Well, I know I've kinda been silent Bob on this blog lately, but let's face it. My life hasn't exactly taken an exciting turn lately and there's probably nothing about school that I could mention here that hasn't either been mentioned or you all don't know.

Ok, lets get this straight. I never thought the server was down. In fact, I knew it was up because I still had net access. The big problem was that Windows Explorer was telling me that I didn't have permission to see the entire network. other than that, Jake has his facts straight.

Oh, quick update on the Linux box. It's up and running, though I haven't used it much of late. One of the biggest problems with switching from one OS to another is that no matter what you learn to do on the new system, you can usually do it infinitely faster and more efficiently on the old one. For example, I am big into gaming. I like to think I have a reasonable collection of games on my computer. However, although I could probably find game programs for Linux that I have on XP, if I want to play the game now, I don't want to spend an hour finding the program, learning how to install it, and figuring out how to make my freakin controller work in Linux.

I found a while back that Jake has had a similar problem with Firefox, which I then offered my services to help. He couldn't install Firefox, and I had spent about twenty minutes fishing around in read me-s and help docs, only to find that I needed to execute a simple shell command. Anyway, Jake was too busy to see about it just then, and if he still wants my help I'm waiting for him to say so.

Yet another quick aside, although I do have my moments sometimes, I still consider myself a novice compared to Jake. He works on and studies computers about five million times more than me.

Only a week till LAN party time. This time, maybe Jake won't be the only one with a color commentary....

Various ThisNThats

Things are patched up with my mom and dad now, regarding the network.

I helped my dad recover his stock market program and then I helped my mom turn off the welcome screen after every screen saver. She only wants to log in once.

That same night, Jeff told me that the server may be down, because he couldn’t see it at all. I went over the common troubleshooting tips with him, and he had me convinced enough to Remote Desktop to the server from my PC, just to make sure everything was ok.

Everything was indeed ok, Jeff just forgot that a backslash looks like this (\) and not this (/). So when I kept telling him to type \\dentserver, he kept typing //dentserver, and there’s a big difference. Once we cleared that up, the server suddenly existed again.

Then it was Julianne’s turn. Her new computer’s video card didn’t like the combination of a really old monitor and Windows XP. So now she’s running a POS PCI vid card from 1994 or so at (full!) VGA until she buys herself a new monitor. She hates it, because VGA, as we all know, is crap. Maybe we didn’t know that back in 1994, but that’s not the point.

My across-the-street neighbor asked me if I’d take a look at his PC last week. He said he didn’t know what the problem was, but he suspected that the motherboard was bad.

I went over for a gander, and sure enough, I saw my second case of exploding capacitors in a month or so. They hadn’t blown as spectacularly as Sandy’s had, but it was clear from the bulged cans and oozing electrolyte that the motherboard was definitely sick.

It was tricky, though, because he had really specific motherboard requirements. It had to be Mini-ATX, support DDR 400, have both USB 2 and Firewire, and have AGP 8x. That shouldn’t be such a tall order to fill, but it took thirty minutes or so of searching before I found an Asus model that fit the bill just right. Oh yeah, except for the firewire. But we found a PCI card for that.

Wonder of wonders, when the board finally did come, it had almost the same chipset on it as the original board had. But better capacitors. I guess SIS is the only chipset manufacturer currently running that particular feature set.

When I pulled the heatsink off of the board, it brought the processor right along with it. The chip was so well stuck to the heatsink that I had to use my knife in a gentle prying motion to get it to violently pop off of and then fly away from the heatsink. What really worried me was that the processor chip flexed as it came free. And it didn’t just flex a little. It looked bad.

But I had prepared my neighbor with the information that the bad capacitors might also have ruined the chip, and so even if it ended up bad, he’d be ok.

The board I ordered came and I had to cut the Pentium 4 processor frame off of it and re-attach the original one because of a special heatsink configuration. I used a goodly amount of thermal grease on the chip, finished putting the machine back together and tried booting.

Success! The processor was fine. I still can’t believe it.

My neighbor is from Germany, and so he wanted his copy of Windows to be localized to German. On my first couple of tries, I could only get the computer to speak German about half of the time.

That sucked, so I went back to his house and borrowed his German factory XP install CD. It’s a good thing I know the Windows setup process so well, because I don’t know German, and it was all gobbledygook to me. I managed to mash the right buttons at the right times, and now he’s a happy camper.

And that brings us just about current. I’m going to try to make whatever preparations possible for next week’s LAN party this weekend, and of course I’ll need to do some resting also.

Hmmm, Leon, how about we finish that Mario 3 game?

Tool Rant

First of all, I have a minor gripe about my new Leatherman multi-tool.

But before I begin my gripe, I'll say this: Niiiiice! Seriously, the Leatherman design team must be raking in some serious whuffie over this one. Here is a list of my favorite NEW features:

1. The cutting hook. Oh yeah. Doubles as a great letter opener.
2. The belt clip. (Repeat) THE FRIGGIN' BELT CLIP. Excellent call.
3. The new lock release buttons--a serious step up from the crappy locks on the Pulse.
4. Interchangeable bits! And it even comes with Torx.

I love this knife. There are other new features that I like, and I just wanted to highlight my favorites above.

Now the bad. It all boils down to trusting your customers, Leatherman. You know?

The belt clip is an excellent idea. Overdue, but excellent. The lanyard ring is also very good. Why must I choose between them?

The knife has a locking area on each side into which an accessory like the lanyard ring or the belt clip could fit...if Leatherman didn't plug one of them up.

There's a blank...a chunk of metal in one of the locking areas, that prohibits using the second one. So, you must choose. Belt clip or lanyard ring. Not both.

I wasn't having that. I got out my Leatherman Wave (the older premium Leatherman tool) and tore that little metal part out. My new Leatherman XTI now sports both the belt clip and the lanyard ring.

Leatherman, I'm the customer. If I want them both there, I'm going to put them both there. Trying to prevent me from doing so is just stupid.

But nice tool. You tools.

Shameless Proxy Plug

The net is ablaze with mentions to Google's new desktop search tool.

There's another non-free tool called X1 I'd like to try, and If I'm one of the first hundred to link to this post , I'll get a free license for it.

So here we go!

Five Alarms down at the Old Wilcox Place

If you can conjure in your mind an image of island native people irked to the point of lobbing spears, then you've got a pretty good idea of my parents' current position on user names and passwords and on our in-house network in general.

They're talking secession or mutiny from the network at large, depending on your historical bent. It honest-to-gosh really is THAT bad.

And I'm learning that burning bridges are best not peed on. I'm using whatever fire retardant materials I can get my hands on.

I've been spending time uttering repetitive apologies to them, and promises that we'll all put our heads together and make it better, so please, PLEASE, PLEASE stop saying that you just don't want to play anymore.

And that's about all I can do, isn't it?

I'm going to pitch an idea to them...I won't describe it here yet, because it's got to be done just right. If they heard the wrong thing before the right time, this whole damn structure could implode.

Eric, you'd be proud of me...I have a math tutor now, and some of this stuff is actually making a little sense!

And yes, I know we don't divulge personal information, but really, anyone sufficiently motivated will be able to find at least my whole name online, and I'm prepared for whatever that brings.

Besides, good things can come of that. Google Robert Scoble, for goodness sake. I read a post on his blog a while ago extolling the virtues of putting your cell phone number online in a public place. I'm not ready to go that far yet.

The lights are on...

A week ago, my wife and I went to visit her grandparents. It was all a pretense to get me over there to look at their computer, which had been running very slowly lately.

Going in, I knew that the machine had slowed significantly when they installed Norton Anti-virus a few months ago. While booting up, I noticed several other factors that slowed the machine down:

1) It runs Windows ME

2) It had 32 MB of RAM

3) Did I mention the bogus OS?

I went through and made sure that there weren’t any extra things loading up on startup (as well as I could, because the OS wasn’t being helpful) and got them started downloading the Windows Updates that they needed. I made a note that they have 2 SIMM slots and 2 DIMM slots, and this week, I tracked down some memory to help them upgrade.

Today, I finally went back to install the new RAM. The first stick I put in didn’t change the total memory available. The second wouldn’t work either, until I pulled out the original 32 MB stick. It seems that the original stick is now fried, but at least the new stick is bigger (64 MB) than their old one. I also threw in 32 MB of DRAM.

The problem is that the machine would not boot. When no good RAM was in, the machine wouldn’t POST. When good RAM was in, it would POST, and then die as soon as it went to boot. No combination of RAM changed this behavior.

