Tone Parsons

All I did last weekend is sleep.

The new drugs I’m on are seriously kicking my ass. I’ve been going to bed around 9:30 – 10:00 and sleeping until noon to 1:00 pm (on the weekends, when I can afford the luxury). Sadly, with Monday, I had to get up at 6:00 am.

Officer Todd says: “Don’t do drugs and drive!”

The bad part of getting up before noon is I’m very unsteady on my feet until about 11:00 or so. I hug the walls when I walk around the office and lean against them in the smoking area (yeah… I smoke. I also say bad words when militant non-smokers flip me crap over it). Of course, this is the total reason I’m riding the bus right now (you definitely DO NOT want me driving anywhere near you right now).

I’m hoping this will pass as by body gets used to the chemical cocktail that I’m dumping into it (as I’d like to drive again at some point… and definitely want to ride my motorcycle this summer).

On a much lighter (and less whiny) note: my cousin Shawn brought the guitar and amp over this weekend. It needs some work (the strings need replacing and the switches need a good cleaning). I’m going to go out at lunch (My friend Ray is driving me) and get a gig bag for it so I can safely carry it around. Then, I’m going to get it serviced.

My friend, Brian, has most graciously offered to give me lessons (he’s damn good on the guitar!). I’m pretty excited about it but have firm expectations: I’ll be playing nothing but scales for quite a while. I have no misconceptions that I’ll be playing well any time soon.

If you ever felt you were small and insignificant in the universe… well, you were right.

Need an airplane? Look no further than here! (I’m sure they have one or two to spare).

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I recently, changed positions in my company (from Solutions Engineer to Senior Web Developer). One of the first tasks my new manager gave me was to install an IIS web log analysis tool so we can track what people are looking at on one of our internal web sites.

I chose AWStats because it’s easy to install, easy to configure, and gives us all the information we need (oh… and it’s free too).

I’ve used this handy app in the past on my web server (Linux) and have installed it on a couple of Windows 2000 servers in the past. It was always quick and easy…. until I tried to do it on Windows 2003 using IIS 6.

IIS 6 is a total steaming pile, and they’ve made integrating Perl into it extremely non-intuitive. If you follow the same steps that you would to install everything on IIS 5x, you’ll get nothing but 404 errors. To make your life easy… I’m presenting you with everything you need to know after you install Perl and AWStats.

The problem: You install ActivePerl and AWStats on Windows 2003 with IIS 6, but you keep getting a 404 error when you try to view the page .

The solution: Install Apache! Oh… you want to use IIS? Ok… follow these directions then:

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My cousin, Shawn, is the coolest man on the planet.

He read my post yesterday about purchasing a guitar and called me last night with an offer that I could not refuse: borrow his for an unspecified amount of time.

He has a yellow Fender Stratocaster sitting in his basement that’s not being used. Much like myself, he got the itch to play a few years ago, and picked this baby up. Unfortunately, life got in the way and it sat collecting dust for a while now.

So he’s loaning it, an amp, and the rest of the equipment I’ll need. He gave me a few options: borrow it for as long as I like then A) return it when I’m done with it or B) buy it.

How can I say no to that?

I plan on picking it up as soon as I possibly can (no easy feat when you ride the bus). Then, I’m taking it in to the guitar tech and will have them give a tune up (replace the strings, adjust the action, and set the pick-ups to the proper height).

I guess this also means that I’ll be needing to find someplace to take lessons. I have a good friend named Brian who plays just about everything… I’ll see if he can help me out there (he’s quite talented!). If not, I’ve been given the name of a really good instructor who has affordable rates ($15 for a half hour lesson, once a week).

I’m a little giddy.

I’m hoping that this means that next year, when I go to Brian’s New Year’s Eve party… I’ll be able to hang out with the guys, jamming away on the guitar instead of what I did last year…. sitting with the wives, drinking a beer, and wishing I was playing with them.