO.
Now, being separated from friends, family, loved ones etc. that’s not good. 🙁 I’m sure as time goes on I’ll come to hate the phrase “social distancing”. Actually, I hate it now.
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G & T
Gin and Tonic that is!
This is a memory from my teenage years while at our cottage on Brereton Lake in the Whiteshell. It was the custom at the time when families got to gather for dinner that there would be a cocktail hour. I suspect that I was underage but my parents allowed it at the lake and this was where I was introduced to some more sophisticated drinks that expanded my limited experience. Things like Champagne, Irish coffee, Tom Collins, and yes the Gin & Tonic. It seemed like one of our good family friends was responsible for these fancier cocktails as a pre-dinner libation and I was always happy to get in on the action.
The brand of choice The Gin and Tonic was only ever around in the summertime and at the lake. It seemed to be the special beverage to enjoy at the end of a hot summer day.
Every once in a while I’ll break out a G&T at the lake and remember fondly those younger years with friends & family.
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Learn your Greek alphabet
So we’re at “Delta” now (Spring 2021) are you ready for “Epsilon”?
With the WHO’s newest naming convention for COVID Variants of Interest (VOI) and Varients of Concern (VOC) and something you don’t hear too much about, Variant of High Consequence (VOHC) we’re going to hear a lot more Greek letter names in the media.
Here is the current “dance card” for what is out there: SARS-CoV-2 Variant Classifications and Definitions or https://www.who.int/en/activities/tracking-SARS-CoV-2-variants/
While VOCs are getting most of the attention and the alpha, beta, gamma and delta names VOIs are also using up some of the Greek letters like ets, iota, kappa and lambda (hey, what happened to theta?). Only 26 names and we’re burning through them pretty fast.
As a result, we’re likely to become more familiar with the Greek alphabet, so here you go.
Name Character Pronunciation alpha α AL-phuh beta β BAY-tuh gamma γ GAMM-muh delta δ DELL-tuh epsilon ε EPP-sih-lonn zeta ζ ZAY-tuh eta η AY-tuh theta θ THAY-tuh iota ι ee-OH-tuh kappa κ CAPP-uh r lambda λ LAMM-duh
(What animal is that?
It’s a “LAMB — duh”!!)mu μ myoo nu ν noo xi ξ ksee omicron ο OH-mih-kronn pi π piy (Like apple “pie”.) rho ρ roh (Like “row, row,
row your boat”.)(final) sigma ς SIGG-muh sigma σ SIGG-muh tau τ tow (like the first syllable of “towel”) upsilon υ OOPS-ih-lonn phi φ fiy (Like “fee, fie,
fo, fum”)chi χ kiy psi ψ psiy omega ω oh-MAY-guh -
Historic
After the 2nd shot While the whole Covide-19 pandemic crisis is certainly historic I really got a better sense of this when I was getting vaccinated.
Filing into the RBC convention centre with hundreds or perhaps even thousands of other people and watching the co-ordination and effort going into the vaccine process really drove home the magnitude of the global impact that Covide-19 is having. To think that this whole process is happening continuously around the world is quite amazing.
As time goes on there is more and more controversy surrounding the vaccines and the associated mandates that are coming into place. I’m happy to get vaccinated and satisfied with the science behind it. Is it perfect? Probably not. Long term risks? Possibly. Life is full of imperfect choices that we make every day with whatever information we have. Life itself is not perfectly safe, there will be trouble. There are no guarantees beyond the present moment. Memento Mori