I eventually gave up, because nothing was happening and I was getting frustrated. The awful thing is that they could replace the machine (from a surplus reseller) for almost less than the RAM I just installed in it (which I got from a surplus dealer).

Keeping the Gremlins (and all other AMC Models) Out

Leon and I spent an admirable chunk of this weekend working on the new, improved DENTSERVER. Permissions can be a real bugger.

 

He and I sat side by side at my desk, he on his Tablet, logging on and off of the server and testing the permissions I was creating, and I on my main system, on a remote desktop to the server on one of my monitors and in a local Windows Explorer on the other.

 

It's a tedious job, because you must test that both the users that are meant to be restricted actually are, and the users that are meant to be permitted actually are. And then there are the varying degrees between restriction and permission. Frustrating? Oh my, yes.

 

The really sticky part of this is the Personal Folders area. Each user has a folder with his/her name on it, and then a folder below that one that is private. The first folder is fully-accessible to everyone on the network, but the second is only accessible to the user who owns it.  It's a nightmare that won't go away until inherited permissions are killed for each Personal Folder and then special permissions are set for each private folder.

 

I've added to that a new stress...mandatory server authentication. No one sees data on the server if they're not logged on, and my parents (yes, even my own mother) hate me for it.

 

I suppose this is the classic quandary of the sys/netadmin: user-friendly means insecure, and secure means user-unfriendly. Or, the principle of "You can please all the hackers all the time, or all the users all the time, but you can't please both all the time." Hmm. That one needs work.

 

Like I said, my parents hate me for the changes, but I've established enough good rapport with them that they went along anyway. The two of them have a sort of loathing for the server...it represents everything about computers that is hard for them. It is every task some young computer-savvy person has told them is easy as making toast, and then ends up being completely inscrutable. The server is what brought on the requirement that they use a strong format password to log on to their own computers, and they hate it (and me) for that.

 

"And what the hell is 'strong format', anyway?", they wonder. Calmly explaining that it's simply a password that is at least eight characters in length, contains both letters and numbers, and has either special characters like punctuation marks or both upper and lower-case letters is of no avail. I get a look from them that is the parental equivalent of "WTF."

 

The problem is compounded by the fact that there haven't been any real security breaches on our network. During my administration of DENTNET, I've implemented various security measures, and usually when I say that a particular measure is for the purpose of keeping hackers and worms out, they go along with no argument.

 

But the paradox is that I've been really successful at keeping hackers and worms out, so my family thinks that when I talk about hackers and worms, I'm just trying to scare them into doing whatever I want. Do I need some nasty to come through and trash the network for my network users to take me seriously?

 

But I don't want my nice network trashed. I just want everyone to be happy.

 

Alas and alack, I won't trash my own network just to make having the network trashed a reality instead of a bogeyman. But I will throw people off of the server for not playing by the rules, and I suspect that no one wants that. So they grumble when they think I'm not listening.

 

Leon understands my motivations, though, and Crystal does her best to understand, and that is enough. Jeff wants to understand and is getting better all the time.

 

This is probably the right time and place to thank Jeff for all his help. He does a lot of my physical running around, updating, and troubleshooting in the upper levels of the house. He sort of sub-administrates the four (five?) computers up there, and he does a very nice job of it...when he gets around to it. Thanks Jeff.

 

Soon Jeff will have a network printer to deal with up there. That'll be fun. Printers are a hairy lot.

 

I'm calling this good for now.

The Saga of the GPS

A GPS has been on my wish list of toys for a long time. When I finally wrote down a list, it appeared just under the more practical essentials of computers and a car (none of which I’ve done justice to, but that’s another story). My interest in having a GPS increased after traveling to Florida with a coworker and doing some geocaching. My wife remained unconvinced, and without her blessing, I’d be hard pressed to justify the expense.

Still, the seed was planted, and the GPS had moved up on my list.

Finally, a week before our birthday, we went hiking with some friends in Logan. Before I went, my coworker looked up the location of some geocaches. I mentioned this to my friends, and they found a neighbor of theirs who had a GPS to go on the hike with us. Along the trail, we found two caches, and the world of geocaching had found six new converts. Among these was my wife.

Neither of us knew what to get the other for our birthday, so she (yes she) came up with the idea of us getting a GPS together. I was all for it (except that I feel bad about “sharing” something that I’ll probably have far more interest in). After shopping around for several days and picking a model, we went and ordered it from a dealer that we had heard good things about, who happened to have the lowest price on Froogle. I was upset that they only had one shipping option, which was 2nd day air at $15, but even with that, they beat the next best price (and had faster shipping, so bonus). Thursday, two days before our birthday, we placed the order.

The following Tuesday, after having heard nothing from them, not even an automated email response saying that they had received our order, I started checking into it. Their customer service line said that they would be out for a week on vacation, and their online order summary merely stated that our order was in a queue waiting to be processed. We cancelled that order, and went with the next vendor.

Now, a week after our birthday, our GPS is in a UPS facility on the outskirts of Chicago, presumably waiting for trucks to start moving again on Monday. If we’re lucky, we’ll have our unit on Thursday, two weeks after we placed our first order, and just days short of two weeks after our birthday. If we’re unlucky, the package will fall behind something and spend a couple days on an almost scenic tour of the Salt Lake valley, as some RAM I purchased once did.

Anyway, once it arrives, let us know and we’ll take you geocaching. It’s great.

Next week: An Entry that Doesn't Ramble as Badly, or Concise Advice

All Sushi'd Out

Hard to believe, but it's a fact.

On Wednesday, Dave and I were hungry after driving the young men home, so we went for Japanese. I for sushi, he for teriyaki chicken. I had three rolls to myself and they were quite good.

I shared some pieces of sushi with Dave, and he decided that they at least weren't bad.

Then yesterday I took Leon to a late lunch at Happy Sumo. We had five rolls between us. As previously stated, this one was my turn. Leon got the Priesthood Session one.

The tab was $70, and well worth it. Totally yum.

But I overdid it a bit at the Happy Sumo yesterday, and I'm good on sushi for maybe a week or two.

I may--or may not--take my family to Lagoon today. We'll see.

The Problem of Polyominoes

Have you ever started a project and found it take over your life, and have you ever started working on something only to have it lose sight of its goal and take off in unexpected directions?

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in a meeting feeling bored, so I started entertaining myself by trying to find the 12 pentominoes (distinct arrangements of five rook wise connected squares that are unique with respect to reflections and rotations). I knew how many there were before I started, but I wasn’t able to come up with all 12 in my head. I quickly did it on paper, but then I wondered how many hexominoes there are. This problem I tackled on paper.

The next chance I got, I started writing a program in Matlab to find all of the polyominoes of a given order. After some fiddling, I got it working for N from 1 to 6. It would drop 18 of the heptominoes.

I decided that the Matlab code was too slow, and reworked it in C++. My initial efforts were thwarted by efforts to be clever and to organize the memory in useful ways. This ended up just confusing me, and since I had found a work-around to my initial indexing and allocation problem (which may have led to the program running faster), I went back to an algorithm that was fundamentally similar to the one I used in Matlab. Sure enough, it told me that there were 90 heptominoes, rather than the correct number of 108.

A quick comparison with a published list of heptominoes indicated that I had a parameter that was too restrictive (a looser parameter would have been more robust, but would have increased run time approximately 128 fold). Upon correcting it, both C++ and Matlab correctly identified 108 heptominoes.

I then turned to optimizing my algorithm for speed. This rose out of a number of issues, primarily that I wanted to find the number of 16-ominoes and also out of a desire to be “hackish” because of my recent discovery of the Jargon File. After a day or so of intermittent tweaking, I got the 10-omino runtime down from about 2 hours to 36 seconds (it obstinately refuses to go below that). It still takes about 20 minutes for the 11-omino level to run (compared with about 14 or more hours originally), and I have yet to generate a collection of 12-ominoes (although that may change soon). My goal is to generate the 16-ominoes, but that may be beyond anything I can do.

In the meantime, I’ve been obsessed.

Also, I want to wish a happy birthday to my cousin Tami (it’s today), and a belated birthday to Gary, Pet, Karinka, Melodie, and Charlie Brown, all of whom celebrated anniversaries on the 2nd, but I was too busy and self-absorbed to remember it at the time.

Whew!

There's something wonky about both mediums of Dave's email. I sent him a total of three Blogger invites, and none of them would work. Then again, Weber's email system is crap, and MSN can't be that much better.

