:: My head seems to be in the clouds somewhere. I've had a quiet day, except for the morning (see below). Earlier this week, my neighbour, while I was at work, planted a bur oak tree in my front yard.
:: I always feel a bit odd this time of year. It's the literal calm before the storm. Today is May 31st, already one-quarter of the summer months is over. Next week at this time I'll be in NYC, and the next few days will move at light speed until I leave.
NYC will be exciting, exhilarating, overwhelming, draining. It is not the usual NYC trip I take - as I've mentioned, I'll be attending a conference for the first five days. I will see many people I like a lot, and meet new ones, and have the pleasure of introducing Geoff to SLA and NYC concurrently.
:: This morning I had my hair cut, and afterwards, having contemplated it for years, had my hair streaked the colour of copper red. Yes, you read that correctly. Call it a momentary lapse of mental coordination, or the least damaging thing I can do to my body in honour of my impending half-century birthday.
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:: Two good film recommendations, both based on true stories: Evelyn, starring Pierce Brosnan, Aidan Quinn, Stephen Rea, Julianna Margulies and Alan Bates, and Nowhere in Africa, the brilliant German film that won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Evelyn features Brosnan's best performance by far, and is the story of Desmond Doyle, who battled the Catholic Church and the Irish Constitution in 1954 in order to win back his children from government appointed custody. Nowhere in Africa tells the story of a Jewish German family who fled Germany in 1938, before the Nazis took full control, and moved to Kenya. It is a rich, moving film, the best I've seen so far in 2003.
:: It seems minor, but today I emptied my savings account into my chequing account, and will permanently close my savings account tomorrow. It will be the first time since 1968 that I don't have a savings account. CIBC, bless 'em, have initiated new user fees that makes it cost prohibitive to maintain the savings account.
:: Should I buy a digital camera before I go to NYC on June 7?
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:: Dave Weinberger, author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined, has suggested that we take a break from blogging during the first two weeks of August. Do you agree? Discuss.
Am I the only blogperson growing blogtired of the blogixon of words with prefixes beginning with or suffixes ending with a version of the word "blog"?
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:: Great news for movie lovers. The New York Times has significantly beefed up its online movie site. Below is the generic e-mail I received describing the new features, including all reviews from 1983-present, and selected reviews from 1929. In addition, you can select any or all of the five current critics (Stephen Holden, AO Scott, Elvis Mitchell, Dave Kehr, Lawrence Van Gelder), and see a complete list of their reviews. Reviews designated with a 
indicates a New York Times Critic's Pick. (Remember that you need to register for access, but that registration is free.)
Dear NYTimes.com Member:| TrackBack (0)We want to take this opportunity to introduce you to the new and exciting Movies section at NYTimes.com. In addition to the reviews and articles that you expect from The New York Times, we now offer you the ability to find your local showtimes, buy tickets online, watch trailers and submit your own reviews. NYTimes.com has created a site that meets all of your moviegoing needs.
movies.nytimes.com includes these exciting new features:
•National Showtimes and Ticketing: Find a movie and buy your tickets right on the spot.
Whether you are going to the movies or just like to read about them, the new Movie section gives you all the information you need in one place. Don't delay . . . start your movie search today at movies.nytimes.com!
•Rate and Review: Rate movies and write your own reviews.
•Critics' Picks: Find movies recommended by New York Times critics including The Times's "Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made."
•Review Archive: A complete list of New York Times movie reviews dating back to 1983, as well as selected reviews back to 1929.
•Box-Office Charts: Weekend and all-time data for the U.S. and Canada, New York City and the U.K.
•DVD/Home Video: A complete section devoted to new releases.Sincerely,
NYTimes.com
:: It's crunch time. Also the time when the weeks start to appear to me as if they are moving faster than normal. Next week (June 7), Geoff and I fly to NYC for SLA. Before that, we're attending (and are helping organize) the EBL conference. I'm making minor revisions to my presentation on engineering libraries for the SLA conference. I haven't begun to consider other events in NYC, like theatre, movies, music, etc. I'll be there for seven days after the conference to do whatever, whenever - this means visiting good friends as well, and showing Geoff some of the town (and some of my friends, too.) I return home on June 19th, leaving me a few days to ruminate about being alive for half a century.
