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.

A Modern Concern

Time for an update.

I'm coming to terms with it. I am a modder, and the instinct to change everything I lay my hands on permeates every part of me.

This, for some reason, has been terribly difficult for me to finally admit to myself, but there it is. And it's completely true.

The other day I bought a new external USB 2.0 CD-RW drive for my Tablet PC. Before I even got the darned thing home, I had hatched a plan to take it apart and put my DVD-RW drive into it. I mean, how did this thing become so automatic?

I was taking things apart all the time when I was a kid, and sometimes I even got them back together and working. I'm guessing that at some point I accidentally made something better than it was before I got to it, and a modder was born. I modify everything.

Here are some of the things that I own that I've put various modifications into:

My Archos Jukebox FM Recorder (60 GB hard drive, high capacity battery, open source firmware)
Two of my UPSs (new batteries, case mod to make one fit)
My Antec Sonata PC case (modded in a switch to control the bright blue LEDs)
My USB 2.0 and Firewire External Hard Drive (Several different drives have been in there)
My Dell Inspiron 8200 (Please don't ask)
My Toshiba Portege 3500 Tablet PC (All kinds of hardware swaps)
My AirSoft pistols (higher-tension springs for more muzzle fps, clip mods for more rounds)
My 2003 Honda Accord (wired-in FM modulator, xenon-ish headlights, some other stuff)
My Casio EM-500 PocketPC (Overclocked from 150Mhz to 200Mhz {this was a while ago})

Those are just a few of many and the evidence is overwhelming. I'm always thinking about how my gear could be better, and when I think I can do something about it, I do. I know the risks when it comes to warranties and such, and once or twice, I've broken the object I was working on beyond repair. But I do it anyway.

I'm a tinkerer. Thank the heavens for a (mostly) understanding wife.

Comcast has been lying to Eric some more, and the forecast gives an 80% chance of more lies to come. He really didn't fall off of the earth, he's just out of touch. And still, I might point out, a newlywed. So, you know what he and his new wife must be up to...writing thank-you cards. Don't look at me like that.

Stop everything.

Yes I have been taking a break and enjoying what life has to offer me. But one thing that I did not enjoy recently is what the “bank did for me”. A little while ago I went in to my bank and requested a new debit card to replace the one I had, which was cracking. So I went home thinking that everything was going to be great and that I would have new cards in a few days. Well I went on a few dates still using my old card and the day after my last one my new cards came they even had a pretty back ground on them. Well the first time I try to use one it dose not work. And yes I did activate it. So I thought ok maybe things are slow so ill try tomorrow. The next day it still did not work .now my anger is getting to me. So I go back to my bank and ask them what is going on. I was nice to the guy I talked to because it was not his fault and people seem to forget that sometimes. And because I was so kind he did some checks and found out that my card had been reported as stolen. That urge to yell washed over me again but I let it pass and asked him who had done that and he told me that it was either me my or my father. Since I knew it was not me and I immediately called my dad and asked him and he said it was not him. So we did more checking and it came to another branch somewhere that had called it in. I and the guy at the bank think that some moron at this branch mis-keyed a account number and changed it to my account number so my stuff was reported as stolen not the person who actually had theirs stolen. Well a few days later I had a new set of cards and a new pin number and a couple of letters saying that I had used my card on such and such days conveniently the day I was out with a date and showed the sums for dinner and the other activities. They were so close to rejecting my card on those days luckily I got by. Now all is working again. And every now and again I wonder if they ever fixed the problem for the other guy who actually lost his cards.

Taking A Break

Leon hasn't posted in a while. Maybe he's forgotten.

He'll get some time to post this week, though, as his current dating interest will be in New York on vacation.

I'm sitting in my Microbiology class right now, waiting for it to start. The professor is pretty cool.

My English class and my Micro class are separated by only 15 minutes, so I must budget my time wisely.

This morning I hadn't yet read today's required reading for English, and I had to use the ten minutes I had before class to sit at a table upstairs and get some reading done. I'm sorry that I didn't do the reading previously, as I really enjoyed the story.

I've been spending a lot of time lately converting all of my audio books to mp3. I'm a huge mp3 junkie, even though I know it's not the best format in existence.

It's the most accessible format. Everything plays it, and it's shareable.

I don't care that AAC has higher quality at a lower bit rate. It also has DRM, and that bugs me. Ditto for WMA.

Well, class is starting.

Course Correction

How about we talk about angst? Yes?

Oh, good. First off, I'm so sorry for those two last posts. What the hell was I thinking? I don't know. Sorry again.

So anyway, I got way off course, and now I intend to find the course once more and proceed with renewed vigor. Ok?

And yes, I am on new drugs. These ones seem to be working, unlike the amphetamines that my doctor prescribed. Once again, just for posterity, I'll restate that I DO NOT enjoy amphetamines. My body mostly shrugs them off.

