A low-riding Volvo from New Jersey to Philadelphia…

…drove to Kooser State Park in Pennsylvania on June 7…

…through Ohio to Shades State Park, Indiana on June 9…

… to a campsite off the Mississippi in Illinois on June 10 …

… then Great River Bluffs State Park in Minnesota on June 11 …

… outside of Bob’s Diner on June 12, we check in on low riding-ness …

… still low. Continue to Vermillion State Recreation Area, June 12 …

… and then see some Presidents on June 15th …

… and also Crazy Horse …

… but before all that, we got to see The House on the Rock’s Infinity Room …

… which looks like this from the outside …

… but not backwards, forwards, cross the Utah Salt Flats …

… and into Sonoma county …

Adding the CCK content field to the “Sort Criteria” gave no change in the SQL query. I struggled with this for a good hour before deciding to create my view from scratch.

Once I recreated the view, I found that sorting by columns is handled in the table style settings. The not correctly sorted view was using the table style; I went back to my original view’s table settings and was able to sort by other columns by default.

Don’t Change Product’s Display Field “Image”

Well, you can if you know what you’re doing. But I had mistakenly updated the display fields for the product content type at Home › Administer › Content management › Product › Display Fields to be ‘product_full image linked to image’ for ‘full node’. The reason I shouldn’t have done this is because UberCart handles the images itself. Head over to Home › Administer › Store administration › Configuration › Product Settings to choose a Product Image Widget.

None available? Install one off the Lightbox2 or Thickbox modules to have an option.

Uploading Multiple Images

Oh! the pains of learning. Months ago I attempted to add another Image field to the Product content type. It led nowhere and took up a lot of my time. Today I learned that the CCK Image Field offers the option of multiple images. Simple!

Head over to Home › Administer › Content management › Product › Manage Fields › Image. Under “Global Settings” there is an option for number of images to allow.

Contemplates for UberCart Products

Now: my image fields are hidden from the product pages. I have an image widget set for UberCart. I’m using the Contemplate module for product node rendering. How do I show the image widget?

There is probably a better way, but I found it by using the get_defined_vars() function. Reviewing the output of that function from my product node template revealed the image widget to be in $content['image']['#value']. I dropped that in the template and had the lightbox triggering widget showing all product images.

For easier review of get_defined_vars output, install the Devel module, and use this line of code:

I wake up on Saturday morning, with no plans for the day. The temperature in my home drops low, low, low. Wrapped in a too big blanket, I stand in my living room looking at my breath, looking at Tarot cards. While strumming a stolen idea on my guitar, I imagine a being outside of time and space explaining the images to me, and next thing I know I have way too many words written down.

Below sits another 4-track tape recording, this time from early January 2010. The recording is of the song in progress. I’ve since updated some lyrics. The lyrics are below, coupled with the Camoin/Jodorowsky Tarot de Marseille cards that the being described.

Download “Make Love, Speak Tongues” by Dibson T Hoffweiler

XVI - The Tower

Outside of my mansion is rock garden made of gold,
and the people I tend to it are as ageless as they’re old.
If they’re on their hands and knees, I’ll set them to their feet,
And if they look up to me then I’ll set myself beneath.
Cos I’ll never get to meet them – no, I’ll never quite there be,
So I just want to give them the love they give to me.

But I don’t know anything
about making love
I just wanna speak in their tongues.

XVII - The Star

I see the stars above me make a perfect figure eight.
They’re still but ever-moving at an infinite rate.
I know that they’ve been there for as long as I’ve been me,
And they’ll continue to be there until I set them all free.
When I make that true, none will be alone,
And love will cover this world like a melting ice cream cone.

But I don’t know anything
about making love
I just wanna speak in their tongues.

XVIII - The Moon

I swim inside the swimming pool that sep’rates two dumb kings
In kingdoms situated such that none’s allowed to sing.
I say that that is silly, and then I sing that it’s so.
They say I must stay away, and I say they both blow.
But if they really blew they’d not be so down in the dumps.
They’d be just like their dogs, whose legs they wanna hump.

But I don’t know anything
about making humps.
I just wanna speak in their tongues.

I travel back in time, now, to see you standing on the stage.
I’ve words to share with you, but that time I’ll never change.
It’s as perfect now, as it was back then.
It’ll be perfect later when it happens again.
I made it happen once now, and that’ll be enough.
If you go back to change it, then I’ll know true love.

But I don’t know anything
about making love.
I just wanna speak in their tongues.

Since recording the song, I’ve changed some of the music. I don’t often do that, so I’m looking forward to doing an updated recording.

Download “Loose Lips” Demo by Dibson T Hoffweiler

Loose lips, word “like” get me into trouble.
Like you like me but not like I like you.
What is that “like” supposed to mean to me now
That we are like different people always?

Like the time we bust a cap into the sky,
And we take a walk through a dilated time.
All that we are fits onto a dime,
And it spins, spins, spins,
Lands face up other side.

We take a walk to overlook the sea.
The polished lamps all glow effortlessly,
but theirs: it is a mundane beauty.
It’s available to you and me
and everybody.

I can read your words and you can read my mind.
My face like your shirt (red).
Don’t stick your love in places you know it’s not
When you can observe
to find it where it is.

But, the reason we’re here (or clicking the back button) right now is to read a list of definitions of words that I picked out of the book. There were many more I didn’t know so well, but we’ll just stick to this short list for now.

Star Chamber

A court or group marked by arbitrary, oppressive, and secretive procedures.

Locum

A person filling in for another, especially for a doctor or clergyman.

Steenth

1. Latest in an indefinitely long sequence.
2. One sixteenth.

[Alteration of the word sixteenth.]

Also, the Wordsmith included this:

Notes: The formation of the word “steenth” from “sixteenth” took place through a process called aphesis (from Greek, literally “a letting go”). Aphesis is when an unstressed sound from the beginning of a word get lost over time.

Some other examples are:
“cute” from “acute”
“’tis” from “it is”
“gypsy” from “Egyptian”, from the belief that Gypsies came from Egypt (they actually came from India).

Trichotillomania

A compulsion to pull out one’s hair.

[From Greek tricho- (hair) + tillein (to pluck, pull out) + -mania (excessive enthusiasm or craze).]

paper tiger

One who is outwardly strong and powerful but is in fact powerless and ineffectual.

Download 4f by Dibson T Hoffweiler

Ada Lovelace was one of the world’s first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. She wrote programmes for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.

That’s from findindada.com, which is celebrating Ada Lovelace Day to encourage people to write (“blog”) about women in science and technology. As my contribution, I present this demo of my musical tribute to Ada:

Download Ada by Dibson T Hoffweiler

The lyrics allude to Ada Lovelace and Ada the programming language named after her.

Ada, they made you in the nineteenth century,
The only child Lord Byron bore legitimately.
Your mother was the parallelogram princess.
To keep herself sane she taught you math; she was obsessed.

Ada, they remade you in nineteen-seven-nine.
Department of Defense named you in four years time
After last century’s Countess of Lovelace,
And then they used your name to enter outer space.

But, Ada, you failed them when you tried to launch that ship.
And, Ada, they failed you when they bled you – you were sick,
But bleeding cannot cure you of uterine cancer.
And spaceships won’t fly when they’re filled with runtime errors.

So, Ada, we remember you by making up this language,
And continuing the works of folks like Charles Babbage.

And I always think of you when using my computer.

Download “Suddenly Something’s Changed” (Huggabroomstik cover) by Dibson T Hoffweiler