Shirt Pocket Watch

So, before I left, I noticed two things wrong with the server.

1. Part of Mint wasn’t working right because I hadn’t configured curl support into php4
2. CAPTCHAs weren’t working with Expression Engine because I’d left out gd

Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time to fix these (I didn’t want to risk it, frankly), so I disabled CAPTCHAs on the blog and ignored the failing FreshView plugin.

It didn’t take long for the ‘bots to hit my comments section. Now, I hate CAPTCHAs, too, but I hate spending a significant part of my day deleting comment spam more. So, today, I fixed both problems.

Quite easy, actually. First, I tried to do it in one step:

sudo port install -v -c php4 +mysql5 +server +apache2 +imap +macosx +darwin_8 +gd +curl

But not so much. There was a differently configured php4 active—the one I’d previously built. Fortunately, easy to fix with a deactivate and then an install:

sudo port deactivate php4
sudo port install -v -c php4 +mysql5 +server +apache2 +imap +macosx +darwin_8 +gd +curl

And we’re done! After all the previous pain, positively easy.

Well, the weekend went well, the couple whose wedding we attended are happy and relieved to be done, and Lee and Mike managed to handle Ketzl with grace and aplomb.

We were a bit worried about K’s “bathroom routine” so, to make it easier for them to express K’s bladder, we put her on two drugs specifically designed for this use. This worked a bit too well—while Ketzl was able to control herself inside, as soon as she hit the great outdoors, the flood began. I think their porch stairs got a good dose: sorry about that!

Happily, their dog Red was very accepting of the intruder and got along swimmingly with the old girl.

Support was a bit of a bear—don’t you guys take holiday weekends off?—but a few hours a day, plus occasional check-ins via mobile phone browser & email—kept things moving. Hopefully, none of you who needed help felt slighted.

So, good news all around. Congratulations to Ben & Irene, and thanks to Lee & Mike (& Red) for making our attendance possible.