The second step is complete.  This step is the center of the back side.

Taj Mahal - 003

This step took approximately 2 hours and 50 minutes.  Again, the time on this step was mostly de to the hunting through all of the bags to find the pieces.

Tags: lego

Taj Mahal - 001

This very first step required 32 pieces from 5 different bags.  Twenty of the pieces came from the same bag.

The completed assembly.

Taj Mahal - 002

This step took about 2 1/2 hours to complete.  Most of the time was simply spent looking for the pieces.  Part of that might be because I refuse to dump all of the pieces out.

Tags: lego

While developing this morning on my Windows Vista Home Premium system this morning I came across an unexpected error message when trying to delete a folder through Windows Explorer.  This was unexpected because, as a software developer, I’ve deleted thousands of directories over the years using Windows Explorer.  I also always run as a user with admin rights.  (Yes, I know this is bad, but that’s what I do.)

Destination Folder Access Denied

Naturally, I tried the “Try Again” button a few times.  I even tried cancelling the operation and restarting.  None of these troubleshooting steps worked.

A web search through Google didn’t reveal anything really useful.  Most postings suggested that the user didn’t own the folder and, therefore, didn’t have enought rights to delete the folder and that the user should “take ownership” of the directory that they were attempting to delete.  This wasn’t particularly helpful in my situation as my user account was the one responsible for creating the directory in the first place.

I solved this particular problem by engaging in good troubleshooting practices.  I drilled in through the directory tree to the files that it contained.  I deleted each file.  I then deleted each directory up to the one I had originally tried to delete.  Magically I was then able to delete it.  Since the problem only involved two files and two directories it wasn’t a big deal.

There must be a reason behind this error message, but it isn’t obvious from the title, any of the text, or any of the buttons within the dialog.

Tags: Vista

 The box is not quite as big as the original Lego Star Destroyer.  Impressive, nonetheless, when opened.  (The couch is included for reference. ;) )

Taj Mahal Box Opened

The pieces in this set are small.  And there are a lot of them!  This project is going to be fun, but tedious.  One of the things that I can already see as being an issue is that the bags are not associated with any particular assembly, step, or even with one of the three instructions books.  This is fairly typical of Lego.  It would be nice if every set produced by Lego had the pieces organized in some rational way  It would even be nice on large sets like this if each bag contained only pieces of one type.

Well, on with the fun!

Tags: lego

Yep, that’s right. My wife was at work at a credit union today when some assmunch decided that today would be a good day to rob the branch. They didn’t catch him right away. He’s still running around enjoying the fruits of his illegal labors.

Fortunately everyone stayed calm and no one got hurt.

Merry Christmas — right.

Headlines from Fox News today regarding the financial bailout of the banking industry.

BailoutHumor

And we’re surprised by this how?

Tags: news

A few days back I posted a, slightly, sarcastic entry about “Longview’s Annual Snow (2008).”  Since then it has actually snowed.  The depth is rather substantial for Longview.  Pictures are taken out the front window and the back sliding glass door.  They show the progression from virtually nothing to the 8 inches or so that we have right now.  All the pictures were taken with the iPhone.

12-17-2008 06:04

12-17-2008 07:00

12-17-2008 07:30

12-17-2008 11:00

12-17-2008 12:00

12-17-2008 13:00

12-17-2008 15:30

12-18-2008 10:00

12-20-2008 15:30

12-20-2008 15:30

12-20-2008 17:00

12-20-2008 13:30

12-20-2008 20:15

12-21-2008 13:15

12-21-2008 13:15

Tags: weather

I’ve posted a number of times about comment spam (here, here, and here) and how much I don’t like it.

I’ve recently seen new batch of spamming involving the Cuil Search Engine.  Cuil is an interesting search engine that claims to index more of the Internet than Google.  I don’t know whether the claims have any validity or  not.  The presentation of search results is interesting and different.

In the comments for a variety posting have appeared a number of items like the ones shown below.  The Cuil spam comments are often posted to entries regarding comment spam.

Cuil Comment Spam

Apparently I’m not the only one that has seen this (Google this).  Cuil claims that they are not responsible for the spam.  I sincerely hope that’s the case.  I use the Cuil search engine from time-to-time when I want something a little different than Google.  But, if it turns out that Cuil is responsible then I will stop using there services even if they do index more of the Internet.

And if the spam is the result of some other entity trying to increase their page rank then they should recall that I review all comments and won’t post any.

P.S.  I wonder if this entry will attract anyCuil comment spam?  I hope not.

Tags: comment spam

Well, it’s finally “snowing” here in Longview, Washington.  If you call a few small flakes swirling about in the wind “snow.”  As I write this and watch the snow out the window it is actually starting to turn some surfaces white.  To be fair though, the house is down in the valley and many of the hills around here have received several inches of snow.

I’ll be surprised if we get any sort of accumulation here as we usually don’t.  Every couple of years we get a couple of inches of snow that stay for up to a couple of days.

Tags: weather