Summer just seems to happen too fast.
| TrackBack (0):: More evidence seems to appear weekly that suggests blogs are swiftly moving into the mainstream. Today's NYTimes Arts & Leisure section's cover story is titled, "Prospecting for Gold Among the Photo Blogs." (NYT ID& PW: podbay)
:: I attended my Pilates class tonight for the first time in two weeks, since I started coughing and hacking. Tough class, hard to get back into it. Tomorrow I'll try a regular workout.
:: This weekend was a scorcher: 31oC on Saturday and 26oC today. Hard to believe that we had this weather only three weeks ago.
Do you own a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant)? I don't, but have been thinking about it for some time. Yet technology seems to move faster than one can keep up in the 21st century. Ephraim Schwartz, editor at large at Infoworld writes that General Motors believes the time may be approaching for you to get rid of your PDA.
General Motors announced last week that it will partner with wireless carrier Nextel to use Nextel’s Motorola cell phones with data capabilities to market a field-force management application to its commercial truck fleet customers. The announcement casts a shadow over the future of handheld devices in the business marketplace.The technology includes GPS, Java, and push-to-talk, and in tandem with ease of use, it becomes hard to chose a handheld over a handset. Cell phones are also considerably cheaper than PDAs.By selecting a cellular phone, GM in essence said no to Palm, HP, and Microsoft.
IT departments should consider the reasoning behind GM’s decision before recommending a handheld solution of their own.
Can someone slow technology down for just a few minutes, please? (From: Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends)
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:: Kelly's friend Chuck is making a movie about blogs, called Blogumentary. Check out the trailer in Windows Media or Quicktime. (PBS has also made a documentary about blogs.)
:: I'm keeping the shoes.
| TrackBack (0):: I was going to write a piece on the edu-blogging session which Geoff and I presented this afternoon on campus, but Geoff already has posted a good summary here.
:: I'm thinking, my previous post garnered 18 responses, a new PBD record. How can I ever post again? It's like, I don't want to post another entry because I'll break the spell or something...
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:: I bought another pair of shoes today. That's twice in one week. By popular demand, view the first and second pair. Comments welcome. Both pairs are very comfortable, and will make the trip to NYC.
Really, can life get any better?
I watched The Matrix on video tonight, in prep for Matrix Reloaded. I saw the first film in 1999, and it was good to see it again. Maybe I'll understand the second one a bit better. This site discusses the first film, providing an in-depth analysis. The official site also has a page devoted to the philosophy of the matrix.
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:: Today's NYTimes has a fascinating article by Warren St John, Dating a Blogger, Read All About It. The article details how what is written and published in a personal blog may return to haunt the writer: hurt feelings, relationships permanently harmed, employers ticked off, and the like. A wakeup call for some of us? St John also writes about the state of NYC blogs, including Gawker, a NYC web site that describes itself as "a live review of city news and Manhattan culture." NYC Bloggers, a site I've listed on my page since last year, lists >2,100 blogs in NYC, grouped together by distance from subway stations. (Note: NYTimes member ID and PW: podbay)
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:: If you like Steely Dan like I know I do, you'll be interested in this extensive review of the DVD-A version of their forthcoming album, Everything Must Go, hitting the shelves on 10 June 2003.
:: I've spent the last 6-7 days coughing my lungs out with a minor chest cold of some sort. Today's the first day the coughing has begun to subside. But I've missed two Pilates classes, and haven't really worked out in almost two weeks, so I'm feeling sluggish, and about as sharp as a sack of wet mice.
:: I saw X2: X-Men United on Saturday, and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
Rick Groen sums it up best: "This may not be a grownup movie but -- unlike the Star Wars franchise or the Batman sequels -- it is a movie that grownups can watch minus the requisite bottle of Excedrin." Three points of view appear in the film: the two carry-overs from the first film: Magneto (kill all humans), Xavier (find a middle ground where humans and mutants can live together in peace); a third appears in the form of Stryker, played by Brian Cox, who wants all the mutants dead, good or bad. There is real tension in the film, and I was caught up in a number of the subplots. All the actors are engaging, and Ian McKellen chews up the screen as Magneto. A nice opening to the mindless summer film frey, and others seem to agree.
| TrackBack (0):: As reviewed for Blogcritics.com:
A Mighty Wind is the latest from the creative minds of Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy, and follows the same formula as Guest's previous satires, Waiting for Guffman and Best In Show: a mock documentary skewing one small niche of pop culture. This time it's folk music, and follows the organization and presentation of a reunion show of three legendary 60s folk groups: The Folksmen, Mitch and Mickey, and The Main Street Singers. The reunion concert is produced by Jonathan Steimbloom, son of Irving Steinbloom, the legendary folk music impresario who discovered and managed these three groups, in honour of his passing. We watch as Jonathan contacts each group and convinces them to come aboard for the concert. The bands reunite and begin rehearsals, although The Main Street Singers have endured with numerous roster changes throughout the decades.