So I proposed that we send an invitation to me, and then create his account and fix the email address from there.

The first time, I was stupid and forgot to log off of Blogger before I opened the invitation link. So I blew the link.

The second time, I logged off AND opened the link in IE instead of FireFox. It worked. We should be seeing posts from Dave any time now.

So those of you who think that Dave is like the Loch Ness Monster and doesn't really exist...or have been observing that Dave and I never seem to be in the same place at the same time--the joke's on you.

Welcome, Dave. I hope you find interaction here worthwhile.

Hello good fellos!

My name is David and I feel honored to be apart of a time proven, professionally operated system of computer communication.
About myself- I'm married to Chalae from Kaysville, I have a one-year-old daughter named Elyzabeth, and I'm a Junior at Weber State University, Microbiology Major, hoping to become a P.A.
I know very little about computers and hope to be educated.

(Dave- I nixed your last name and your wife's former last name...anyone online can see this stuff and we want to be safe. -Jake)

This man needs sushi...STAT!

Jeez, I'm starvin'. I ate some Doritos at five, but now it's almost ten, and I've been thinking about sushi.

 

On Saturday night, Leon and I went to the Priesthood Session at my Stake Center, and then we went to Tepanyaki for sushi. We tried a few things we hadn't had before, and we ended up sending five rolls to sushi heaven.

 

We were seated at one of the griddle tables, where the chefs prepare all the ordinary meals as entertainment. Leon and I just sat there and watched while we waited for our sushi.

 

It didn't take too long to come, and we were eating about when everyone else at the table was. We ordered a second round of sushi and that didn't come until everyone had left, though.

 

The waitress was very nice. The chef was fun to watch, and he tossed a shrimp into my mouth. The sushi was superb. The sushi chefs there clearly know what they're doing.

 

It was also very reasonably priced, averaging around $4 less per roll than Happy Sumo.

 

Leon caught the check, so next time it's my turn. I won't mind at all.

 

Oh yeah, and General Conference was really good this year, too. But I'm hungry.

 

Happy birthday, Eric and Becks. Many more to you both.

 

Oh, did you notice when I changed our template we lost all our comments? Yeah. Gone. Nothing critically important there anyway.

 

Eric, can you make the 29th?

Observations of a Lab Aide

I work in the Davis Camus Information Commons. It's more commonly known as the computer lab.

Here are a few things I've observed:

1. The old "Which key is 'any' key" joke isn't just a joke among techies...it really happens.

2. Mac users don't know how to log off.

3. Neither do PC users. But they're better at logging off than Mac users are.

4. If you left your floppy disk in a machine and left, odds are about 50/50 that you'll ever see it again, IF you come back for it. Most lost floppies never get claimed, and I get to destroy old ones periodically.

5. If you left your Zip disk in a machine and left, kiss it goodbye. They don't get turned in. They just walk away.

6. If you left a textbook in the lab, it's surprisingly likely you'll get it back.

7. Nobody claims pirated music CDs from the lab's lost and found.

8. Almost no one knows how to push in a chair, even when all the chairs have wheels on them.

9. If the printer makes you wait more than a few seconds, press "Print" a few more times. Especially if there's a line at the printer.

10. When a floppy disk suddenly dies, it will take the user completely by surprise. And it's probably missing its little sliding door.

11. If you've stupidly lost your document because you didn't save it, yell at the lab aide. That will definitely help. And lab aides don't hold grudges.

12. If you're using a school PC to look at porn, don't bother switching windows when I walk by so I don't see...I already know.

13. Ditto for warez sites.

14. Don't bother being sneaky about copying pages from your textbook on the copier...I don't care.

15. The lab charges $1.00 for a floppy disk or a blank CD. It's a tax on people who are bad at remembering storage media. Put some discs in your bag so that when you need one, you'll have one.

16. Better yet, get a flash drive. They cost a little more, but they're well worth the extra money.

17. Nobody in the lab knows what a blog is.

18. About 40% of lab cell phone talkers don't understand what the sign that says "Please Go Outside To Talk On Your Cell Phone!!!!!" means.

19. But when I ask cell phone talkers to leave, they're usually pretty cool about it.


Funny...right after I wrote those last two, I asked a guy to take his call outside the lab. He was an asshat about it. Ah, well.

Happy Birthday to Us

Today is birthday for both me and my wife. People, when hearing that we share a birthday, think that now I won’t forget her birthday. This year they were almost right. I got her a present a month ago, but this morning, it took an hour or so for me to remember that it was her birthday, or mine too. She had forgotten all together.

We’re getting a present together for us to share. We’re getting a GPS. It’s something from my long-time wish list, but after a recent hiking excursion in Logan Canyon, aided by GPS and with geocaching sidetrips, she became converted. Alas, we procrastinated ordering, so we probably won’t have it for a week or more.

There's a lot going on this weekend, all centering around our birthdays and the semiannual broadcast of General Conference. I wish that I could have a quieter birthday, but this is probably symptomatic of the increasing level of business in my life that has come with age and (presumably) maturity.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, me ducky.

Are You Lost?

I'll bet you double-checked your address bar when the page loaded.

Eric pointed out that new templates are available, so I loaded one. Now I'm going to have to re-construct the link bar.

Oh yeh...you just knew I couldn't have a nice, new, shiny m205 for long without getting invasive all over it. Last night I ripped the anti-glare coating/sticker right off the screen.

I'd seen other m20x owners talk about the coating in Tablet forums, but I had forgot about it for a while. Yesterday I noticed that I could peel back the coating, and when I got home I went ahead and ripped it off. I had to spend a while with my bottle of lighter fluid and a towel removing adhesive junk, but now it's all good.

This screen is gorgeous. The anti-glare sticker they had on there was damned near opaque, and the pure, glowing, shiny-ness of the LCD has me ecstatic. It's beautiful.

Leon's Tablet has been sitting in a box for nearly a week now. I got an RMA on it, and UPS brought out a box. I packed it up and sent it to work with Crystal. They have UPS visit just about every day, so when I need something to go out, I just have them send it. Well, UPS hasn't been there this week.

So today, I'm hedging my bet. I called UPS and scheduled a pick up at the Clinic so that whatever happens, the box will go out today. Sorry, Leon.

Personnel Update

I’m Eric, and I’ve been around with this blog since the beginning. Back then, I was quite the avid blogger, writing several times a week in two different blogs. Then, I got married, moved out, started a job, and started going to bed before 3 a.m. Somehow, this has caused a big change in a lot of my personal habits, including my blogging.

As it is, I have enjoyed much of the change, but I sometimes miss all of the interaction I had with blogs and message boards back in the day. Jake tells me that it takes some time to sort things out when you get married, and this is probably the case. Marital bliss is great though, and I think it makes up for the changes. I do apologize to my friends who have had to put up with a quieter me. And to my wife who has to listen to me all the time, including when she’s trying to do homework or sleep. Also, I snore, and she’s been a very good sport about that. I’m sure it will stop being cute

So drastic is my life changed that it’s taking me days just to write this. I wrote the first two paragraphs Tuesday afternoon, but was interrupted by my wife and sister-in-law coming home with dinner. I couldn’t get back to it that night, and then yesterday while I was coming home from work I got a call from my mother. It turns out that my grandfather is in the hospital for kidney problems that are being complicated by prostate cancer. I didn’t get home until quite late.

Every day seems like that. Even if I come home and don’t have to go somewhere, the computer is tied up doing homework. I’m working a lot too, and I am traveling about once a month. Between now and Santa Lucia day, there’s at least three trips that I’m likely to be sent on, each to a different state. If I’m lucky, one will be close to D.C. so that I can swing by and visit my brother.

Now, after finishing two more paragraphs, I’m being pulled away to make cookies. Before I got married, such urges would be put off until everyone had gone to bed (unless that’s when I was writing).

So, I don’t have a lot of stories that I haven’t told. There was the one about when I got engulfed in a ball of flame, but I think my fellow forum members have heard it.

When I was a senior in high school, I lived all alone in the basement for an entire winter. My brother, who usually lived in the adjacent room to my own, was away, and my other brother hadn’t yet moved in to take his place. Our two rooms were built at the same time, and since his was on the north side of the house, the thermostat for the basement was placed in his room.

Several times during that winter, I would be in my room doing homework, and gradually notice that I was cold. Not just a little chilly, but actually cold. I’d eventually get up and check the thermostat, where I would find that it had been turned down as far as it would go. I would turn it up to a more respectable temperature and go back to work. A few weeks later, it would happen again. And again.

