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  • Pill Free Since 73′

    It was a classic lineup on IFC this morning.. after watching the end of the scripts spelling bee movie early this morning (we’ll say we get up around 5:00)…where it was once again confirmed that Ginny spells better than I.. i was completely fascinated this morning by the movie called “Does Your Soul Have a Cold” by Mike Mills…. Mills (wiki) has some really nice work floating around out there… and what a small world it is.. turns out that he and Miranda July(we likey) are a thing(see this too).. and his past life was artwork for the beastie boys and ads for nike…. point is i have been mostly pill free excepting the the time i tried to quit smoking with zyban and the ritalin to try to make me actually attend classes my sophomore year of college. However, it seems that the rest of America, (children and adults).. is on some sort of pharmacological cornucopia trip. I can’t stand the ads and the money they spend promoting them or the quasi news articles attached to our local news about health. I would guess over the last five years i’ve taken a total of 20 Advil…  but overall i am in good physical health and have begun exercising again.. and not just the yoga but the heart pounding thirty minutes on the treadmill too..ping pong and tennis.. whoopee..and if you get a chance.. “Does Your Soul Have a Cold” and Mike Mills are worth the time.

    Update:11/20/21 – I was thinking about Mike Mills this morning after reading a review about his film C’mon C’mon1. I suppose the title of this original post was because I had just watched a film about trying to medicate ourselves to happiness. I’ve switched away from Advil to Bayer baby aspirin. I noticed that the link above to his website has changed so I edited it, added some videos and a references list alongside of this update. While researching the movie, I noticed that Mike had actually been doing the same sort of interviews with kids seven years ago for another project: SFMOMA Project Los Altos: A Mind Forever Voyaging Through Strange Seas of Thought Alone2. I’m a big fan of anything that has something to do with the theme of children teaching adults lessons. Judd Apatow said “Mike’s films make me proud to be a human being”3. And I’m looking forward to seeing the new film because I really like his work. Granted I used to title and write posts a bit more casually, I wanted to update this one as a reminder.

    1. ‘C’mon C’mon’ is a special film about the kids inheriting an earth ruined by adults – https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/c-mon-c-mon-special-film-about-kids-inheriting-earth-ncna1284213
    2. SFMOMA Project Los Altos: A Mind Forever Voyaging Through Strange Seas of Thought Alone – https://vimeo.com/90563906
    3. Mike Mills Anti-Hollywood Family Films – https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/09/mike-mills-anti-hollywood-family-films

    See Also:

  • wp – for cms president

    and ck it.. Askimet has done a perfect job with spam…
    askimet
    I’ve been working with digital stuff (professionally.. barely eaking a living at it since 2005)…i would like to lay down some simple facts that i’ve learned about the so aforementioned content management system. Managing IT and digital assets online isn’t rocket science but it can be made out to be by the quasi technical savvy bunch who might lead you to believe that computer programming is made up of elite brilliant minds.. fact is.. little has changed since the earliest days of the internet..show me some text and some pictures and let me search your information or give you mine) it’s just that some of the edges have been smoothed and expanded. Only one in thousand guys/gals actually knows the computers, servers, and networks from the ground up. Most are just selling/installing/troubleshooting/customizing someone else’s app or solution and this includes email solutions, business class hosting, websites, accounting, ecommerce, online marketing, internet enabled applications, business to business applications, databases, etc…So as a business it is important to maintain relations with another company or build an internal department to do so.. which i have seen in various stages of development and sometimes disarray.
    anyway… i forgot what my point was.. but what i wanted to say is that wordpress is a great content management system if used and customized properly to exactly how you’re going to use it.
    wp-commerce
    wp-custom
    i finally updated this site (the one you’re looking at now :)) to the 2.3.3 version of wordpress. I must say that i strongly like wordpress (not necessarily php) and wpmu comparing it other apps like ..drupal, phpwebsite, joomla, typepad, director, vanilla, typo, bbpress, , oscommerce, magento, opensourcecms, wiki’s etc….it is simple and customization goes as far as you can take the php with about most every bit of extra code written for you including importing from other apps. I wouldn’t build any site without it. I can customize it enough to handle the content (including online stores and all types of media) for any site design or needs. Even the entirely flash based sites can stand the help of a little navigation and a wp-admin section as porting the wordpress mysql to actionscript is not so hard as i have recently learned. And with a bit of work you can merge some other apps into it fairly easily. I’ve had the bleeding edge running locally for a bit and it’s really nice to see a stripped down version and i can tell you that the baked in ajax and media features are getting better.
    I have had no problems customizing, upgrading, backing up or restoring databases, finding a php solution for any task, NO security issues whatsoever, and no problem i coundn’t find a workaround for when it comes to content management thus far… so get on with your drupal, joomla and typepad.

