Military Area
The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way.
-- William Blake
Friday, July 28, 2000
Three years ago: Buy Good Books, and Read Them
At work, we are going to offer an HTML version of our weekly newsletter. I think it's a good thing to offer, but I'm vaguely against HTML email in general, still. I was surprised how many of our subscribers wanted to switch over! I know I usually don't sign up for such mail, even though my system is perfectly capable of understanding it.
* * * * * * * *
I'm falling behind in my work, and have a few articles piled up in a backlog. There's been a jump in the amount of feedback the site is getting, which corresponds to the increase in site traffic -- a good thing! But this trend can't continue.
I worked late tonight, because I was waiting for Jack and his daughter H--- to arrive. They were to pick me up, then we would continue on to Jack's parents place for the weekend. In the meantime, I worked on manually moving the subscribers who want the new version of the newsletter from the old list to the new one. Our mail server software does have a gui interface for doing this, but it's very limited. The simplest way is to just open the lists in a good text editor. But surely we should use a database to handle this? And we will in the future. If I had Access around, I could have done a query, I'm sure. But I don't quite know enough SQL skills for that. (Especially because I'd already added the HTML subscribers to the list, but hadn't removied them from the old list at the same time. I'd thought the HTML was still in the testing phase and that folks would get both. This wasn't the idea that Chip had.)
Jack arrived finally. We stopped in Redmond for sandwiches from Subway. (Hey, the new bread looks thinner in diameter to me. Some sneaky portion control?) I don't know if Subway was the best choice for a meal to be eaten while driving. Things tend to drop out of the sandwich into one's lap -- not a problem, except for the driver! But it was there, and we were in a hurry.
The sun hadn't set yet, so we took the country roads for part of our trip east. That purple light of evening is one of my favorite parts of the day. The sun was just on the horizon when we passed Ellensburg, so we pulled off to the viewpoint parking area to admire the view (duh!). Somehow it's always interesting to be where you can see a long way. We saw the lights of the small city, and the irrigated agricultural land that fills the valley.
We were surprised when a tractor trailer with a religous-brand company (Revelation?) pulled in behind us, rather than going to park in the area set aside for such long vehicles. Instead, he just stopped in the driveway! This was just a welcome challenge to Jack -- he cut across the grave in the bend of the drive, and didn't even have to turn on the four-wheel drive.
We drove across the no-man's land that is the "Military Area" between Ellensburg and Yakima. There is nothing out there barring some sagebrush, so they gave it to the military to practice in and shoot off weaponry. It was really very hot out, still. We stopped in Yakima for gas, ice cream sandwiches, and sodas.
We eventually arrived at Wahkiacus, which is the crossroads (formerly a small hamlet) where Jack's folks live. No incidents except Jack having trouble passing a truck.
 |