Apparently, someone decided that since the room was unoccupied, there was no need to heat it. What always amazed me was that I’d usually be working for several hours in a 50° room without really noticing it.

Updates to Current

Ok.

 

The new m205 is here, and fully functional. The higher resolution display is very nice. Very nice indeed. The resolution of the 3500 was never a problem to me, but the difference is notable.

 

The DVD-ROM/CD-RW for the m205 arrived today, and all is well there.

 

Sandy called me from her home to say that her PC wasn’t working again. I went over, looked at it sternly, and it suddenly started working. It wanted to be booted into Safe Mode and then left for a minute or two in order to load whatever new driver it didn’t like—probably the monitor—and then rebooted. Windows!

 

I’m glad I went, because her cable modem needed a driver and she had no idea what to do about it. I had her find the box the modem came in for me. There was a CD inside the box, and there were no more problems.

 

Leon’s PC will begin its journey tomorrow to some eastern state (seems like North Carolina) and spend a day or two in a UPS facility where UPS employees are paid to fix Toshiba computers. It just needs a new keyboard thrown on. It’s not too challenging, but when a company proudly trumpets its trademark color as brown, and they want to fix your computer, well, brown things come to mind.

 

To be fair, I didn’t decide that I don’t like UPS’s service before they served me. That tablet has been to them something like six times now, with mixed results at best. Toshiba, are you listening?

 

***LAN PARTY ALERT***

 

It’s getting that time again…if you’ve been to one of my LAN parties before, please plan on attending the upcoming event on 29 October, this very year. That’s a Friday.

 

Now, here’s the deal…usually we plan on food for the party. I’ve asked in the past that everyone bring a few bucks to pull their weight, but that only works so-so.

 

So here’s what I’m thinking. Leon and I had lunch at a delicious Chinese place yesterday. I wondered if we should order in Chinese for the party. Leon pointed out that Chinese food isn’t really compatible with carrying to your PC and setting it down while you play. Then we both hit the idea that it might be nice just to sit and eat dinner with everyone, rather than stress about playing games the entire time. That way we can get to know one another a little and see each other’s faces.

 

I know some of you aren’t that fond of Chinese, and that’s fine, because it can be worked around. But think it out and let Leon or I know what you think, and plan on bringing 7 to 8 dollars for your meal, which we’ll order once everyone has had a chance to look at the menu. Then we’ll send someone to the Chinese place to pick it up, because they’ll make your food to go, but they won’t deliver it.

 

Also, Half-Life is great and I definitely want to play it at our party, but let’s plan on another game, too. I’m open to suggestions. Motocross is a good option, as is Need for Speed. Let’s toss around ideas and see what we all like. We need new game blood.

 

As you can see, my PC work bench has been clearing up quite a bit, but I still have one major project that needs lots more work…the server. It isn’t hard, it just takes time and I need to do it.

 

I’m in Enviro now and I should start paying attention.

 

Linux

Hi! For those of you who don't know me ( and I think that category is occupied entirely by Dave), I'm Jeff. I am Jake's younger brother, and thrilled to have been invited to join this Blog.

Seeing as this is a tech forum, i'll keep my posts non-fictitious. In other words, you won't hear anything from me except real life exploits.

Yesterday, I got my parent's old POS computer, with dreams of making it my Linux box. But first I either need to get Julianne's monitor and find some space for it, or wait until Friday when my KVM switch arrives. Isn't the internet wonderful? you can instantly search for, compare prices and buy anything you want, and then wait. Oh, well.

Anyway, back to the Linux box. I have had some past experience with Linux. Way back when, I had my computer dual booting Mandrake, but I decided that it was sucking too many system resources to accomodate my needs. In other words, too much stuff to put on my hard drive, something (Linux) had to get the boot.

Yup. Too many games. Too little time.

So now I'll have a seperate box just for Linux and I won't have to worry about lost space. At least until my eighty gig fills up.

Design My Web Page!

I hereby announce a contest.

I own a domain (www.sharpenedstick.com). I have money put aside for hosting the domain. I've even done the grunt work when it comes to choosing a web host.

What I don't have is a design for my web page. I want a web page, but I don't want to design it. I've been meaning to learn how to design one for a while now, but I am busy and otherwise motivated.

So here's the deal. I have a copy of FrontPage 2003 that has never been installed on a system. It is a real, live, legal license. If you're willing to design my page, and update it from time to time, and if I like your ideas on the page's design, I WILL GIVE YOU MY COPY OF FRONTPAGE 2003. Honest. I don't need it.

I want in my webpage: A nice home page area that includes a blog. An attractive user interface that isn't cluttered and has room for blog author photos and a website logo.

An about page that gives info about the page and contributors. Don't worry about the content; just build the areas and make it easy for me to add information.

A link bar or two that give internal and external links. THIS is a good example of what I have in mind. But please don't rip off Darren Barefoot. Our design needs to be both appealing AND original.

If you prefer, I'm willing to change the prize. For instance, I'm willing to build you a PC at cost, and I'll even throw in free parts if I have any spares on hand when it's time to build. Really, I'll make it worth your while.

We'll work it out. You make a website for me that I like, and I WILL make it worth your time.

Richard's Song

So I promised an intro and an experience that not everyone here already knows.

Yeah, I’m Jake. I’ve been really chatty lately on this blog, and I hope to make a habit of it. This is a really good creative outlet for me, but only when I use it.

I like computers and I want one of my businesses to put me in a position where I never worry about money again.

I don’t mind working to learn things on my own that someone else might learn in a classroom. In fact, I feel that the quality of my education in the areas I’ve done this are higher than otherwise.

I like gadgets and toys. I marvel at the world around me. I want to know more. I want to be as useful a person as I can be. I want to live my religion better. I want to be a better daddy. I want to listen to more music. I want to be better at math. I want to play my bass guitar more often. I want to drive fast with the windows down on a sunny day with classic rock blasting through the stereo. But I also want to listen to NPR quietly.

In a word, I’m complex. I value my youthful indiscretions and I love who I am. And I also want to be a better me.

Before I get to my story, a quick note: I am not the central character in this story, but I was there and it left a strong impression on me. I think that the story’s effect on me is telling regarding my character, in spite of the fact that I was mostly just an observer. And I think I told this to Leon once, so I hope you’ve forgotten by now. Here we go.

The first year I worked at scout camp was the summer of 1995. I still wasn’t quite sure who I was yet, so I didn’t know what to expect at camp, as far as making friends goes.

Somehow, I managed to steer clear of most of the staff scandals, and when I was involved, I came out smelling rosy. The camp director and his family were starting to feel like family to me, and they came to trust me. It was a funny kind of trust, though—they trusted me not to do anything fantastically stupid or destructive, but at the same time they knew I was a little crazy, and so regarded me with some caution. A good strategy then as now.

Things were really going well for me at camp, and I began to make some friends that I’d never imagined I’d have. One was named Richard. Yes, that’s his real name, and no, I won’t be writing his last name online.

Richard was a little younger than me, and crazy in a kindred way, but we had different areas of interest. So we had a lot to talk about.

One day late in the camp season, Richard pulled me aside and asked if I’d like to see something. I made a note of the nutty fire in his eyes and quickly said yes.

Richard and I went on a walk to an area that was technically inside our camp, but was far out of the area that anybody went.

We ended up on a mountain slope that had a tree on the higher end of the slope and one on the lower end about sixty feet apart.

“BSA won’t let us have a zip line because we’re not a high adventure camp”, he told me. “So I made one of my own. I’ve been scrounging stuff from around camp to make it, and you’re the only person who knows why now.”

The trees had a steel cable stretched between them, and Richard had a handle/pulley contraption for riding the zip line with.

The slope of the mountain was such that top tree’s connection to the cable was only about four feet high, and the bottom one’s connection was somewhere around twenty-five feet. About halfway between them, where the cable was a good twelve feet in the air, there was a big stand of brush, about five feet high and ten feet around. From there, the ground sloped a little more sharply, and the height of the cable sharply increased until it reached the tree.

Richard told me that he hadn’t tried the zip line yet because he wanted someone around to share the fun. He made me re-commit not to tell anyone about it and prepared for an inaugural run.

The line at the first tree wasn’t high enough for him to hang from it, but he wanted a running start anyway, so it off he went.

Time slowed down as I watched Richard get running, and then lightly hopping, and then dangling completely as he went.

