The World Has Ended

Are you one of those people who got panicky when the year 2012 started because you know that this is the year when the dreaded doomsday is set to happen? Well, I hate to break this to you but the world has ended already – at least it is what should have happened had some genius did not correct the calendar about 400 years ago and with the assumption that the popular ancient Mayan December 21, 2012 doomsday prediction is correct.

Let’s all rejoice now, however, and accept that 2013 and all the annual routines are coming, like it or not, because like damage control done by some analysts the moment they see that what they once have strongly forecasted are starting to go the opposite directions, I am now starting to see more articles about why the Mayan doomsday might not actually take place this 2012. One good reference I have is from one of my old textbooks which I brought with me to kill time inside a bank whose tag line is ‘We Find Ways’ but so far haven’t found the way to fix its ever long queue (but it is another long and sad story). Pages 58-59 of the book Heroic Leadership by Chris Lowney, has this very interesting information — which I read while standing in line for about an hour:

…By the sixteenth century, Easter Sunday was slowly but inexorably migrating toward Christmas.

Pope Gregory XIII asked Clavius to head a commission investigating the increasingly embarrassing problem. What was going wrong with the calendar? As it turned out, the actual solar year was shorter – 674 seconds shorter…What’s 674 seconds? Not much in a year, but problematic once compounded over centuries…

…In order to undo more than a millennium of compounded damage…Clavius’s commission had Pope Gregory XIII proclaim that in the year of 1582 the day after October 4 would be October 15. Even loyal Catholics had cause to grumble: their lives have been shorted by nearly two weeks.

I have actually underlined these while reading the book back in 2009 just because it tells about the origin why we now have the leap year and that’s it. Besides, during that time when I was still studying TSLEADER subject (under Prof. Lino Rivera who is currently DepEd Undersecretary) I haven’t even heard about any doomsday movie nor news about the end of the world other than what is written in the Revelation. But blame the movie 2012 and the hype surrounding it, December 21, 2012 became the dreaded D-day. Thankfully, as the abovementioned excerpt presents — if (and only if) the ancient Mayans indeed state the date December 21, 2012 in their prediction but failed to factor in the flaw that Clavius eventually corrected — the most feared December 21 has already past.

Yes, I know the feeling. No more modern Noah’s Ark, no more earthquakes of catastrophic proportion that will cause us to jump across gaping cracks on the ground, and the show Doomsday Preppers suddenly turns funny if not totally ridiculous. But who knows?

***

Mood: 2/10 Honks! (Friday afternoon. Watching TV with Marcus. Wifey still on her long siesta.)

Parking Confusion

Isn’t it strange that objects in the mirror are closer than they appear but they are actually farther when seen through the rear window?

***

I am done reading Tom Vanderbilt’s Traffic (How We Drive) and I have already drafted a book review which I wrote on my Starbucks 2012 planner (Finally, it has been used, however, late).

***

Mood: 3/10 (Noontime. Tipsy. Experimenting with blog post format.)

Four-year-old Boy in the Backseat

I booked my sister’s family online for their flight to Bacolod and the mistake I made when I finalized the transaction with the wrong departure date requires me to go to PAL’s ticket office in NAIA Terminal 2 to get the revised ticket and pay for the additional fee in the process. But rather than fret about that costly mistake, which I did while sleepy thus missing the most important detail, I considered it as a blessing in disguise. What I initially plan to do by taking public transport alone and recovering my lack of sleep inside a cozy bus and taxi to the airport office, became a trip with me behind the wheel and wifey and Marcus tagging along. We haven’t been together in a mall for a leisurely visit so this one made a trip to MOA justifiable.

During the 30-kilometer trip, Marcus has been talking non-stop, asking repetitive questions. “Where’s the airport?”, “Are we near the airport?”, “Where is MOA?”, “Why are we turning here, not there?” had me and wifey exchange turns to give the same answer. However, other than these are-we-there-yet inquiries, there were those that we don’t know where to get the answers from and there was one that had both of us skipped a heartbeat. We’ve been preparing for the question and I really once thought that I will be ready when that time comes but yesterday I realized that I am not. What a four year-old boy can do. A special four year-old boy in the backseat.