None of Guest's films have made me laugh out loud throughout, and this is no exception. It's more of a gentle smile. Guest brings together the same repertory group of actors, including Levy, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Parker Posey, Ed Begley Jr, Don Lake, Larry Miller, Fred Willard, Catherine O'Hara, and Bob Balaban.
Some of the reviews have said that the film doesn't take a detailed enough look at the rise of folk music, leaving out too much of the history. This didn't bother me, as it wasn't the point of the film. Did Waiting for Guffman recall the history of theatre? Guest and Levy aren't bashing the Woody Guthrie/Pete Seeger schools of folk music, but rather, the sometimes bland and often boring and bleached three chord muzak of ensemble groups with squeaky-clean images such as the Back Porch Majority, the New Christy Minstrels, or the Serendipity Singers, and trios and duos not unlike Peter, Paul and Mary, or the Kingston Trio. Hootenanies and banjos, anyone? (Aside: the first single my parents bought for me when I was a kid was "Don't Let The Rain Come Down", by the New Serendipity Singers, so I do bow in their general direction, nonetheless...) Even then, I didn't feel the film had any sense of meanness to it any more than did the grandaddy of these spoofs, Spinal Tap. If anything, the film evokes melancholy and nostalgia, with a few groans of deja vu. Not unlike the rival bands who despised each other in Spinal Tap, here we learn that The Folksmen consider The Main Street Singers to be worthy of playing Branson, Missouri, and little else, and are furious with them when they open the show with a Folksmen number.
It must be noted that The Folksmen, the acoustic sister of Spinal Tap, features the same three Tap actors and musicians: Shearer, McKean and Guest. Also of note: The Folksmen first appeared on Saturday Night Live in 1986, shortly after Spinal Tap, and then disappeared from the landscape for quite a while, resurfacing a year or two ago as an opening act for a few Spinal Tap shows. (Imagine the makeup artists backstage working overtime!)
The characters played by Levy (Mitch) and Willard (manager of The Main Street Singers) grated on my nerves, especially Willard. I'm somewhat weary of his repetetive persona, the lighthearted goof who consistently cracks really bad, offensive jokes and has no idea that others perceive him as a complete moron. I was also disappointed that The Folksmen didn't sing their ode to train wrecks, Blood on the Coal. (To read the lyrics to this great tune, click on The Folksmen's pic on the movie web site, choose the album "Pickin'", read the lyrics and listen to 15 seconds of the song, which is thankfully included in the OST.)
In retrospect, I hoped for more from Guest - the film moves slowly, which admittedly is part of its charm, but it detracted from my enjoyment. And I wanted MUCH more of The Folksmen - their original bit on SNL in the 80s drew more laughs from me than any single segment of the film in which they appeared.
The production information package is available here.
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:: Here's a compelling and interesting essay from Andrew Grumet: Deep Thinking About Weblogs.
:: I didn't buy shoes tonight, but gave the idea some deep thoughts.
:: Seen this term popping up lately?: social software. Here's an article about it by Stowe Boyd. There is a social software blog. There is a Social Software Alliance Wiki. Wiki?
:: In an effort to keep up with developments in all things web-like, Wiki came up in conversation today. I investigate a few sites before my brain exploded, including the original site and the FAQ, which notes that "this Wiki thing" is: "A collection of web-pages which can be edited by anyone, at any time, from anywhere." Wiki Wiki is Hawaiian for "quick". One major project is the Wikipedia, a "multilingual project to create a complete and accurate open content encyclopedia. We started on January 15, 2001 and are already working on 120,700 articles in the English version." How did they create 120,700 entries in just over 2 years? Regardless, the creators think Wikipedia is great. A Wiktionary is also being created.