The steel cable sagged considerably, and when he picked up his feet, they were only a foot or two off the ground. Too soon, the bushes in the middle were coming up, and Richard wasn’t high to clear them.

I watched in worry and amusement as he whipped right through the middle of that bush, speeding up as he went and beginning to turn.

The ground quickly dropped away and Richard was moving alarmingly fast. His journey through the bush had put an awkward turning movement on him, and his approach to the tree was clearly going to be challenging.

At the moment of impact, he managed to face the tree. This should have been good, but he was moving fast and still turning, so only his torso hit the tree. His legs swung down and around to the other side of the tree.

The force of being wrapped around a high tree at high speed pulled Richard’s hands off of the bar he had been holding on to, and he began to fall down the tree, but not out of it. He tumbled down the trunk of the tree, and I wondered if I’d see any more movement from him ever again.

He was still for a moment, and I rushed over to the brush at the base of the tree. He sat up slowly, moved his arms and legs deliberately, checking for damage.

I don’t remember saying anything, but I remember looking at him, concerned. Richard looked back, and a smile spread across his face. I smiled back and said “Don’t do that again.”

“No, I don’t think so,” he replied.

We laughed (and he limped) all the way back to the main area of camp.

What stands out to me is how easily that could have been me on the zip line. We had a tractor at camp that we’d pull a trailer around with to move junk around. You had to be 18 or 21 to drive a camp vehicle, and I was only 17, so I’d usually stand on the trailer hitch and ride behind the driver.

Once I was standing on the hitch and the driver hit a bump, which sent the hitch off of the ball. We were driving down a hill, so the trailer immediately began moving toward the tractor. I grabbed the outer wall of the trailer, pushed down hard and used it to hoist myself up and over the wall and into the trailer. It’s a good thing I did, too, because the trailer smashed into the back of the tractor HARD.

If I hadn’t got off that hitch when I did, I would have been mashed and then run over. Thank goodness for my crazy days.

I’m no good at just typing up a little blurb on something. It’s a gift when I need to pump out an essay, but maybe it’s a curse for a blog.

Hmph. HP's mother wears army boots. (That's you, Carleton.)

Jeez, would you believe this? You'd think an Intel board would have an up-to-snuff BIOS, for gosh sakes, but nay. Actually, I think the Western Digital drive is at fault. But that’s not like them. All of my WD drives have been great.

Sandy's hard drive wants to be jumpered as Cable Select, alone on the cable, and on the middle connector on the cable, NOT the end one.

And yes, I did try more than one cable. And yes, I do know how to properly jumper a bootable hard drive (Primary Master, set Active), which is why I didn't try this solution days ago.

And guess what else? When the hard drive is alone on the cable, and jumpered Cable Select, and on the middle connecter, the hard drive access light magically comes to life!

Turns out I really did rewire all the front panel headers right, it's just a wonky drive setup. WONKY!

I have AGONIZED over this system. And it's a stupid drive/cable/jumper quirk. I'm glad to be washing my hands of it. I'm also back firmly in my anti HP/Compaq foxhole. Their product AND service in Sandy’s case have been, simply put, horrible. I will never give them money. I was half-way tempted to buy an iPaq a while back. Now, never. No laptops, desktops, tablets, media centers, pocket pcs, servers, or peripherals from the Fiorina conglomerate for me. Too much badness in five years.

So listen. I really think we should all post an introduction. For Dave’s sake, yes, but also just so we all know what everyone is up to.

For privacy’s sake, no last names, addresses or phone numbers. Remember, this stuff is publicly available on the intarweb.

Do say what you’re currently working on, though, what your family is like, what sort of toy is at the top of your Santa list, and, oh, how about an experience about you that’s telling. Yeah.

And please, Eric and Leon, no stories that the three of us already know. This way we’ll all get some new information, and the four of us will be clear on who’s who. M’kay?

My next post will be my contribution (and probably my third post today).

Status Report

Ok, that was quick.

 

Both Leon and Eric have piped up in comments to welcome Dave. I've sent an invitation to Dave, so hopefully we'll be seeing him around soon and hearing what he has to say.

 

Additionally, I'm now attempting to post in a different way. I usually log on to Blogger and then compose my post on the Compose page, but now I'm trying to email a post.

 

This means that it will be easier for me to format my posts, like THIS.

 

I hope that worked. There's a bold, underlined, italicized, green word in that last sentence. If it isn't there, then something went wrong.

 

So I worked on computers all night. The new Tablet has a bad keyboard. The letter "S" sticks, and either types hundreds of the character per minute, or doesn't type "S" at all, not even intentionally. Unfortunately, the stick is in the circuitry, and not in the button itself, so it's beyond my technical prowess to fix. Good thing it's still under warranty.

 

The old and new Tablets use nearly identical keyboards, so I've just been swapping the good one back and forth, depending on which system I need to use.

 

A new, virgin copy of Windows XP Tablet is on the new Tablet. Like the more expensive olive oil, though, it's extra virgin, and it will take a lot of work before it's up to my usability standards. Like a new keyboard.

 

Toshiba forgot to package my DVD-ROM drive with the new Tablet, and I'm currently working on getting one sent. Apparently, they've been forgetting that with all the refurbished m205's, so I'm not the only customer with the problem, and the retailer actually called me about it before I called them. Impressive.

 

Sandy's processor did come yesterday, but now the system is having funky drive problems. I've been working hard on it, but so far the answer to this one is eluding me. There don't appear to be motherboard drive controller problems, jumper problems, ATA cable problems, or a host of others, and yet the error is still manifesting itself in a lot of different ways.

 

It's been a stressful week. I think I need to have Leon over this weekend to help me relax.

Busy, busy, busy...

I really shouldn't be writing right now...I'm sitting in GeoSci. But there are a couple of things that I've just got to jot down.

First, Dave, if you're reading this, welcome to Phischkneght (pronounced fishnet). This is where Leon, Eric, and Jake share ideas and just toss things around in general. It's a nice little outlet for frustrations and such.

Guys, Dave is my fellow Teachers Quorum Advisor. There's some dispute as to whether I'm his assistant or he's mine, but it doesn't really matter, because we're both assistants to the other guy no matter which way it goes. Personally, I like being the Assistant to the Assistant to the Teachers Quorum Advisor. I think I'll have some business cards printed up with that on them.

Dave is in the Army Guard, with a medical team. I forget just what exactly he does, but I know he's a CNA or better. I think he's studying to be a PA. Dave is also a full-time student and a daddy. I went to high school with his wife.

I've proposed to Dave that he could join our blog. He would give us a new point of view, as he is a non-technical person who is trying to understand all this technical junk. He's learning these things in school and he also has a personal interest.

So maybe with Dave's help, we can learn to better explain the concepts that are second nature to us in writing and we can help him make sense of all this computer stuff.

Moving on, the new Tablet arrived yesterday. As usual, Toshiba and Micro$oft have teamed up to make it as difficult as possible to put a fresh copy of the OS on, so I'm hacking my little heart out. So far, the easy ways haven't worked, so I'm about to try a copy of XP Pro with Tablet slipstreamed in for the virgin install. Then I'll have to put on drivers, programs, office, activations, blah, blah, blah. It's going to be a lot of work. But it will be worth it.

I'm also upgrading my server. All of the hardware is installed and runs well, but there are some hiccups that I'm dealing with. For instance, Partition Magic doesn't like Windows Server 2003, and if it detects WS2003 on any of the system's drives, it won't start at all, in both Win32 and DOS modes. And that sucks.

Additionally, Ghost 2003 won't start if it detects any SATA drives on the system.

The SATA drive and the drive holding WS2003 are different drives, so every time I want access to Partition Magic or Ghost, I have to pull power to the offending drive.

Furthermore, WS2003 logs the sizes and locations of each partition, and if anything changes, barfs instead of booting. So you'd better get the partitions right the first time, or it's a total re-install. Once again, Micro$oft is making life hard.

I should be receiving a new Celeron 2.4 Ghz chip for Sandy today. Her new motherboard is already in the system, and I've already re-wired the front panel headers for the non-OEM board. I somehow lost the hard drive light in the rewiring, but it's not critical, so I won't worry about it too much. If the power button didn't work, that would be a problem, and the power light would worry me too, but the hard drive light seems the best choice if I have to lose something.

Then it's just a matter of booting to Windows, installing her motherboard drivers, updating Windows and antivirus software, and re-imaging the hidden partition. Pretty basic, right? Probably a 45 minute job. If nothing fries.

