Generally, I don’t mind spiders or insects in my yard or shed. They don’t bother me. I will walk up to a wasp nest, bat it down if it’s in a commonly walked location, and not worry about it. However, about two weeks ago I walked into my shed. While looking around, I happened to look up, above the entrance and saw this very large spider.

Now, I live in an area where spiders tend not to grow larger than the button on your shirt. We don’t have many dangerous insects or animals. So, when I saw this thing hanging over the door of my shed, I was taken back for moment. I walk into this shed at least every weekend and this creature has been staring at the back of my neck.

I snapped a couple pictures and did some research on this fellow. Turns out, this is a Fishing Spider which are very docile and even nurturing to their young. They rarely bite and if they do, it’s not going to send me to the hospital. So, I figured the right thing to do was to relocate it to a better location.

Regardless of why it was in my shed, I decided to move this guy to a stream nearby. They are called Fishing Spiders for a reason (they are known to catch small fish for food) and there wasn’t any water in my yard. I grabbed him in a sliced-open soda bottle and drove to his new home without incident.

I just thought that you would find the pictures of this spider interesting.

I don’t know what it is. All week I feel like I’ve been running behind on all of my work, chores, etc. Take the MODSonair show for example.

• I usually try and have the show edited (or at least started) by Wednesday. I didn’t get to it until Thursay and the show was due for release the next morning.
• The topics list for the next show is usually nicely prepped and ready Friday so that on Saturday I can send out a finalized list. This week I got a rough idea out on Thursday (I knew I was running behind on things) and then nothing until the night before recording.

As for the recording of the show, we keep running into minor “technical difficulties” every week. It doesn’t often effect the show as far as the listener is concerned, but it makes for some interesting editing. lol. This week, due to other circumstances, I have to record on different computers. I wonder what kind of trouble this will bring. Perhaps a new level of “technical difficulties”. At least I decided not to go out before the recording… it is Father’s day of course. I’ll check in with Dad later in the day.

MODSonline has for a long time tried to get someone to run a clan. It’s time consuming and does take some knowledge to start it and keep it going. Finally, Bull (aka JJTurner) comes along and he’s really taking off with it.

I think part of the initial success is Bull’s agression towards the project. He’s having me add features and sections to the website and updating other areas. It’s work.. but it’s what is needed to get this whole clan thing off the ground and running. I’m excited about how well it could turn out.

How did Bull get involved? He sent me an email asking if I knew of any clans that contained members who were interested in mapping and modding. The kind of clan that would hang out around MODSonline. I mentioned that we’ve tried to form one and it kept falling through and he is welcome to take point on the project if he wants. That was it.

As I mentioned previously, I have a new smart phone, the Motorola Q. With it I can get email as well as handle a number of other very cool things (like a PDA with it’s own internet connection minus the stylus). I also mentioned that I was able to setup the email to work with mail2web as an exchange server.

Problem: For some reason, sending email from Gmail to Mail2web at night causes a timeout. One timeout results in Gmail stopping their forwarding and I can’t resent it without a real computer. Google is so smart that they recognize when I am surfing with my phone and doesn’t give me the settings option that I need to reset the email. lol.

Solution: More fooling around with Gmail resulted in me realizing that Gmail works just like an exchange server already… for email that is. If I tell Gmail to allow for POP3 mail access from my phone, I can retrieve the email. When I delete it with my phone, it deletes it from Gmail. It also works the the other way around (deleting Gmail and removes from phone).

Today, I am on a quest to get my hands on the new Motorola Q smart phone. It’s been released but it’s not in all the stores so it’s very difficult to come by. I want it today so that I can bring it with me on my trip to Virginia Beach tomorrow (next 7 days). I want to use this as an option to retrieve by email. Otherwise I have to worry about finding an internet connection and using that with my laptop (which will also be with me).

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

* EDIT *

Alright.. I got the phone. Verizon took way too long to program the phone for me. They had 5 people trying to figure out how to provide me with an updated phone plan and activate the new phone. Geez. Anyway, I’ve spent the last few hours working on getting email and everything setup. Some things to note in case you have or consider getting a mobile PC smart phone like this Motorola Q:

• A long time ago I used to recommend that people use mail2web.com to check their email while on the road remotely from any browser. I see since I last saw their site, they have majorly updated things. They now offer MS Exchange service, Goodlink and other great email services for people who want to get email to their phones. The cost… REALLY CHEAP.
• I am on the beta team for MS Office 7 Beta. Decent software, but apparently it doesn’t work with ActiveSync. This tool is used to sync contacts and such between your computer and PDA or phone. Damn.. now I can’t sync that kind of info. I need MS Office 2003 (2000 sucks).

Whoa. I was surprised that I could install the CellFactor demo game and get it to run without the Ageia PhysX hardware card. The demo was fun, but I can see alot of flaws with the game. Flaws being unbalanced gameplay and a few bugs that forced me to restart. And yes, I mean game bugs that aren’t necessarily associated with this hack to play the game.

For information on playing the game, I wrote a tutorial to install and get it rolling. You can find the tutorial over at MODSonline in the news section here.

What I found really awesome was that there was documentation for modding the game included in the installation. I haven’t had a chance to really check it out. But I was able to load the mapping editor and see it working.