Goodbye, Tom

I read on my Twitter feed this afternoon that Tom Magliozzi of Car Talk had died. He was 77. Not only did I not know he was that old, but I have always assumed he was younger than his brother Ray, for some reason.

I was never a rabid fan of the show, but I did enjoy listening to it on the weekends when it would come on as I was driving around. I did have the occasional "driveway moment" with that show, and I still remember my kids looking at me like I was crazy when I cracked up at the scene the brothers voiced in the first Cars movie.

I think the reason Tom's death really hit me today is that I lost my father last Christmas Eve, and when I did listen to the show, I would often share any gems I heard with my dad the next time we spoke. I miss my dad, especially whenever I hear or read something and think, boy, dad will get a kick out of that for a split second, before I remember that I won't be able to tell him about it. So hearing the news made me feel sad about Tom and my dad at the same time, I guess.

My heart goes out to Ray and the rest of the Magliozzi family on this terrible loss. I heard on NPR today that Ray would like for them to continue airing reruns of the show, as a tribute to Tom. Let's hope they do.

And a catchphrase is born

My family went out to eat tonight. Soon after we ordered, our server came back with a platter full of food. The only thing that was ours was a salad, but the event prompted this exchange with my son.

Him: Wow, if that had been our food, that would have been fast.

Me: Yeah, scary fast.

Him: Yeah, salmonella fast.

Me: That's going in my blog.

On another note, yes, it has been a while, hasn't it?

That other blog

While setting up this new blog, I discovered that Blogger already had an "A Just Machine" blog (which is why my blogspot.com URL has dashes in it.) It's a Canadian political blog that has not updated since 2007, and for whatever reason it drops the spaces in the name. Not sure what Steely Dan has to do with being a Conservative in Canada, but it is what it is.

I doubt that anyone who reads either blog (assuming anyone reads either one, of course) will confuse the two, but just in case you came here looking for some Tory snark from the late Aughts, here's the blog you want: ajustmachine.blogspot.com.

Moving Day

I've decided to keep the blog going but move to Blogger from my generic web-hosting provider. Nothing against them, they have been great, but I can't justify even the small amount I am paying them when I am only using the service to host a Wordpress installation. When I'm ready to start building actual web apps they will be the first place I will go.

I had to do a lot of finagling with my registrar to try to get the old domain name to point to the new blog, and it will be at least an hour before I know whether everything is set up correctly. For now ajustmachine.com pulls up a Google 404 page. I guess the fact that Google is responding is a somewhat hopeful sign.

Update: www.ajustmachine.com now points to this blog, but the bare domain name does not. It may take a while longer for the A records to propagate (look at me, dropping hard-core DNS terminology.)

Update 2: looks like I missed the setting that auto-redirects the bare domain name to the www address. Now ajustmachine.com works, too. Hooray!

Tempus fugit

I got a call from my registrar yesterday saying that the domain for this site had just auto-renewed. I didn't realize it had been a year already.

When I registered this domain, I gave myself a year to do something with it, like blogging on a regular basis, or launching a small web app or two. As it stands it took me 6 months to get around to writing my first blog post, and since then I've made 8 posts including this one. As for web apps, I'm still working through the same Rails tutorial, so nothing much on that front either.

If I had gotten a single non-spam comment, or other indication that anyone was reading this blog, I might keep going. As it stands, I think I'm going to shut the whole thing down for now.

Like rain on your wedding day

I listened to part of a Diane Rehm interview with Barry Manilow on my way to and from getting lunch yesterday.

Like many pop singers, he records songs he wrote himself, and songs written by others.

In the written-by-others category: "I Write the Songs."

Admittedly, the "I" in the song is supposed to be Music incarnate, not Barry Manilow, but still...

My weed trimmer is the reincarnation of Zorro

Either that, or Lord Voldemort.

Kids, this is why you shouldn't trim weeds in shorts.

Hat tip to my younger son, who came up with the Harry Potter reference when he saw the marks.