Oh, and my other project, once I'm finished configuring the new Tablet, is to reconfigure my old Tablet for Leon. FedEx lost his computer, and I'm going to have to go to the seller for a refund.

Fortunately, a fresh install of Windows on the old Tablet will be easy, as I've already done all the hard work, and I have DVD Ghost images of what needs to be on there.

I guess I'm getting long-winded. Also, my GeoSci class is getting interesting. So I'll wrap this post for now. I'm trying to post more often, and I think I'm doing a pretty good job. Eric and Leon, let me know what you think of inviting Dave to contribute. If everyone agrees (shouldn't be a problem), I'll send the invite.

Regarding Police

I wrote this a while back, and I've been waiting for a good time to finish and post it. Sorry for the length, but it is what it is. -ed. (Jake)


We went to the big fireworks show tonight and I had an experience there that reminded me about something I've been intending to write.

First, the show was terrific. The fireworks were dazzling, the day was warm, my seat was comfortable, the audio book I was listening to was thought provoking, my family members were fun to play with, and the day was warm, resulting in pretty girls wearing very little. To cap it all off, the thousands of people that were trying to drive home at the same time we were trying to drive home were very courteous, and once we hit open road, we drove fast with all the windows down and loud classic rock on the stereo. This was a good day.

Now. I love the TV show COPS. I sing the theme song during the intro and credits, and I like to say “132 and Bush, I’ve got him at gunpoint,” “Ok, gunpoint, 132 and Bush, covers code three” when the cop radios squawk those lines during the credits.

I love COPS because I have a sadistic streak and I love to see the bad or stupid or bad and stupid guys get smacked down by the cops. Love it. And what I really love about COPS is the showcase of human behavior that it is.

At the firework show that we attend every year, there have been problems in the past with people bringing their own fireworks and endangering others with them before the main event starts. This year, there were large, obvious signs all over the place stating that bringing your own fireworks is illegal. Still, some folks are stupid, and a group near us lit a strobe firework. It was very bright and smoky.

The park was absolutely bristling with law enforcement types, and about two minutes after the strobe firework was finished, a pair of cops was upon us asking who had the fireworks.

Here is the focus of my interest. People who don’t understand police officers get in trouble with police officers. There are spoken and unspoken rules to follow when dealing with law enforcement officials. If you don’t follow the rules, you will regret it.

We followed the rules. When the officers asked us who had the fireworks, we addressed them respectfully, looked them in the eye, told them what they wanted to know, and stayed out of the way.

I was raised in a middle-class family, far away from any inner-city areas, and I’ve been taught to respect and cooperate with the police. For the majority of my two-year LDS mission, I lived in the inner-city areas of Wisconsin, including Racine, Milwaukee, and South Milwaukee. Attitudes toward police there are very different from the attitudes that I learned growing up.

I have a theory that many people who get themselves in trouble with the law find themselves in trouble because they simply don’t understand the rules. The attitudes they’ve been taught about police are wrong and dangerous, and this leads to heat-of-the-moment errors in judgment.

When a police car pulls up behind me on the freeway with lights flashing, my adrenaline levels shoot way up, I get nervous and a little afraid, and I consider my options. Of course, running is one of them. But I never do that. I pull my car to the side of the road, and I wait to talk to the police officer, because I’ve been taught that things will turn out better for me if I do.

So as a service to the blog-reading public in general (and all two of you who will read this), Here are my…

Rules for Dealing with Police:

1. When you see a police officer, smile and wave (with all five of your fingers). I smile and wave at cops all the time. I make a special point of doing this when I know that the cop has seen me speeding.

You see, I like to speed. When my car goes fast, I go happy. I’m careful to watch for police, but sometimes I zip right by them. In general, I still see them, but too late to make it look like I was never speeding. So I slow down, look right at the cop, smile and wave.

Sometimes he’ll smile and wave back, sometimes he won’t. But my experience tells me that cops will bother you less--not more--if you smile and wave at them. I’ve had a grand total of two speeding tickets in my life, and I’ve been driving cars for over eleven years now. Both of those tickets were over five years ago, and both of those cops snuck up on me, so I didn’t get to wave at them. See? It works! And that leads us into my second Rule for Dealing with Police…

2. When a cop sees you doing something illegal, STOP DOING IT!!

I also slow down when a cop sees me speeding. Likewise, if I think a cop may be watching me light fireworks, I only light legal stuff.

I think there are three parts to why this works. First, some cops like to surprise people. If they can come out of nowhere without you ever having known they were back there, the ticket has an “I could be lurking anywhere waiting for you” quality.

Second, some cops dig authority. That’s ok, because they really do have authority, and they really do need to use it. So if an officer sees you doing something illegal, and you have the good sense to stop, a lot of the times he’ll feel that you respect his authority and let you go. (Insert Cartman "Respect my authoritay!" sound clip.)

Finally, cops know what a victimless crime is just as well as you do. If you’re not robbing banks or killing people, odds are your illegal activity is something the cop has done too. If you stop, there’s no harm done. If you don’t, he knows that it’s his job to do something about it. So he will, even if he doesn't want to.

3. If you are face-to-face with a police officer, let him know that you respect him up-front.

There are several ways to do this. First, always look him in the eyes. Second, tell him that you intend to cooperate.

Ever watch COPS? Remember the guy (he’s in about every other episode) that tells the cop to leave him alone and then tries to walk away? Pop quiz: How many front teeth does that guy have? The answer is: ‘not as many as he did before the cop mashed his face into the concrete.’

Tell the cop that you’ll do whatever he tells you to (because face it, you will anyway) and then do it without being forced. This tip alone should keep you from getting maced.

Let’s step up the challenge a little.

4. Tell him the truth. He knows something’s up, or he wouldn’t be talking to you.

Maybe the truth isn’t as bad as he thought it was. Then you’ll get off easy. Maybe if you’re brutally honest, he’ll let you off just for being honest with him. Maybe you just need some good karma. The point is, be honest with cops. They like that.

5. If you’re going to make a point, be nice about it.

I lean a little liberal among my fellow Utahans. I don’t necessarily feel that a police officer should be able to require my ID for no reason. And I believe in the right to decline a search of my vehicle.

I’ve never had the opportunity to refuse either, but if I’m granted the opportunity and decide to take it, I’m going to be nice about it. It will go something like this: “Sir, I respect your authority, and I’ll do anything you ask within the law, but I’m declining your request to search my vehicle.”

Remember, he CAN arrest and/or hurt you just for talking snotty to him.

6. If you’re going to make a point, for God’s sake, be legal in the first place.

Because it isn’t making a point if the cop suspects you and then turns out to be right. If I refuse a search of my property, and he gets a warrant and searches anyway, and finds dope in my car, I’m screwed. And I deserve to be.

Civil disobedience is a sacred practice that must be exercised by the people from time to time. But criminals aren’t capable of civil disobedience, because they create the problem. Go ahead and deny showing the cop ID. Just don’t have warrants out for your arrest at the time.

I could go on all day, but I’m going to cap it with this next one.

7. Don’t be stupid.

If you need to put someone in danger, make sure it’s just you. Find a legal outlet for your illegal urges, or better yet, find religion and overcome them.

Furthermore, if you’ve decided that you’re going to break the law, be informed and in acceptance of the consequences. Sometimes I light illegal fireworks. I’m willing to pay a $50 firework ticket if I get caught. Maybe if I get too many firework tickets, I won’t be willing any more.

I won’t be robbing any banks and killing the tellers because, along with other very good reasons, I’m not willing to spend life in prison if things go wrong.

If you’re not comfortable with society’s laws and you’re also not comfortable with the consequences, it’s your responsibility to leave society. I won’t get into how this is possible, but it is. (This is why I could never join Canadian society. I like my guns too much.)

Civil Service

I'm not entirely sure if working for the government is sucking the life out of me, but I have found myself being rather tired lately. And it looks like I've lost all interest in my web logs.

Actually, a lot of things have changed in the last few months, and I'm still working out a balance, and that balance seems like it will be quite a bit removed from my swinging bachelor life. Notably, I rarely stay up past 2 and I'm almost always up by 10. Who would have ever guessed that such a fate awaited me?

On another note, I had a few visions when I started this thing. One goal was to create a place where we could talk tech and establish ourselves online, but a far more important goal was to help Jake get started with a web log. I knew he wanted to do one, but he was dragging his feet. I figured maybe this would help him out, and I must say I'm very pleased with what he's done with it.