:: An entrepeneur in Spokane purchased 10 Segways, and is renting them to people looking for cheap, quick transportation. He couldn't do this if he lived in San Francisco, however. In the end, it may not matter.
:: We try to stay in at least the slow lane on the information superhighway, but lately I feel like I've pulled over on the offramp to change a flat tire.
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:: I bought a pair of new shoes tonight.
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:: This is way cool. WestJet, the Canadian indie airline, and DEW Engineering have introduced a dual boarding bridge (or OTW: Over The Wing) at the WestJet operations base at the Calgary International Airport. The bridge allows passengers to enter and leave the plane from the front and rear doors.
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:: The Guardian maintains a fascinating and detailed weblog site. In addition, check "Onlineblog.com, a weblog covering internet and technology news produced daily by the Guardian Online team."
| TrackBack (0):: From the Boston Globe comes this report on the Iraq National Library: " Contrary to widespread belief, the antique books of Iraq's National Library were not stolen by thieves last month but were removed for safe keeping by self-appointed guardians of Iraq's cultural heritage." (Thanks, Derryl.)
| TrackBack (0):: An interesting column by Jon Iverson has appeared that (again) details the myth of downloading: that file trading of music via the 'net has affected CD sales negatively. Iverson, writing in Stereophile, notes that annual sales remain ahead of 1998's figures, and that when a number of other factors are taken into account, the sales figures should be much worse. Iverson points to a detailed account by Dan Bricklin, co-creator of VisiCalc, who argues that file trading actually leads to
more purchases, rather than the other way around.
:: Shareware Music Machine is a site that gathers links to >4,400 music software titles.
| TrackBack (0)In my previous entry, I lamented cynically about the chances of the Province increasing funding to libraries in Alberta. I learned this morning, via a colleague, that this in fact is happening. At the recent Alberta Library Conference, the Minister of Community Development noted that this funding increase was just the start. This is good news, and is encouraging to know the government is seeing value in its investment in local libraries and library systems in Alberta.
| TrackBack (0):: In today's Edmonton Journal comes a column by Scott McKeen, titled: Civilization's safe after all. Libraries are cool again. Um, er, well...duh. Those of us in the profession have a news flash for Mr McKeen - our hallowed halls of employment were never uncool. Dude. McKeen observes that when All Things Pop Culture exploded (in the 90s, I presume), such as computers (read: Internet), home theatre, big box bookstores, instant gratification, and so on, the prediction was people would stop frequenting libraries, and by extension, their services. I've been a librarian for 25 years, and don't recall any particular point in time when my colleagues and I thought the sky was falling on our vocation and the buildings in which we work(ed). Read McKeen's column, and one might conclude that it's a modern miracle libraries didn't collapse from within when the Internet and Napster and stadium seat theatres and Digimon and all these fast food thrills took hold of Planet Earth. Well, public libraries at least. In academic and college libraries, we've spent the last 10 years doing our best to help students understand why the Internet isn't the Answer to Everything, and why their research and studies will take them to the library and its resources. *Cough*. (BTW, am I the only person who thinks the Edmonton Journal's web site really, really sucks? Like, badly? Unfortunately, the EJ website is the mirror image of all newspapers in Canada owned by the National Post.)
In fairness to McKeen, he does sing the praises of (public) libraries, and notes that Alberta municipalities are lobbying our provincial government for higher library grants. Um, I won't lose sleep waiting for that to happen very soon - increased library funding in Alberta could lead to a better educated populace. God forbid that might happen here.
:: Speaking of public libraries, this is such a cool idea, I wish someone in Canada would do it, too: The Third Annual New York Times Librarian Awards for public librarians across the United States. This year the awards have gone national in the USA.
:: An interesting "editorial observer" on William Gibson by Brent Staples in the 11 May 2003 NYTimes: A Prince of Cyberpunk Fiction Moves Into the Mainstream. (Note: ID and PW: podbay)
:: Have you been following the amazing success of Apple's iTunes? The iTunes Music Store sold over 1,000,000 songs (@$0.99US a pop) in one week. Read Rebecca's observations. Interestingly enough, hackers have already found a way to share the tunes among Macintosh owners.
