Archive for October, 2008

3rd Street Accident

Last night I was sleeping with my window open a crack. I heard the loud rev of a car motor followed by a crashing sound. I woke up and was wondering if I heard it, or if I was dreaming. I looked at the clock and was 2:30am. It was silent outside. I layed down for a few minutes. Then I heard a voice yell “Help!” again and again. Now I knew something bad happened. I dialed 911 and reported that I thought I heard a car accident on 3rd Street or 2nd Street near Polyclinic Hospital. The operator took my name and number and hung up. About 10 minutes later I heard sirens from emergency vehicles come from every direction.

Today I check Pennlive.com to see if there was any news on what had happened earlier in the morning. There’s no word of this. So I walked towards where I heard the accident and found the following. There doesn’t seem to be any skid marks showing the driver locked up the brakes before hitting the tree. I don’t know how fast they were going, but there is glass about 70 feet from the tree. I also find it unusual to find this medical debris laying here at the scene of the accident. Is it normal for rescue workers to leave this stuff behind at the scene? From the looks of it, someone was seriously injured. And I really hope that is motor oil beside the tree.

DSC_1282

DSC_1285

DSC_1283

DSC_1284

DSC_1286

DSC_1287

2008
10/19
CATEGORY
Writings
2 comments

Hacking for IE6

I’ve just spent a few days working on a site design problem with IE6. You see, you can’t just develop a web site for IE7 and Firefox. You should be testing your site design in different versions and include Safari and Opera (and maybe even a few others to be safe). But I found that IE6 was giving me some major trouble.

I was having problems with two things with IE6. First, IE6 doesn’t support PNG-24 transparency. Second, it has problems understanding the min-height css attribute. So after hours of trial-and-error and googling I found a solution for each of these.

To force IE6 to display transparent PNG-24 files I used bgsleight.js offered by Nater Kane. This actually worked perfectly to display PNG-24 files that I had used as background images in several divs in the site design.

IE6 didn’t seem to understand that I wanted a div to be the entire height of the browser window. Other browsers handled this with no problem when I set the min-height to 100%. I found my answer here. And it really isn’t a hack. It simply involves placing my styles for the min-height to the bottom of my css file. But now IE6 displays the div as a 100% height in the browser. Mission accomplished.

2008
10/17
CATEGORY
Coding
Write comment

Sprocket Repair

Blasted! Wouldn’t you know that I’m missing some amazing weather here in Pennsylvania to ride. My problemo is that my rear sprocket is shot. Some of the teeth are wearing incredibly thin and other have already broken off.

DSC_1120

A replacement is on order and should be arriving any day. I’ll be doing the work myself. Replacing the front and rear sprockets, the chain, and the front brake pads.

With the temperature in the mid 70′s during the day I’m really bummed to not be able to ride. The leaves are changing and I just want to head off into the mountains for a full day of riding amongst the changing colors.

2008
10/15
CATEGORY
Motorcycles
Write comment

Ride For Sean

First of all, I am a year older now. The posts have been pretty scarce so I need to catch up a bit on that.

Tomorrow I will be doing my first charityish ride for a co-worker. His son was in a severe accident not long ago in which he was thrown from the vehicle. The insurance company only covers a small fraction of the medical bills. So we are riding to raise money to help the family.

My bike is in dire need of a sprocket and chain. I’m going to double-check it tonight and see if it is safe for an 80 mile ride tomorrow. If not, my friend Ron has decided that I can ride his wife’s Harley-Davidson Sportster. She’s new to riding and not comfortable riding in a large group so she’ll be riding with Ron. I REALLY don’t like Harley’s, but I am in need of some two-wheel therapy and getting out with some friends on such a beautiful weekend seems like it may really cheer me up.

We’ll be meeting at Susquehanna Valley Harley-Davidson at 10am tomorrow, kickstands up at 11am. The ride is going to be about 80 miles through Cumberland, Perry, and Dauphin counties. And it looks like it’s going to be fantastic weather!

DSC_1151

DSC_1146

2008
10/10
CATEGORY
Motorcycles
Write comment