On the Cusp of a Real Breakthrough

A couple evenings ago I did something that, in retrospect, was pretty stupid. I was unloading things from the trunk of my car, and I didn’t really pay close attention to how heavy the flat of water bottles was. I’m pretty well habituated to lifting with my legs, but getting the thing out of the trunk and carrying it into the house took some strength.

It also, apparently, required back muscles in better shape than mine were. Though there was no pain in the moment, later that evening I started to feel sore. It got worse. Strained muscles in the lower back are quite annoying, since one uses those muscles just about all the time.

As a result, I haven’t slept well for two nights. This has resulted in a weird altered state of consciousness. Even though my back muscles are obviously getting better, my overall condition feels worse, because I’m so bamboozled by lack of sleep and continuous nagging pain.

As if to mirror my internal state, the weather has, after a week of warm sunny days, gotten gloomy and wet. Rain is steadily angling down outside the window. Foggy inside my head, foggy outside the window.

It brings to mind a refrain from a Jesse Colin Young song I used to listen to in college: “Lost in a fog on such a grey day.”

I’ve been wanting more of my web-hosting company over the last several months. Both Kimberly and I are running blogs on this account, and I have my business website, and my business email address as well. As my needs have been growing, the quality of their service has been declining, and, in the very competitive market of shared-hosting services, their bargain price isn’t much less expensive than a company that offers more.

I started shopping, and found a company that I hope will serve me well. For a few cents more a month, I have more bells-and-whistles on my account, and they even had one of their helpful and friendly support people transfer all the files from my old server to their new location. The new company prides itself on its customer service, has an extensive online tutorial library, and even runs a set of forums for its customers to communicate with them and each other.

There is always a catch. In this case, it’s one inherent in the design of the Internet, and it goes by the name “propagation.” Later this afternoon, I’m going to tell a certain computer that, when someone’s browser asks for ‘nosmallplans.com’, it should go look on my new host, not my old one. That computer will tell others, which will tell others, which will tell others, until eventually all of them get the message to look at the new host.

Until the computer that your ISP uses to tell your browser where to look gets the message, you’ll still be sent to look at my old host. We’ll be answering the Firesign Theater‘s prophetic question, “How can you be in two places at once, when you’re not anywhere at all?”

All of which is a long-winded way of saying, things might seem a bit odd, with posts appearing and disappearing and reappearing over the next few days. It’s not you, and it’ll all be better soon.

Most people will be switched over to the new host within 24 hours of my making the change, but it can take as long as 72, I’m told. (Doesn’t it seem funny that anything so high-tech would take three days? How reassuringly quaint.)

See you on the other side!

UPDATE: This is the version of the blog on the new server. Welcome!

Today I was reminded of one of my favorite books as a young science-fiction fan, the British classic The Day of the Triffids, by the late great John Wyndham. The novel was made into a movie in the early 60s, and then remade, much more flashily, for TV in 1982.

The story involves the aftermath of a beautiful meteor shower, unlike any ever seen in Britain, which draws everyone out to see it. Everyone except our hero, who is in the hospital following eye surgery, with his eyes completely bandaged. Early the next day, strange plants appear, which grow with incredible speed. It appears the meteors have carried the seeds of an alien plant species, which, after growing to seven feet tall, can pull up its roots and walk about! It is also carnivorous, stinging its prey into submission with a long whiplike tendril. What a bad time for people to discover that radiation given off by the meteor display causes blindness! Uh-oh. A fortunate few, who like our hero missed the spectacular, retain their sight, and try to stave off the impending vegetative apocalypse.

Why did this story come to mind today? Well, the weather has been fairly nice for the last couple of days here in Seattle. Today, around midday, I walked out my back door to discover that my back yard was host to a couple dozen yellow blooming dandelions, which were absolutely not there yesterday. It wasn’t that many days ago that I took the weed-whacker to the area, so it’s not like they could have been hiding in tall grass. I swear.

I also noticed that the backyard of the older guy next door had a crop, which is unusual, since he’s much more careful about his yard than I am. Even though he’s been moving a bit stiffly of late, his son was here over the weekend and did his yard.

Later this evening, as I walked down to the neighborhood supermarket, I noticed yellow heads popping out everywhere! In well-tended sod, in rockeries, well-kempt yards and ill-. I walk that route for daily exercise. I know I would have seen them if they’d been there two days ago. They weren’t. Today was the day. Today was the Day of the Dandelions! (cue Theramin.)

Fortunately, I must have been watching Jon Stewart during the meteor shower, and the dandelions have only a fraction of the growing speed of the triffids. And, so far, no carnivorous tendencies or mobility. After my return from the store, I resolved to spend the remaining evening light in a pitched battle against the yellow-heads with my trusty Weed Hound.

I quickly realized that removing all the dandelions in my yard would be beyond my ability. For every yellow head, there were several other leaf clusters which hadn’t sprouted blossoms. So I began my selective breeding program, only pulling up the dandelions that had already sprouted yellow heads. If I do this for a few minutes every day, it should be possible to keep up. I figure that, if I keep at it, I will either develop a late-blooming variety, or one that eats me.

The true test will come when, instead of a pleasant spring evening, it’s a cold and rainy one. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Perhaps it will motivate me to think back to this evening, the night when I had the only house on the whole block without a yellow dandelion in its yard. It’s a nice feeling.