2016 — 8 March: Tuesday
A mere -2C this morning.1 Brrr.
A sub-stellar...
... start as I already have the cavalry on call wrangling a "should-be-simple-but-isn't" issue with a part of my file and folder structure. As usual, I know just enough to be dangerous and not quite enough to steer clear of the Rodents of Unusual Size. "A little learning" isn't just the title of Evelyn Waugh's autobiography. It's also the defining characteristic of my life.
It's all in aid...
... of a Good Thing: turning every web page on 'molehole' into a piece of static HTML in hopes of facilitating a painless migration to an entirely new method of web hosting that Junior desires me to adopt.
File wrangling...
... and a very useful Linux tutorial session have both just successfully concluded. I'm now left with a not-too-large set of files to examine carefully for anomalies of one sort or another, after which I can start worrying about whatever the Next Thing it is that I should worry about.
If the two phone calls...
... today are any hint, I should now apparently be worrying about the continuing low interest rates available to savers in the UK.2 I note, of course, the correlation between my physical presence at my bank last Friday (paying in a cheque from Uncle ERNIE as he offloaded dear Mama's little stash of Premium Bonds) and the realisation on said bank's part that there is some extra cash they can put to work for me. How wonderfully selfless these people are.
Caller #1 claimed to be calling me from KPMG on behalf of my bank. Imagine the poor start he got off to. At one point I calmly told him to stop gabbling ever faster, take a breath, and start again slowly. (I admit I was toying with him, but his arrogant assumptions quickly exceeded my [low] threshold of tolerance.)
Caller #2, a mere five minutes later, claimed to be actually from my bank, and was reasonably plausible. I thus toyed with him a little less, but still have not the slightest intention of taking up his offer "to pop in for a Financial Review", for the same reasons I eventually declined the original offer when I signed up with this outfit three years ago.
I've examined the five separate pieces of snailmail today's Postie brought me from my newest financial institution, deleted the most recent pair of text messages from the same outfit — they are over-communicating their progress on this account transfer to an almost ludicrous degree — and even pondered why IBM Pensions have sent me a "pay slip" until I realised it's a year since the last one. (Wonder where I put that?)
In fact, it's arrived in nice time to use as a "proof of current address" when I trot along to the two-hour financial review that I cheerfully expect to take no more than 15 minutes next week. I intend to repeat my mantra "cash-poor, time-rich" to my reviewer as often as needed for it to sink in. I've already told his colleague how little planning I do these days. But they are very young, and don't yet have my perspective. One of the items they'd like me to bring with me is my budget. I wonder if they know my friend Wilkins Micawber? :-)
I know the script they're working from, and have no interest in it.
Including the Includes
Archimedes is claimed to have boasted that, given a long enough lever (and, if memory serves, the Moon for his use as a fulcrum) he would be able to lift the Earth. Who knew that, with clever-enough Python...
... it would be possible to transmogrify every .SHTML file on 'molehole' to remove its reliance on SSIs and resume its web duty as a simple .HTML file? In under a minute?
A few minor breakages are being swept up and glued back together manually. (If you saw what the regex looked like, you would sympathise.)