Back to sorting out my life, I've found time to watch The Simpsons this evening. "Enjoy them, old man. They will be your last."

Changed POV...

Look, I've just decided I don't care.

I'm sorry for the flippant attitude, guys. I guess I was too busy with my own vision for this blog to listen to Eric's.

Anyway, from now on, I'm just going to write. It doesn't matter, because I write, and what I write is an important part of me. If you want to read it, then it's out there and I'm fine with that.

I know the tone here probably sounds a little angry, but I promise I'm not, at least not at anyone else. It smarts a little when you realize that you were completely wrong about how your teammates view a project.

So here's what's been happening.

There's a lady named Sandy at WSU. She's taken her computer to two other techs and spent $250 on them trying to fix it and failing. She gave her PC to me to take a look, and after an embarrassingly long time, I found the root cause of all her problems...exploding capacitors. And boy, did they. A whole row of eight of them popped and took the processor out with them.

It's an HP system, and of course, when I called HP, they said in their very best corporate speak that I should gingerly bend over and wait for an intense burning sensation. I hung up on them, and went to work finding an appropriate motherboard replacement. The motherboard fried, so I couldn't know yet that the chip had also, so now I'm holding her system for a few more days while we wait for the new processor to come. *sigh*

DENTSERVER is going to get ripped to pieces tonight, and when I put it back together, it will be running with a brand-new 160GB SATA drive, a new 1.8 GHz Celeron, 512 MB of DDR 400, a new Antec 430 Watt PS, and finally, Windows Server 2003!

Yowza, that's a hell of an upgrade. I'm really excited. Then what is now the server will become a Linux bitch box and the Tux case badge on it will no longer be a horrible irony.

For those of you wondering, "bitch box" is a really crass word for a computer that you use to troubleshoot parts, test configurations, and generally do the crap work that you don't want to risk your nice desktop on.

I need a computer of this type so that I can **finally** start (for the seventh time) learning Linux. Been putting this off for far too long.

I'm in a bit of hot water with the missus because I ordered a new Tablet PC. I fought the urge as long as I could, but a few nights ago, I found a refurbished one at a particularly good price and I caved.

It's a good thing I'm cute, or she'd never forgive me. Ever.

(Photo Censored)

So Eric and Leon have taken on radio silence.

I'm pretty sure I know why in each case, and they are not the same reason.

Eric has a potential crisis on his hands and is trying to work out what to do about it. Leon is simply busy and otherwise-prioritized.

There's a photo I've been meaning to snap for the last few weeks, and I finally did it.

For those not in the know, most big corporations these days disallow any photography on their premises without prior arrangement with the management. This includes Wal*Mart.

My local Wal*Mart (it's their new Neighborhood Store variety), however, had an opportunity that I couldn't pass by.

In the clearly-marked Pain Relievers section, right below the sign, are all manner of contraceptives. When I first saw this, I laughed and laughed. And now, the more thought I give it, the more it makes sense.

So I sojourned to the store and blatantly took pictures in plain view of the cameras. I'm really surprised they didn't hassle me about it. I suspect that either a) their security people weren't paying attention, or b) they don't know the rule. At any rate, here's the photo.

Oh, dammit. Blogger wants me to find a seperate hosting solution for my photo. Screw it. Just ask me if you want to see the photo.

Random Post, Random Day

Amazon wants to know what I think. So I told them. Here's my note to them:

Seems that the deals on Gold Box aren't as good as they used to be. A lot of the stuff in there lately is over-priced even after the Gold Box coupon.

Cater to my tastes a little more. You know that I'm an electronics junkie. Why do you show me kitchen junk?

I'm far more likely to buy a spindle of blank DVDs than the first season of "Friends." If it's a good deal.

Your competition is spanking you on price these days.

Tech-savvy users know what Froogle is. Do you?

Your price on an iRiver iHP-140 MP3 player is 399.94. Comp-U-Plus sold it to me for $351 and Fedexed it to me for $1. Here's a link:

http://www.compuplus.com/insidepage.php3?sid=gc53g216sp13e9x&id=1001871&track=searchViewed

I don't even check you guys first anymore. I hope you get better.

I dunno, was that too harsh?

Yesterday was both my first day back at school (as a Sophomore now, thank you) and my first day on the job at the Davis Computer Lab. It was a seventeen hour day. I'm used to having a little more time to myself than that, but this should be good for me. If I can manage to get into some of the same habits I had three semesters ago, maybe I can start carrying even more credits. Or maybe not.

Here's what I love about sitting at a computer at the WSU Information Commons. Girls. I love girls.

When a pretty one sits at a computer in front of me, I can stare all I want, because she's looking at the computer screen, not me. I'd have to burst into flames, run, and scream for her to notice.

And I love to watch girls. I don't think it makes me dirty, any more than loving to see a brown trout flashing in the sunlight just above the river water does. Although it is a different kind of beauty.

It's not like I'd ever do anything about it anyway, for several extremely compelling reasons. For one thing, I love my wife. She isn't just pretty, and she isn't just a friend. Crystal is part of me, and beautiful to boot.

Now, I'm sure the pretty blonde in front of me is a really nice girl. But pursuing her would mean death to so many good things in my life that it's not even tempting. This is why I believe that people who cheat are not only inviting unhappiness into their lives, but are already plenty unhappy. Or extraordinarily stupid. Pick one.

Aw, no more solitaire? Bye. No more like that in immediate view. Maybe I should have burst into flames.

Travels

I just got back on Friday from 9 days of travel all over the western extremes of this country. It was exhausting. I recommend visiting Hawaii and Alaska, but not on the same day. Waking up in Waikiki and going to bed in Anchorage pretty much did me in.

There's no point in double posting, so catch my travel log entries over at the Garden of the Blind.

Hello Vacation!

I'm in Park City, on a pirated net connection. Fun, yes?

Leon is sitting next to me with my Dell laptop, and I'm on the Tablet.

I've really got to say...we came out here only yesterday. We're at the WSU 2004 Academy of Leadership. And what I have to say is that even though we've only been here just over a day, we're having a hell of a time. In a good way.

The drive out was heavenly. I listened to my mp3 player, the morning was cool, and I navigated us right to our hotel. Flawless.

Leon and I were unpacking and he managed to lock his keys in his car...with it running. Leon made a call and two hours later, Gary was here with a spare key. The experience was a little scary, but it ended well.

Gary earned huge brownie points in the fiasco. Thank you, Gary. We were screwed, you saved us.

These leadership-type conferences can be hugely boring if not done properly, or even worse than boring, but this one has been good.

Last night, they finally let us out at around nine, so Leon and I went to Park City's Main Street to see what was going on. Not much. It's the off-season, and it was too late for anything but restaurants to be open.

What we did find open is a sushi bar called the Flying Sumo. Yum.

We ordered our sushi right away, and then waited over an hour for it. The wait staff were excellent though, gave us a free appetizer while waiting, and after sushi, gave us free desserts. I tipped about 75%. They deserved it.

And yes, the sushi was delicious. Outstanding.

The free appetizer they brought us is called edamame, I think. It's pronounced ehddamahmay. If anyone knows the proper spelling, let me know. Basically, it was soybeans, still in the shells, salted. My first, and very good. And the sushi was incredible.

The hotel we're at, Yarrow Inn, is a reasonably nice place. I called before we came out and verified that they have net access, both wired and wireless. What they neglected to tell me is that you have to pay $7 a day for it. Not cool, folks, especially for just a DSL that the whole hotel shares. For $7 a day, I expect a T1.

So a guy in my group coughed up the $7, and now three of us are sharing his password. Thank God.

This meeting's over. I have to post.

Life is Life

I may have been dead for a while but I believe in resurrection. Though it may take a while to get the blood moving.

I recently purchased another video game at the suggestion of a friend (Jake). It is called far cry and is a first person shooter that pushes the limits of my vid-card witch I find is happening more and more often as late. I had a desire for a new game that we could play at our LAN parties but I am afraid that this one will not cut it for the following reasons.

1. The graphics are great in fact they are to good and can’t be run on all the computers when we get together for a party. People would be excluded.
2. I believe the same problem exists for the processors.
3. The maps are huge, massive, I mean phenomenally big. Our regular 5 to 8 players would run into each other about once every 10 min. This is only if everyone constantly moves. I personally like to be a sniper witch means that I find a good spot and take a few kills then move to the next one. The game seams to reward this tactic in single player, but in multi player it would just be a lot of sitting around waiting.
4. The game has the ability to create your own maps but I do not like putting that much effort into a single level.