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:: The weekend is coming to a close, and it's been a good one, my head and throat notwithstanding. On Friday night, I hung with some cool colleagues after work, at Martini's on 109th, followed by some tunes at G&K's pad. On Saturday I was lazy, did little other than see two films: The Lizzie McGuire Movie (don't shoot me for that, I took a little one who wanted to see it and she had a great time), and Identity (which has a cool web site, check it out). Identity is a thriller with a great cast of character actors, including my man John Cusack, Clea DuVall, Amanda Peet, John C McGinley, Ray Liotta, Jake Busey, Alfred Molina and Pruitt Taylor Vince. The film wasn't as edgy as I hoped, but was still a good watch.
I wrote a short review of TLMM for BlogCritics. BlogCritics, btw, now has links to groups of reviews of CDs, DVDs, and books.
Today I had dim sum, and then jammed with Deb. But I'm not feeling 100% - last night I went to bed with a sore throat, and today I feel like I'm on the edge of a cold. I hope it doesn't get any worse. The good news is it's warmed up in Edmonton considerably from five days ago, when we had snow-covered ground, and the temperature was hovering around OºC.
:: Steely Dan will be heading out on their next tour, beginning in July, in support of the new album, Everything Must Go. Three years earlier, Chris and I drove to The Gorge to see Steely Dan perform, in June 2000. This year they are playing The Gorge again on August 2nd, which is the long weekend in Alberta. So I went online and bought two tickets. I'll worry about the details of the trip later in the summer.
:: Finally, mention of a column by Al Franken, one of my favorite comedians and political pundits. Franken writes about a conversation he had with Minnesota senator Norm Coleman, who replaced Senator Paul Wellstone after he was killed in a plane crash in 2002. The conversation happened after Coleman made some controversial remarks about him being a 99.9% improvement over Wellstone, who was much loved by his constituents and well-respected in the US Senate. (Thanks, Derryl.)
| TrackBack (0):: This Honda commercial took only 606 takes. And it is absolutely remarkable, and I continue to wonder about the imagination it took to design this. (Flash 6 required.)
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:: I run Norton Internet Security, and it detects incoming UDP packets, and warns that someone is trying to access a port on your computer. The warning lists the IP address from where the attempt originates. I found a good freeware program called WhoIs View, which lets you see full details of the IP address, including the range of IP addresses if applicable. Plugging in the range into the Personal Firewall settings is made easy as a result.
:: I saw The Good Thief tonight, and it's a marvelous movie, very stylish, with great performances from Nick Nolte, Tchéky Karyo, and a newcomer, Nutsa Kukhianidze, as Anne. This review is accurate in its observations, including noting the brilliant cinematography of two-time Oscar winner Chris Menges.
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:: I've watched this blog unfold and grow since July 2002 (when it was a Blogger site), never really knowing what my next entry will be. I've waffled back and forth between posting library-related entries, and everything-else-besides-libraries entries. Recently I started another blog, The (sci-tech) Library Question, which may soon take on a collaborative life of its own, and is a place for me to post library-related items of interest to colleagues working in science, engineering, math, life sciences, agriculture libraries, and the like. Geoff and many others are doing a stellar job of covering an increasingly widening array of library issues on a daily basis.
All of that said, I may choose to concentrate on the rest of my interests here, at the risk of boring my six or seven regular readers. For example, I'm fifteen minutes away from leaving to see The Good Thief. At work today, I neared completion of my talk on guerrila marketing of engineering libraries, to be presented as part of a panel at SLA in NYC on June 10th. Is anyone else watching 24 and cursing when each episode ends? How weird is this? Scientists have discovered a bizarre jellyfish in deep California coastal water.
Snow is still on the ground, the sky is still dark and grey, and I am all over the place.
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:: The talk in libraries these days (well, one of the "talks", anyway), is wireless - when are we going there, how can we make best use of it, how will it change what we do, and in the cases of many libraries already wireless, what has its impact been on what we do. The Wireless Librarian brings together resources for librarians and the experience of working in libraries with wireless technology.
Wireless technology has been with us since the 1890s, thanks to Marconi. In the October 1945 issue of Wireless World, Arthur C Clarke wrote a four-page article called "Extra-Terrestrial Relays: Can Rocket Stations Give World-wide Radio Coverage?" He proposed that satellites in geosynchronous orbit, spaced 120° apart at 36,000 feet, could achieve instant global communication coverage. Scoffed at initially, his proposed "relays", which would be part of orbiting space stations, evolved into today's communication satellites, or comsats.
