For quite some time I have been thinking about how to make sites that are more useful and better assembled. No this is not a post-CMS look how we're managing content like it is 1995 post. But how to best put together sites that have services that the site or a small group of sites consume. The Distributed Blocks module in Drupal is a piece of this that I have batted around with several folks much brighter than me (I don't have any experience with the Distributed Blocks module or involvement in it's creation just an example of the sort of distributed SaaS solution I've envisioned.)

At any rate while I was doing some work on this site today I was facing the problem of what to do with commenting. The comments here haven't been used in a long time for anything but an attempt to spam the site. In the typical flow of things there are waves of time when spammers overwhelm or come up with a new technique to get past the excellent Mollom service. Over the last few years I've removed far more spam posts than there have been meaningful additions.

Slowly the sun inches it's way up behind the clouds. At the west end of the runway planes are departing with regularity. In the distance the line of arriving flights dot the sky like Christmas lights hung from an invisible string.

Entering the circular ramp for the parking garage the sign says there are 6 spaces available on level 2. With time to spare and a small garage the decision to see if one of the six is available comes easily. Exiting the corkscrew ramp there are five stalls to the right blocked off for construction. Darn this is going to be harder than it looked. Maybe those stalls aren't counted. Driving down the center row no spaces appear but a couple is walking towards the terminal with roller bags in tow. Not a good sign. Reaching the end of the row and making a right hand u-turn back towards the terminal the full spaces click by. Every once in a while there's a small car next to a big one providing a moment's hope then dashing it.

Today began as many travel days do. I checked the phone and looked to see what United's app said before jumping in the shower. Like usual it said our flight should take off on time and land a few minutes early.

After wrapping up the suitcase and heading outside I got my first indication how wrong that was. The often sunny Cupertino was showing it's rainy-season side again with torrential rains. During my first meeting of the day I pulled up the FAA's website and sure enough just down the road San Francisco Airport showed a flow control program in effect. Flow control delays are often quite exacerbating when you're on smaller regional jets because you wait around for the aircraft that was late, get on board and then end up waiting, sometimes for quite a while, for clearance to take off because the FAA is managing traffic flows into the airport you're headed to.