***

The reason I got the idea of taking a side trip to MOA is because Marcus had told his mother that he wants to go biking again in MOA and the last time we did this was more than two years ago when we participated in a fun run for a cause. So despite doing it in the evening, and with me restraining myself not to grab something alcoholic from one of the nearby bars and restos and which I know that wifey has another idea of a night out, Marcus successfully got his wish and pedaled his way in the midst of the crowd enjoying the colorful night in SM by the Bay.

***

Marcus tweets

Starting today, I will use #4yointhebackseat to tweet about things (hopefully amusing ones) Marcus will say (or have said) while in the backseat. I once started #nurserylog which are about his school days but unfortunately I cannot retrieve the first ones. I am now wondering if there’s some application I can use to import a particular hash tag to my blog and to archive it as well.

***

Mood: 3/10 Honks (Anxiety coming back.)

GoDaddy: How to Solve 500 Internal Server Error

Let’s face it: Murphy’s Law is always waiting to rear its ugly head. In more blunt terms, shit happens.  And in blogging, the sight of a 500 Internal Server Error is one those dreaded errors capable of inducing cold sweat.  Take it from me because just this weekend, I came face to face with this depressing error once again, this time is for another reason but stupid rookie mistake nonetheless – I accidentally deleted the host database.

Was I able to recover from it? Yes and no. Yes, I was able to get my page back online. No, I lost all my blog posts.

So what did I do to resolve the problem?

1. Accepted fate. Two days after trying my luck by installing, de-installing, and re-installing WordPress 3.4.2 using Filezilla, I accepted the fact that this isn’t the solution. Time wasted but sanity recovered.
2. Gathered composure. After accepting the fact that I just wiped out years of blog posts, I gathered my composure and sought online help. While my search led me to a WordPress.Org help forum where the answers weren’t direct, it gave me a hint on what to check.
3. Created new database. From the emotional part comes the technical aspect of recovering from a 500 Internal Server Error. Based on experience, wherein I encountered compatibility issues between GoDaddy’s Domain and Hosting settings, I created another database with MySQL version 5. This one took only around 10 minutes to do.
4. Modified the file wp-config.php. Assuming that your GoDaddy FTP File Manager is set up properly, this step is surprisingly easy.  From the newly created database, I took note of three (3) items:  (1) DB Name (this is the usually the same as DB User), (2) DB Password, and (3) DB Host, and then placed these on the wp-config.php file. Here are the lines that need to be changed (underlined):

// ** MySQL settings – You can get this info from your web host ** //

/** The name of the database for WordPress */

define(‘DB_NAME’, ‘IAmACarelessBlogger‘);

/** MySQL database username */

define(‘DB_USER’, ‘IAmACarelessBlogger‘);

/** MySQL database password */

define(‘DB_PASSWORD’, ‘IWillbeMoreCarefulNextTime‘);

/** MySQL hostname */

define(‘DB_HOST’, ‘ClickOnThePencilIconAndThisOneCanBeFoundBesideHostName‘);

5. Moved on. As expected, I opened my site and was welcomed by an entirely new page, fresh page, all blog posts gone. But there is no point in crying over spilt milk, or in this case a wiped out blog; so yes, moving on and starting all over again is the last step in this process.

***

I am now trying to decide if I should continue catering nuffnand adds. About a month ago I checked and I have got some payment for having it on my blog – about 6 pesos. Yes, just 6 pesos.

***

Mood: 2/10 Honks! (I heard my wife will be going to SM. Note to self: avoid the cashier near the men’s section.)

Another Fresh Start for MarcusCanBlog.Com

October 1, Philippine time. If you have been an avid fan (indulge me) of this blog and returned to discover that something is amiss, well, you are right. That is because over the weekend, with me taking a day off earlier than usual because some of my colleagues suggested that I grab the extra time off slot, whatever their reasons are, which I gladly accepted anyway, I tried to install an Instagram plug-in so that I can integrate wifey’s photos but unfortunately I got careless and clicked on the wrong file — and of all files, the main database — on my GoDaddy.com hosting page. And to make the story short, that wiped out ALL my blog posts.

Thankfully, all is not really lost. Two months ago I got another plug-in called Feedfabrik that made me save all my blogs, at least until July 2012, into one e-book consisting of around 1,200 pages. I can also recover some from my old wordpress.com but these contain a lot of grammar error than my recent posts so it might take some time before I review and completely edit these posts and proudly showcase them on marcuscanblog.com.

***

Lesson learned: back up, back up, back up….the right database.

***

Mood: 2/10 Honks! (Happy Blogger!)