I'm back ... and still on holidays :-)

Had originally to go back to Venice on Friday, then spent the early part of the week trying to work out what could have been the best plan and if it was worth it actually to come back to Dublin for a couple of days - finding out that it actually was, not least for wanting to spend a night back here with friends.
Eventually there was basically no reason to go back to Venice, for the wedding of somebody I never even met, and helping mum to pack the suitcases for her mountain vacation. So, eventually, found out that after changing the flight to September, it would have been simply not cheap to move the flight from Pisa from yesterday to Friday, so here I am.
Found the place so warm that's unbelievable!!!! These houses aren't built to stand the heat - definitely. Why did they never think of putting shutters on houses I'll never know!!!
Planning on going to the zillions of places I never get to go, starting with the national art gallery and all the rest... Planning of getting a real shake up to the computers at home, eventually to throw out all the useless bits and bobs... Planning of finishing off the website (while in Pisa I actually made it to upgrade Php4, and now the moment of truth would come - the install of EzPublish - ... Planning of finishing to reorganize shoes, clothes and stuff... Planning on shape up the balcony and tidying up the plants, find out why the hydrangea looks so bad, and so on....
I don't believe for a second I'll get to do any of these... ha ha ha. That's why I'm on holiday, right? Ah well, I should, actually.

Italy wins the World Cup 2006!!!

So there! The first half was pure class, entirely dominating the field and coming back after the shock of the penalty with some courage and enthusiasm! Italians are like that, we can rest on laurel if there's any, but give us a challenge, give us some reason to really shit ourselves and we'll always show the world we can fight, and fight for real!
Our goal was the only action-goal of the match, and an excellent one at that!
The second half, admittedly, was theirs - they were simply good; as they've been through the extra time... I think every Italian suffered every single minute of it...
But then, hey, your man Zedan simply wasn't up to the standard that a player like that should have kept.. no idea what he was told to provoke such a reaction, but there's no reason in the world why such a career should end in shame this way - pity for him. And good for us, of course!
Winning at penalties isn't that sweet - as much as loosing at penalties is a bitter affair.
For me, my Dad, and lots of others, the real Final was last Tuesday with Germany - that was a much better match, and we played far better there, deserving the win with utter class against arrogance, horrid sportsmanship through the whistles during our National Anthem.
1982 was far better, of course.
However, we can debate till the end... bottom line is that WE WON!!! and we are all, absolutely happy!!!!!

Paradise is...

There's millions of Paradises of course... this one is among the best though: lying in a cool, fresh pool in the middle of the trees, icy cold white wine in one hand, ciggy in the other, the noise of zillions of summer insects all around (there's one noise in particular, no idea what's the English for it though), and in front of you the panorama of the whole Pisa plain, with the wonderful Piazza dei Miracoli standing out, the blue of the sea in the distance, the air so clear you can make out a bit of Corsica on the one side, and a bit of whichever island in front (forgot which one, shame on me)... and the dog barking loud at the few cyclists that venture up our road...
This is truly, completely marvelous.... and yes, I'm blogging now, but I'm going to be right back in the pool in a second :-)

Tidbits

Simply to record the 2nd stage of the Mint Pineapple Chops:
slapped the content of the bowl directly into the wok, covered, and let simmer slowly for 20 mins. Side is boiled baby potatoes, and a happy salad (lettuce, fennel, corn, feta cheese, tomatoes dressed in olive oil and white vinegar).
Well, we did like it a lot! Glad I logged it.

The Quest

EZpublish is without a doubt the one that looks better: a CMS that's database, platform and browser independent. Distributed under GNU, has the following system requirements:
Apache 1.3 only
PHP 4.4.xlatest configured to use MySql. With the php.ini modified so that default "memory_settings" equals 64MB instead of the usual (eZpublish is a hungry beast).
Image conversion system (GD that comes with PHP is ok)
MySql any version (or others)
Why didn't it work? because the upgrade to php4.4 failed miserably as I installed with EasyPhp... I suppose the only way out is to do the manual install...

Even looked at Hotcakes CMS... for install under IIS5 with ASP... puah!!! horrid...
Thank god that didn't work either :-D
And because I'm really, really lazy, I'm still looking at a WAMP that mounts the requirements for eZpublish... (the one I found, is great, but doesn't mount MySql, and the Apache version is 2.. !!!)

