for the love of pete, backup your db!

Jan 30, 2008 //


Word to the wise. This past week I nearly lost eight years of my life — my WordPress mySQL database crashed and burned. Worse, I found out that my hosting company only keeps backups of the previous day’s data — so their backups of my stuff was corrupted as well.

Thankfully I had backed up my data in late August. That combined with the fact life has prevented me from posting much in the last few months, meant that I was able to reclaim any missing posts by looking at my previous .RSS feeds.

Moral of the story, install the WordPress Backup Plug-In and have it send you e-mail backups of your data on a regular basis. Don’t make the same mistake I did.

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Joe Basso (1923 – 2008)

Jan 23, 2008 //


Joe Basso: 1923 - 2008

This past Sunday, Joe, my father-in-law, passed away. Joe lived very long and full life — in his 85 years he marched through southern France as an infantry man in WWII, graduated from RIT when it was downtown, participated in the atomic bomb tests in the southwest though the U of R, and been loved greatly by friends and family. As an amputee, he’s managed to live independently up until he went into the hospital two weeks ago. While its terribly difficult to say goodbye to him, he was facing a lifetime of pain and future amputations that would have taken from him the independence he held so dear.

I have more to write, but right now we’re planning for the funeral. It will be Friday at 10.00am at St. Joseph’s in Penfield. Here’s his obituary from the D&C. The online “guest book” can be found here.

Categories personal

sad news at RIT on what should be a happy day

Nov 9, 2007 //


Early this morning 2 RIT students were killed, and one badly burned, in a house fire. The location of the fire was all but around the corner from 195 Merriman, where I used to live.

Many of our students are just learning about the deaths. This is difficult to deal with on any day. Today, as the inauguration day of our new Institute President, makes it even stranger.

For a teacher this is heartbreaking. I went into my 9.00am class not knowing the identities of the victims. I knew that I had students living in that area and worried that they might have been involved. I watched the clock and the empty seats, waiting and hoping that they were just late to the final class on a Friday morning. Thankfully, they were just late.

Colleagues and students in Engineering and Communications were not so lucky.

It’s 11.30am and the names are now available from the D&C. I didn’t know any of these students, but that doesn’t make it any easier. My heart goes out to their families, friends, and teachers. There really are no good words.

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ljc’s halloween dinner

Oct 31, 2007 //


ljc and Aaron’s Halloween dinner was last night. A great time was had by all! We’re all trying to get the sauce recipe — a secret that Aaron’s grandfather made him swear not to share under the threat of “dying ’till he’s dead.”

Categories photo

local CJ news

Oct 17, 2007 //


On Monday, at approximately 10.00pm, the Rochester citizen journalism site Rochester Turning broke the news the state is partnering with Patec to help absorb the costs of demolishing Rochester’s Midtown plaza to make way for a new corporate headquarters for Patec. Spitzer made the announcement on Tuesday. Today it was the lead story in the D&C.

The announcement is huge for the region, as it means at least 600 jobs moving into downtown, a major employer keeping it’s hq in the area, and an end to the ongoing saga of what to do with Midtown.

Its also significant from a CJ perspective. Rochester Turning’s post was a day and a half ahead of the D&C. This may be the furtherest a local CJ has been ahead of the traditional press. The question is now will RT get credited with breaking the story? Nothing was mentioned in the D&C article about the posting.

As for me, I learned about it through an e-mail list that quoted the RT article.

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