For this year’s Christmas card mailing, Kathy wanted me to use up some old non-denominational Lady Liberty stamps. I had to research these to find out they were worth 39 cents. When I went to the post office, they were closed, but I was able to use the Automated Postal Center (APC.) I bought several books of 42 cent stamps, thinking I would end up with the Liberty Bell forever stamps. Instead I had these four nutcracker guys show up by surprise.

I was then able to order stamps of “another value” and was able to request 3 cent stamps. I got 5 of them. Since these are print-on-demand, I could have ordered any amount on the stamp, including 1 cent.

As I applied all of the stamps, I regretted not having a pen. I kept wanting to draw an arrow pointing to the more surly nutcrackers with whatever guy’s name was on the envelope. “Bob”… “John”… “Grant”… “Jim”…. “Ted”… etc.

If any of you guys are reading this, just know that these characters remind me of you. Arrggghhhh.

This is one of the funniest editions of The News from Lake Wobegon I’ve ever heard. A younger brother annoying his older sister. It reminds me of a lot of sibling relationships in our family and can be enjoyed by any (younger or older): The return of tomato butt.

I listened to this one on my iPod while raking the yard just around Kathy’s garden. 16 minutes.

Joomla counts page hits in the jos_content table in a field called hits. These counts drive the “popular” module, which I use on the SJN home page. I wanted to reset all of the counts, because over time, they have become skewed. The control panel lets you reset to 0 page by page, but with hundreds of pages, that can be time consuming.

I tried using Joomla StatsCleaner but it generated an “Internal Server Error” and the following message: “The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.” Who knows…

So I decided to use phpMyAdmin to issue an SQL statement. This did the trick, resetting all values to 0:

UPDATE jos_content SET hits=0

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Jeb wrote:

> Got a nail in the VW, although it didn’t go flat.

> Kathy drove it to get

> patched today, so I took the Honda to work. Some

> questions…

>

> 1. Was there a “star” nick on driver’s side

> windshield? If so, did you fill

> it using one of those patch kits? I might do that

> unless you already did.

USAA allowed me to get that nick patched for free at a

body shop. If I wasn’t happy with that, I could pay

the deductible of $250 and get the windshield

replaced. I decided to try patching it and then

decided I could live with that. So it has already been

patched. If it’s any consolation, it looked a lot

worse before. I may have mentioned that when selling

it to you because I think I could have still gotten

the windshield replaced at that point, but then you

just bought it anyway.

>

> 2. Does the car leak somewhere? I recall you saying

> that. It hasn’t rained

> since I bought the car (well almost.) Wondering if I

> should buy a car cover.

It can leak, but it always smells musty. The back left

door got crunched in while parked on Rae. You can test

if the door is making a good seal by closing the door

on a dollar bill at the top. If the dollar slides too

easily you can kind of bend the top of the window back

into the car while the door is open and check again.

It could also be AC-related.

>

> 3. What is the tinker bell noise when the car gets

> shut off. Is that the

> removable stereo plate saying… “don’t forget me!”

> Sounds like it comes

> from the right-side of the car.

That’s the faceplate reminding you to take it. If I

was in a bad area, I would take the faceplate off and

hide it in the pocket behind the passenger seat. But

now that the car is kind of old, I don’t know that it

matters much.

>

> 4. The seat seems low. I have plenty of head room.

> Is there any way to make

> the seat (base) go up?

No.

— Ted