    thks …matt

    wordpress for dummies

  • dread zeppelin, jackie wilson, and big al downing.

    i remember picking it up in about 1990… i think scott woolum got it first.. one way or another.. Ginny wanted to show me a video of cats doing immigrant song because i was making fun of songs that shouldn’t be played in a dining establishment.. and next thing you know.. it’s dread zepplin hour here.

    and while working on this music today … i knew this guy who’s now passed.. Ed Zomerfeld (who had a long storied career in music and radio)..he had this facination with Jackie Wilson.. i never understood it until years later when i finally patched the reason that Leaving Las Vegas (nicholas cage.. alchoholic) used Jackie Wilson’s Lonely Teardrops throughout.. jackie wilson was a speed and alchohol addict.. “Wilson suffered a massive heart attack while playing a Dick Clark show at the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, New Jersey on September 29, 1975, falling head-first to the stage while singing “Lonely Teardrops”. The blow to the head Wilson suffered left him comatose. For the next eight years and four months he was in a vegetative state until his death at age 49. Al Green, the soul singer, was one of the few artists who regularly visited a bed-ridden Jackie.”.. he died in 1984.. the same year that Micheal Jackson dedicated his Triller album Grammy to him

    …and one last cool thing to note about Jackie Wilson was the fact that he was a golden gloves division champion at the age of 16 in detroit… that fact goes to show that it’s 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration.. jackie wilson would have been successful at anything he did.
    and on another note… i’ve always liked the african american country cross over thing.. i mean ray charles’ country and western album..charlie pride, dobie grey, aren neville.. etc.. but i’ve really grown fond of Big Al Downing.. his sound is unmistakable and remarkable…pictured with Buck Owens here.
    big al downing
    … how about this pre-mtv duzzie..

  • php5, mysql5, python2.4, ruby 1.8.5, centos5.

    media temple
    all standard pre-installed..time to migrate the dv as it’s a fun saturday thing to do…. on feb 10th mt released the upgraded dedicated virtual mysql 5, php 5, centOS 5 (it’s about time even though i know hosting companies that are years behind this setup).. and migrating is cake with the tools available in swsoft… but i’ll have to undue the manual php upgrades and next time i’m just goin to wait for them to do it for me…more details.. or try the Media Temple blog….but don’t get me wrong..i’m not necessarily an apple, plesk, or media temple fanboy… but i can tell you that moving away from windows and moving to media temple has been some of the smarter moves of my computing career thus far.. as windows is a joke and unix is the sh**.. and the guys at media temple (for the most part) actually know what they’re doing.. if you’re feeling the love or i sent you to this page to set up a hosting account… use this link to Media Temple…as i get referral credits to boot.
    here’s a note from the holiday season on hosting..
    elfyourself
    – Number of unique visitors per day: 1,290,330
    – Estimated total number of “elfings”: 36 Million
    – Average length of visitor: 15 minutes
    – Megabits per second: 650mb
    – Terabytes transferred: 55+TB
    – Number of required CPU cores: 16
    – 79,000 MySpace hits and 2 million Google queries for elfyourself
    – People spent 300 million minutes on all 20 OfficeMax® campaign sites