[to be continued]

Stuck...

To go between php 4.3.x to 4.4.x is not an easy task... especially if you cheated with EasyPhp as I did ;-)
After screwing up an installation I began reading up - and, oh god, people get stuck during a default normal install, let alone mine!
So - of course - got a break and decided to cook up something that had to be cooked tonight anyway (but zero appetite, so it was to be perfect for tomorrow).
Ayo always complains he gets to eat great stuff but always only once, as I forget what I do with it, so better begin to log it.
So here it is.. jump it out as this is quite girly.. I promise I'll add a separate Recipe section ASAP!
Disclaimer: this is for myself.. hence, I assume people have the same cooking skills, and will jump out obvious steps. If it doesn't turn out, don't bother reading other recipes as they won't turn out either.
Objective: 4 pork chops to be cooked but eaten (hence perfect for) tomorrow.
So this is a recipe to be done in 2 stages, and this is 1st stage of the preparation process.
MINT PINAPPLE CHOPS
(Preparation=50mins including preparation and washing up)
There's 4 of them, so stir frying has to be done in 2 different pans (one after the other, or two at the same time) to allow them to room about.
(for 1 pan): Stir fry half a big white onion in a good, fuming, oil mix (olive oil as base, 4 drops mustard oil, 2 drops sesame oil, 1 drop chili oil, good splash of groundnut oil) at really high heat.
In the meantime chops are washed (they use a saw to cut them around here, so there's always plenty of bone-dust to get rid of) and have been abundantly dusted (and pressed) with the following mixture of spices: a lot of paprika, good ground salt, ground cumin, ground ginger, fresh chopped mint.
Fry the chops at medium heat in the fresh onion stir fry mixture (by now golden brown).
Once almost ready, pile them up in a tall bowl alternating with layers of fresh pineapple pieces and whole mint leaves - add the leftover oil and caramelized onion pieces.
Cover and let cool down - ready for the fridge in a couple of hours.
2nd stage of cooking can be done the day after or the day after that (max).
Will post it whenever I'm making it, as not sure what to do with them yet, nor the side to have with it.
At this stage, cooking is finished, posting about it also, so got to continue study how to make this bloody php upgrade, as it's frustrating not to be able to go on just because of it!!!!

Webdesign

It was what..? 5 years since I was playing with the web? Amazing.
And - of course - I forgot the lot, all the details. Just remember there were tons of fileconfig changes in millions of modules... and because of Tobozo and the gang I just was starting with the assumption that it was way too complex. Me and my insecurities! That got me wasting years.
Anyway - those are simply not there anymore, or destroyed (finally) by constantly proving to myself I can achieve absolutely anything I want to.
So here I am - with an entirely different attitude - to build finally that scary website I have always had in mind.
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Objectives:
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Nothing to say, I do want to start big, never liked the small steps in between... !!
On a simple Apache, Php, MySql platform (shamefully on Win32) there's going to be an amazing CMS (just found a great one!) with zillions of features, this blog, a good TWiki for repository, an educational software app (Moodle might run here) to write tutorials to my heart content whenever I'm bitten by that bug.
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Roadmap:
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It will be quite a slow process... most certainly will run locally, and might actually put it in a VM image, just to be able to play with it from my portable HDD. That wouldn't be a bad idea actually... might leave the laptop at home and just bring the HDD on holidays...
Given the holidays I'm planning, it's going to be truly wonderful!!!
Let's say it'll take a couple of months to put it together, it's going to be around September I map it to thejollyzone.net and release it from current DNS.
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ETA:
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I'm looking at December I believe, before the full site is up in production.
And then of course, there will be the great part of adding all content and playing with it!!!
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Expectations:
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Incredibly high, of course, when I'm both the user and the developer... no limit to enhancement requests really.... although some strong PM will be needed to avoid running the risk incurred into years ago... where the whole lot failed because the scope was continuously stretched to accommodate new things.
I suppose the reason for this post is simply a statement to keep the scope fixed (albeit admittedly farfetched).
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Resources so far:
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EasyPhp 1.8 download
EasyPhp Install and basic Configuration
Installing Apache on Win32
Configuring Apache on Win32

Download PHP v 4.4.2. This is system requirements for eZpublish, because EasyPhp installs PHP 4.3.9
Current CSM of choice - Download eZpublish
System requirements for eZpublish