Next up on the things I have been doing is getting ready for my next vacation. I do not take vacations often and when I do they are not extravagant. This may be because I like money and vacations don’t make money as often as take money from your wallet. But what is the point of having a little money if you cant make life good for yourself every now and again. Well now I am ready to go to park city stay in a hotel and enjoy some time away from home and work. For the last 3 days I have been receiving phone calls from the registration office for this trip because they had no record of payment. Good job guys. Well they found my receipt yesterday and called to say they had it. It was good timing because I had just picked up the phone to call Jake to see if he wanted to make a trip back up there to show them my copy of payment. So now all is dandy once again. It is kind of strange my life only gets complicated and interesting when Jake gets involved, well that is what good friends are for.

So Sorry

I haven't posted in a little bit. I think my last post was a month ago yesterday.

Here's a rundown of some recent happenings:

It's finals week for me in summer semester.
My Archos mp3 player was stolen at school.
Money is getting tight and I have to sell my car.
I bought a new mp3 player.
I had a small LAN party with Eric and Leon.
Some other stuff.

I've been pretty busy. I'm supposed to be writing an English final right now. It's due tomorrow, and I've written about five sentences. Oh boy. I feel a late night coming on.

I started writing a post a couple of weeks ago. I do want to finish it and post it, but it's pretty long and I don't know if it will hold the attention of anyone but me long enough to read it.

I am alive. Really, I am. I will post again. The real question is if Leon will post again.

Gotta go.

An afternoon with Tux

I am sitting in a room with all three contributors to this site. I just finished demonstrating to them the wonders of bootable Linux distributions, notably Klaus Knopper’s Knoppix distribution. I highly recommend trying it out if you’re interested in trying out Linux without dedicating an entire machine to it.

It’s also fun to boot someone’s machine to Linux and see them freak over having lost their Windows installation.

Anyway, now that we’re all here, we’re just sitting around letting the fan keep us cool. And talking about the batteries in our mice. Good times.

Thou hadst, and more, Miranda.

I finally have the file/web server of my dreams!

Okay, it’s not quite what I would ideally want, but it’s getting quite close.

The problem was that the old Compaq machine was dying. Well, dead would be more like it. I had already brought in a 300 MHz PII machine to replace it, but that box was having lots of problems. Particularly, it would run out of virtual memory every time I tried to do anything. So, with the death of one machine, cannibalization became possible. I stole 192 MB of RAM from the dead machine, which made the server run a lot faster.

I then took the 80 GB drive from the old machine and tried to put it in the new machine. The motherboard didn’t like it. This new machine (which technically is older, but isn’t crippled by Compaq’s motherboard and proprietary BIOS) has an older motherboard that doesn’t want to read larger hard drives. This is in keeping with what I deduce the design philosophy was, which is “just barely enough”. Fortunately, Jake had some advice. He suggested using an ATA controller card. So, I stole one out of my main system (losing the Zip drive as a result, but I’m not losing any sleep over that), and now the 80 GB drive is up and running.

I also swapped the machine’s 32x CD ROM drive for a 32x10x40 CD-RW drive. I should take some time to image the system’s OS drive soon.

Awakening

I’ve come alive again.

It’s a disorienting feeling. I’ve been cut off from most of the online world since I got married and moved out. That was over two months ago, and now I have a huge backlog of material to catch up on. Most of it will just go by the wayside. But now I have to figure out which threads to pick up and try to follow.

I absolutely must catch up on this Phischkneght forum. I’ll even have to go back through the archives until I’ve read it all. Jake said a lot of nice things about me in his last entry, and now I have a lot to live up to. Wise counsel, you say? Go jump in a lake.

Speaking of which, that’s what I did this week. I went to Bear Lake with my wife’s family. Or my mother-in-law’s family, to be precise. I got my first taste of water skiing, and I’ve got to say that it has a distinctly lakey flavor. I was having trouble breathing though, so I had to call it quits before I got up, but not before I got dragged behind the boat for a good distance.

My other advice is to call your ISP before you move. Don’t assume that moving to a densely populated suburban area that has cable service will guarantee you coverage by the high speed internet providers in the area. Also, phone companies are of the devil. I’m not saying that Satan himself runs them, just that he’s behind their marketing, pricing, and customer service. It’s been my experience that only one in every two or three customer support reps is capable of providing any useful information over the phone. Unfortunately, I’ve spent hours on the phone waiting for someone to even take my calls so that I can determine whether I’ll reach a competent human being.

It looks like I’ve become frustrated here. So, my wise counsel is to avoid using telecommunication companies that have a near monopoly for your area. It’s been my experience that they’ll treat you like worms, because they can.

Happy Birthday to Me

I love July.

I sure as hell won't be posting on my birthday, so maybe I should take this chance to say a few choice words.

First, this keyboard is crap. Truly. And I'm not all that grateful for it.

That said, there are many things for me to be grateful for, standing here on the cusp of 27 years of life. Honestly, I hear thirty calling, and life is exactly as short as it wants to be. There's no guarantee that I'll be granted the 76 average years that might be expected by someone in my place. So, in the spirit of thanks for my life thus far, I present:

Some Things I'm Really Very Thankful For:

• Crystal. If there is anyone on this rock that I know everything about, it's her. And if I've ever met a stranger, it's also her. Crystal is my beautiful, changing, volatile companion. I don't know how I could love a woman more, and if I'd even want to. The fact that she has an A-type personality like my own and still puts up with me is humbling. Life without her is incomprehensible.

• Harrison. My first child. Harrison is the best two-year-old I've ever met. I'm doing my best to be a good Dad to him, and he's clearly paying attention. He says 'please' and 'thank you.' Harrison is a great man blossoming. He cares about others and he tries to obey the things we tell him. The thought of him growing up is at once thrilling and terrifying.

• Rachel. My daughter is proof of woman’s godly nature. Crystal and I went on a vacation about a year after Harrison was born. During our vacation, she forgot to take her pill, and became unexpectedly pregnant. I’m ashamed, but man enough to admit that I held this against Crystal for a time. But she was inspired. The daughter she gave me, Rachel, is the sweetest girl I’ve ever met. Rachel gives the best hugs in the world, and her laugh is more precious than rubies.

• Leon and Eric. These two men are not at all like the other, but they’re the best friends a man could have. Eric is the smartest guy I know. He’s honorable, pious (in a good way), and reasonable. Leon is compassionate, loyal and extremely forgiving. The two of them could offer the wisest counsel to the most powerful of men.

• My Mom. I know you think your parents are strange. All parents are. Mine defy definition. My mom and I had some hard years with each other, mostly because we’re so alike. She’s an inspiration to me. The year I graduated high school, she graduated too…Summa Cum Laude in Communications. Yes, a mother of three can pull straight A’s. I didn’t go back to school until I was a father of two. I pulled a 4.0 my first semester. My mom has given me a tradition of excellence. I intend to keep it.

• My Dad. Have you ever known one of those guys who can do anything? My Dad, part rocket scientist, part botanist, part etymologist, part celebrated author, part electrical engineer, part scriptorian, showed me what a wonderful place this world is as a kid, and helped me learn to manipulate it. I don’t know another kid whose dad heat-bent glass tubing with him. Taught him how to catch butterflies. How to build a Tesla coil that stepped house current up to 200,000 volts. That Tesla coil intimidated the hell out of my seventh grade science teacher.

• Julianne. I’ve only got one blood sister. She was born when I was eight years old. I was a torturous big brother. She knew how to get me in trouble, and I knew how to make her miserable. Somehow we grew up and became friends, and I’m glad we did because she is a strong, compassionate woman. It has been an unspeakable honor to carefully scrutinize the young men she’s dated and at times intimidate them for her sake. I can’t wait to see what great things she’ll do.

• Jeff. My only brother is ten years younger than I. Our gap in age prevented Jeff and I from really getting to know one another until I returned from my mission in 1999. When I finally did begin to get to know Jeff, I was amazed at what a fair, giving person he is. Jeff can’t stand the idea of injustice, and he does everything he can to keep peace and make things equal. Jeff is seventeen, and though he’s had a hot temper in the past, he’s got an amazing grasp on it now.

I’m so glad I wrote this. I was going to express gratitude for things that I enjoy—computers, my car, sushi, and instead the most important stuff came tumbling out. There’s an old saying that I know is true.

Writing is easy; just open a vein and let it pour out onto the page.

Thank God for my family and friends. Happy birthday to me.