  • Louis’s Las Vegas

    i’d love to bring some attention to Louis Osteen as if he doesn’t already receive enough of it… he’s a great chef and personality of whom i admire for his unique views and experience with southern culture and food. i worked for him a number of years ago in Charleston and I learned quite a bit from him (about food, people, and music) over our hot dogs lunches.. we’ve kept in touch…he’s the reason i read “the solace of food – the life of james beard” who (beard) so reminded me of Ignatious from A Confederacy of Dunces(a book which has been described as the most accurate depiction of new orleans and i’ll testify since we were just there and which was to be adapted to film originally with belushi and now with will ferrel and lily tomlin.. although.. there seems to be a curse on it..).. which both relate to hot dogs, food, and southern culture. Speaking of….. listen to this… Jimmy Reed (who worked at Armor Meat Packing making hot dogs) about breaking down seventy-two miles outside of new orleans and how he wrote ‘ain’t that loving you baby’

    If you’re in Las Vegas.. it’s Louis’s Las Vegas and if you’re along the coast of South Carolina ..in Pawley’s Island.. it’s Louis’s Fish Camp
    louis's las vegas
    …. thks Louis!

    here’s an excerpt from the slate article.. about the curse of the book..
    As Will Ferrell has said, “It’s the movie everyone in Hollywood wants to make but doesn’t want to finance.”
    Most curiously, there is the matter of what many, including Steven Soderbergh, believe to be a “curse” that surrounds the book. In addition to the tragic suicide of Toole, a series of misfortunes have affected efforts to make the film. In 1982, John Belushi became the first actor cast in the role of Ignatius (Richard Pryor was also attached to this version, in the role of the visionary vagrant Burma Jones). Belushi was an inspired choice, possessing both the artistic range and the physical largesse to nail the character. All the lights seemed to be turning green for Kramer, who was then only 23 years old. But a day or so before Belushi was supposed to meet with executives at Universal to finalize his involvement, he died of a drug overdose at the Chateau Marmont. Five months later, the woman who led the Louisiana State Film Commission was murdered by her husband, which brought the efforts to shoot the film in New Orleans—and the production itself—to a halt. Other deaths tangentially linked to the project include those of actors John Candy and Chris Farley, both of whom were considered for the lead role before they died. And, for those so predisposed, the recent devastation that Hurricane Katrina wrought on New Orleans provides further amplification.

  • montreux jazz festival

    and why i must go this year… it’s july 4th – 19th, they won’t release the schedule until mid april.. and what a way to show my patriotism by taking my american made dollars to Switzerland and spending them there…(especially since our banks and corporate boys have no problem spending abroad in much worse places)
    this is last years line up videos..notice Soloman Burke, Booker T and the MG’s, Sly Stone?, Robben Ford, Van Morrison…. i had some discussion about going back to new orleans for jazzfest but since i was just there.. i don’t think it’ll happen…
    now.. i just need a way to pick up the extra three grand we’ll need in a couple months.. I’ve been working on another set of music for a client and i’m back to my amature musicologist days and after our trip to new orleans, i’ve been digging into some new stuff again..
    I have always loved cuban, brazillian, and reggae.. and this is a particularly good sound from Paolo Nutini doing a classic reggae sound with a Scottish influence? (or maybe it’s my Welsh decendents that dictates my fondness for the sound)..
    [kml_flashembed movie=”https://davidwindham.com/blog/nutini.swf” height=”400″ width=”500″ /]
    and another side note..
    i have been thinking of this for some time.. we wan’t to buy a houseboat (40+ footer – american/kentucky made.. customized with computers, video, and communications equipment and cozy furnishings) and ship it to europe via oceanliner transport for canal-ing around europe.. dock it in france..pay the montly dues on it..it’s going to cost a lot of money to do… and if anyone runs across this who may have the means to do this.. we figure we’ll be able to rent it out for about 2-3 grand a week for most of the year (or produce a video travel log and web as well..hint hint conte nast peoples)..and what a great way to see europe without the burden of hopping around on trains to hotels which will end up sucking up most of the money.