Thanks to Derryl for bringing this web site to my attention.
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:: I woke up in snow this morning, and there is no end in sight...
...snow this morning...snow this morning...snow this morning...
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:: Test Below, I mentioned the snow to which we woke up last Sunday. Well, that snow melted, we had a few warm days, and then yesterday it started snowing again. Oh yes, it's May 5th. Anyway, it's been snowing now for 24 hours. It's getting ridiculous. Check out my backyard and the front of my house at 8:30 pm MDT tonight. The grass is green, by the way, and until two days ago, I had plans to mow my lawn for the first time.
In the meantime, to remind me of warmer climes, I uploaded a few photos using a free photo gallery program called Web Album Generator. Thanks to Dania for telling me about this one.
:: Changing gears, this 1 May 2003 editorial in the Wall Street Journal got it right regarding the WHO's embarrassing and baffling travel advisory to Toronto re: SARS, noting that no new cases have been reported in Toronto since April 9th, and that all 144 cases have been traced to one person who had visited Hong Kong. The WHO did lift its travel advisory, and John Fund writes that the American Library Association will make the right decision regarding holding the joint ALA/CLA conference in Toronto, where up to 25,000 people are expected to attend. Thankfully, the day after the editorial appeared, ALA did just that.
:: Did you know that the planets, satellites and spacecraft in our solar system have been assigned IP addresses by the Interplanetary Internet (IPN)? If you are interested, participate in the ongoing discussion. (Thanks, Karlin.)
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:: Last evening, I had the good fortune of playing guitar at the Faculté Saint-Jean Auditorium in Edmonton, as part of "the band" (which includes the brilliant bass player, John Towill), in support of "Amelia Kaminski in Concert." Amelia is a Fiddler Extraordinaire, with whom I have played and performed since 1986. In 1999 I contributed to her recording efforts as well, a project that was musically satisfying for me, and well received by others. The show last night features a mix of music from the Scottish and Irish traditions, with the support of the a cappella group, Almost Blue, from Los Altos CA.
I've performed in most of Amelia's major concerts in the past few years, but I must say that last night was one of the best times I've had on stage with her and John. Two consumate musicians, they bring out the best in me when I make music with them. Amelia takes amazing, gentle care of her backup musicians, and graces the stage with a relaxed and natural presence. She is a collaborator in the true sense of the word, and I find no greater satisfaction in knowing that when I play in support of her, she need only concentrate on her fiddle, and not worry about those of us behind her. John is the kind of musician who is so good that playing with him causes me to raise my own musical abilities - in other words, I become a better musician because I share the stage with him.
Last night was much fun. We were relaxed and had a great time on stage. Contributing to my own enjoyment was the intangible: my brother and parents made a special trip to see the show, and in the audience were another 35 of my friends and colleagues, on hand in support of my efforts. I cannot thank each of them enough! Let me try to explain. It is so much more rewarding to perform for a crowd that includes people who are special to you. This particular show was outstanding - usually I try to sell 10-15 tickets for one of Amelia's musical extravaganzas, but this time I sold 40! (With little effort, I must say!) So to my friends, colleagues and family who attended the show last night, thank you SO MUCH! You made me a better player last night, and increased my enjoyment of the entire evening!
I have gone through extended periods in the past few years, during which time I have been less than inspired to play my instruments. Last night was important because it reminded me of how much fun it can be when the planets align and the musical moment is golden.
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:: This Scotsman thinks we should "stop the blooming blogging".
:: Remember the corporate greed-mongers at Enron? The US federal prosecutors certainly do!
:: I am so looking forward to seeing A Mighty Wind, and am pleased to see that it is scoring high praise from the critics.
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This morning, at 12:45 am or so, I lost my connection from my home computer to my web site (sitting on a server in Edmonton). This morning it still wasn't working. Connecting to my site from other machines worked fine, and is still working at this moment (else I couldn't post this). I called my hosting service, who said everything was fine, and advised that e-mails are preferred over phone calls. OK, whatever. Meanwhile, this problem, which has happened before, and neither my ISP nor my hosting service could decipher the problem. I'll check it from home again tonight, and decide what to do next.
I'm growing ever so weary of this.
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