Well, we re-arranged my house the other day. Leon came over and we worked and worked and moved crap around until he was nearly too tired to drive home. The new arrangement is meant to take advantage of my new KVM switch, which negates the need for huge amounts of more computer gear next to my computer desk. Nice.

I work on computers frequently, and usually the best place to work on them is right next to the computer that I usually use. So I used to keep a monitor, mouse, keyboard, extra desk, and so forth to the side of my main desktop PC. Thankfully, those days are over, and now we have a much better living arrangement.

My new KVM is now stationed as part of my desktop PC, and any computer that needs that kind of work can be set down next to the desktop and share its keyboard, mouse, speakers, and one if its gloriously huge monitors. I love my computer. This is gonna make my life easier.

Wanna see something cool? This guy (http://www.spcollege.edu/star/cisco/Matt/list_of_current_papers_and_brief.htm) teaches Cisco networking and was sick of students having to pay Cisco hundreds of dollars for textbooks, so he wrote his own and you can download it for free. It's a huge (5MB) Doc file. I'll Pdf it and offer it to him. Maybe he doesn't have Acrobat.

Eric called the other day and claimed that he'll soon have net access at home. He also alleged that at such time he will resume posting in this forum. That'll be a good thing, in case you were wondering. It is a little flattering, though, that he's posted here more recently that he has at his own Garden of the Blind.

I'm supposed to do homework right now. I've got a math test tomorrow and a Microbiology test on Thursday. And an English test...well, sometime. I'll have to read the syllabus at some point.

Every day my urge to go out and light some dazzling fireworks gets stronger. Random neighbors have been setting off bottle rockets and firecrackers at odd times. They've got the bug too. I don't know what I'll do, but I don't think I can hold out that much longer. Fate knows me far too well.

Holding Out For A Hero

Ray Charles died today, and I'm in a funk of the worst kind.

I've just been listening to his version of "America The Beautiful" over and over again tonight.

I liked Ronald Reagan, but I didn't cry when he died. I haven't yet for Ray Charles either, but I won't rule out the possibility. I've got many musical heroes, but not many of them rank as high as Ray.

Thank you, Ray, for the music you gave us. Thanks for "I've Got A Woman." Thanks very much for "Old Man River" and the irreverent "What I'd Say." Thanks for all of it. Good fortune to you in the next life, and I hope to see you there.

Inanity

I fear inanity.

Inanity is what can make any and every piece of work a writer writes completely irrelevant.

Such as this: There's a guy about twelve feet from me whose nose is only about eight inches from the LCD monitor of the university workstation he's at.

See? That was flavorless. But how about this?

Not only that, He's got a goofy non-hairdo, frizzy curls in the front--clearly unintentional, and flat in back, also unintentional, glasses, a hilarious black-and-white floral print shirt, and every couple of minutes he does a chicken-like head bob.

Now, that's better, isn't it?

I just savagely made fun of an unknown colleague. Well, Jesus didn't have a blog.

Today my mp3 player absolutely burned the hell out of my finger when I touched it after somehow having shorted out the battery. I quickly yanked the small machine open and relieved it of its shortness.

If I flip you off, you'll see the blister. But since I don't normally make obscene hand gestures, you probably won't get to view the damage that easily. Or at least not by pissing me off.

I ebayed an Archos Multimedia 20 a bit ago. It's supposed to be essentially the same thing as my current Archos, but with the added functionqality of being able to play .avi movies, .jpg photos, and .wav sound files. Plus it has a color LCD instead of the monochrome, green-backlit unit that I'm used to.

In short, I don't much like the user experience on the Multimedia version. I use open source firmware on the Jukebox called Rockbox, and it suits me well. Rockbox isn't available for Archos' Multimedia models, and that's a shame, plain and simple.

So I'm not keeping the Multimedia. I'm not. Yeah, it's nice, but usability is a big deal to me. I was going to sell the Jukebox, but no more.

Oh, and I fixed the battery short. Man, I hate that kind of crap. I was just changing out a hard drive.

Speaking of which, when are mp3 players going to become standard and mainstream enough that a technically oriented person can just pop it open and change out the hard drive or battery?

Honestly, I've got a Toshiba Tablet PC. Let me tell you, that thing is masterfully designed. It's super compact, and yet getting the hard drive out is a piece of cake. Need to get to the RAM or wireless card? Fine, you'll have to get under the keyboard, but for a sufficiently advanced technician, that's no problem. And the whole machine is sturdier than cheap toilet paper.

Archos, on the other hand, designs their products with an eye toward fragility and complexity. Change out the hard drive? No problem, you've got two choices: 1). Unsolder the whole damned unit open and simply unplug the drive and plug the new one in. This method gets old really quickly. 2). Bend the upper portion of the unit's chassis to allow clearance for the drive to slide out. Hang on...those are the options? Solder it open or bend the chassis? There weren't any better ideas?