  • iphone gps, where am i? and $40/hr?

    Ginny and i found ourselves amused with the “where the hell am i” (as we call it) on the iphone..
    ginny
    what a nice feature in google maps… which speaking of.. Google anounced an update to Android.. fit with a media player and a geocoding api… mobile computing is going to be big stuff if you campare the number of laptop owners worldwide vs the number of cell phone users…so after tinkering around a bit.. i found a way to ssh into the phone using jailbreak.. (note…the method may prevent installation of official third-party applications that will be created by the forthcoming iPhone SDK (software development kit) from Apple)…and now i want to install the knowitall tool of the century since this is the information age after all… wikipedia at my fingertips all the time.

  • New Orleans – Fat Tuesday

    New Orleans.. it’s a strange mix of poverty, destruction, history, and culture… the things that stick out most are the dichotomy of upper echelon galleries, restaurants, hotels, antiques, attorneys, bankers, catholics..vs the seedy strip clubs, casino, bars, hustlers, vampire punks (as we call them..you know the type.. beyond heroin sheik. grungy, tatooed, and pierced) and Missippi ghetto gangster kids from the upper ninth ward.. it seems like a weird purgetory of fried/buttery foods, intellectualism, mysticism, ritualism, catholicism, liquour, and exploitism. Dolled up socialites, bankers and the dirty homeless on the same street corner adjacent to a french bistro and the 24hr immigrant run junk/liqour store. The history is rich and so are about 10% of the people. The other 90% are students (Tulane), tourist, and the mostly poor.. real New Orleans folk. The influence of the port of the Missisppi is dominant. I noticed that the city water taste good (we decided it was from an overhaul of the water system after Katrina) I’ve noticed that the nappy head ghetto boy look and sound of the urban culture is alive and kicking here. I’ve noticed that coffee is everywhere here.. brokers, traders.. cafes.. the food is as rich as the culture.. the homeless and crime rate is horrible but the people are charming. the re-construction opportunities seem to have gone south of the border in construction and services and the real estate market is wide open where it seems that every other building is for sale.. with large areas of the city still under construction. Trump is building a new tower downtown.. the NBA Allstar game is coming up this week.. the convention business seems to be good…
    If i was to compare it. Charleston is much smaller..more British and new orleans is more expansive, Spanish and French.. simple as that.. New Orleans is more ecentric with a wider sphere of influence, Charleston is more confined to the (hugenot/brit) republican and moderate at the same time (ie.. episcopal-esque) and our eastside is a 20th of the size of the upper ninth ward. We saw a piece by Jim Leher on how far behind the public schools are here… New Orleans has quite a bit more New York and las Vegas in it than does Charleston.. I think this is good.. Let’s be glad there are open container laws in Charleston and that we don’t have to round our benches off in order to keep the homeless from sleeping on them. New Orleans has awesome culture though.. the galleries, food and music is more varied (better) than Charleston. The people are louder and fatter but in some ways more charming. The African American population is far more urban (seemingly African ..in a way… big earrings excessive makeup, exotic garb) in there traditions… the creole, and cajun landscape of the outlying areas can best be described as slow, muddy and down to earth.. like the delta itself..but this is also what makes up the unique artistic, musical, and cultural makeup of New Orleans and it’s certainly still a classic american city that is indicative of what all of the entire Missippi is about from Chicago, St. Louis to Muscle Shoals Alabama.. New Orleans is like the melting pot at the end of the missippi with a foggy immigrant culture dominated by the Spanish and French..
    …today we’re headed over to the garden district for lunch at Casamentos a tour of Tulane, the Audubon Nature Institute and the Museum..
    …Galatoires was completely awesome, especially our waiter John Fontenot (this excerpt from NPR features john in an interview) who has waited tables there for 30 years… we woke up from a nap last night after our extra long lunch with a bottle of wine at did some research on craps and then went to dinner at Dickie Brennans place… i think the gulf coast oysters are more plump and mild and have nothing on McClellanville Oysters as our oysters seem to have a more salty and ‘buttery’ flavor to them.
    and we made it to Friday… it was a late night at Vaughns with another couple, started on bourbon at Lafite’s with a candlelit round of drinks to a piano player and then caught a cab across town to Vaughns….we had red beans and rice just after midnight.. couldn’t have been a more ecentric or electric crowd of thirtysome.. half East Village NY and half Upper ninth ward… and at 3am we found ourselves on the street corner having a great chat with Kermit and the band.. his bassist for the night was leaving in the morning for Chicago to play with Allan Toussaint and Dianne Reeves and sure enough kermit was toting his grill in the back of his truck..
    … we’re heading off to a four hour lunch now at Galatoires and even though we just woke up. we’ve been giving strict instructions to order a bottle of wine, sit downstairs and let the waiter order for us from Louis. follow up… we were wiped from Tuesday and we were asleep early… it was nice seeing the city at a bit more of a leisurely pace and the ritual seemed to move on to Ash Wednesday as it seemed half of the city was catholic with the number of ashy foreheads on the street… there a good share of art and galleries in the city including Noma and CAC
    …. tonight we are going to see Kermit Ruffins Play at a place called Vaughns (Every Thursday for the last 15 years Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers have played a weekly show at Vaughan’s bar in the Bywater neighborhood) on a tip from photographer Jerry Moran who had some great photography of local musicians….we’ll try to go early to catch some of Ruffin’s BBQ.
    Here’s a video:
    vaughns new orleans

    View Larger Map
    it just happened that Ginny’s National Association of School Psychologist Conference fell on the end of Mardi Gras… which is absolute craziness.. we had bloody marys po-boys and muffulettas for an early lunch.. we saw the zulu today and we’re headed out for some voodoo and music. We’ve got a long week planned..here’s a video from a parade and some photos:
    zulu
    fat
    tues
    new orleans
    orleans
    …and on another note… we had the most interesting drive in through Gulfport and Biloxi.. the aftermath of Katrina is still a mess two years later. I could only imagine what a thirty foot wall of water could do to Charleston after seeing that.

    The last thing i’ve noticed is that the swirling chaos that is New Orleans sucked me in and wore me out so i say Adieu.. as we head back to our own wonderful little hurricane ravaged town (McClellanville. St James Santee Parish).. Charleston SC.

  • slideshowpro and actionscript

    It always seems that when i’m working on a problem or task in computer programming that the answer usually comes to me when i’m not in front of a computer screen. I think this is because i am able to use better visual logic when i’m daydreaming in the car listening to music. This particular case involved using Slide Show Pro Director to control a custom gallery and I was listening to Van Morrison’s ‘Live in San Fran’. Trick was making the thumbnails customizable while using a set of custom variables and actions to format the thumbs as external navigation. Press the third largest button a couple times to get them off track and then hit one of the top two buttons to line them back up.
    [kml_flashembed movie=”https://davidwindham.com/blog/ssp.swf” height=”550″ width=”800″ /]

  • magento

    so i installed a couple local versions… and then put one on a server to test. Varien has done it right for anyone who wants all of the bells and whistles in ecommerce because they’ve certainly done their research. Reports, Inventory, Paypal Api, Import/export excel spreadsheets… and a forum has been started for syncing it to quickbooks. But I’ll say this to those folks used to ZenCart or OsCommerce.. it’s quite a departure and expect some more difficult hurdles to install, use, and design. I’ll let you know how it goes when i put it to the test.
    magento ecommerce
    magento