I just can't believe that none of the Archos engineers said in a meeting 'Hey, what if we found a way to access the hard drive without compromising the structural integrity of the whole device? Think it's worth spending ten minutes of design time on?'

I'm good personal friends with an engineer, and I don't buy the ages-old argument that all engineers are born and raised in Satan's left nostril and fall out only to begin their careers.

I think the poor design decisions in this case are the fault of a pointy-haired-boss type.

At any rate, were I a powerful person at NEC, Toshiba, Sony, Dell, Compaq, or Palm, I would get some people right to work on a friendlier hard drive based mp3 player.

Batteries, even rechargeable ones, need to be easy to replace and almost short proof. Hard drives need to be accessible to advanced users who are going to tinker whether it's easy or hard to do.

If for no other reason, these things should be implemented to make in-house RMA repairs faster and more cost efficient. Hard drives will head crash, you know.

Anyway, I gotta go.

Oh, anyone wondering about Eric's dearth of posts will be pointed to the fact that Comcast has been lying to him. They keep pushing back the availability date of digital cable in his neighborhood.

Oh, Like You Post On A Regular Basis...

Save the accusations, because it's agitated guilty conscience day and there is no need for them.

But other than that...well, some things are up, some down. You know?

For one thing, the weather around these parts has just been lovely and summer is definitely rising in the East. On a related note, my birthday is one month from today. Eric, Leon, Crystal, everyone else, you all know what that means...FIREWORKS!

Please, no fireworks as gifts this year. I've still got a lot of fireworks with questionable legality from previous years. I keep looking for opportunities to use them, but since the neighbor got a fireworks ticket last year (that was at least partly and probably mostly my fault) I've been iffy on the whole idea.

The other night I dreamt that you can buy bags of cherry bombs in the sporting goods department at Wal*Mart. That was a pretty good dream. I didn't buy any (because I've already got lots of fireworks. Funny how stupid real-life details leak into clearly unreal dreams) but I did suggest to my brother that he buy some. Seemed a little more age-appropriate. He's ten years younger than I.

There was a while there I was going to use this blog to publicly make fun of my math instructor. I'll still mention him, but I'm beginning to respect him, and the making-fun-of part won't work the way I originally intended.

So his name is Mr. R. Yes, that's the real first letter of his real last name.

You know what? Once again, I can't make Mr. R entertaining to write about. So instead I'll write the story of the above-mentioned firework ticket. Ok?

So it was about July, and just a gorgeous evening. It had rained a little the day before, so things weren't too terribly dry, and I dragged the wife out to light a few fireworks. Seems like it was either the 4th or the 24th, because there were houses all over the valley with fireworks going off that were at least almost as illegal as mine.

A while back I went to Evanston (WY) and bought some pretty big rockets. They're on sticks about three feet long and the rocket engines are a good couple of inches around. Also, I'm a big fan of floral mortar shells. I found some particularly large versions of these in Evanston also, and they're great.

So Crystal and I went out to light a couple of rockets and a couple of shells. We went outside and I set up a shell and launched it. FOOMP!, the shell said as it left the tube. BOOM-CRACKLE it said at apex. Beautiful.

The neighbor to our East paused lighting his dinky bottle rockets (also illegal...that's gonna be important in a minute here) to gape in awe.

So now the neighbors were enjoying the show, and joined in with whatever they had. He lit a salute roll (it's a bunch of tubes with flying firecrackers), and I lit a couple of my big rockets.

Just as I dropped another floral shell into my mortar tube, the wind started to blow a little. I lit the shell, and we could see it get blown around as it traveled upward and then burst.

I turned to my wife and said we'd better go in, even though I had intended to light more of the same. I picked up my tube and the remaining fireworks on the driveway, and just as I crossed the sidewalk on my way to the house, I noticed a police officer walking briskly toward me, about twenty feet away.

I continued on my course into the house, and he continued on his, past my house, and straight to the neighbor, still lighting the little stuff. I came back out of the house and quietly found a dark place to hear and watch the goings on with my neighbor and the cop.

The cop explained that he had been out on the highway and had seen our big fireworks and had followed them right to us. Then he asked the neighbor for ID and ticketed him for lighting illegal fireworks, which the neighbor admitted to doing.

The two talked about how the big ones were being launched at my house, not his, but apparently, the cop didn't catch me red-handed, had to assume that they were all coming from the one guy he caught, and couldn't do anything about me. Whew!

So I literally dodged a $50 firework ticket by about five seconds last summer. I'm a crazy guy, but I'm not interested in trouble with the cops, so I need to find a better outlet for my firework bug.

And that's my Almost-Got-A-Fireworks-Ticket story. Instead of my math instructor. Believe me, it's better this way.

Bring em on.

Well things have been going so well with my dad’s two desktop computers since they were cleaned up that he decided to have me do his laptop as well. Of course I had to complain it makes it seem like they are getting more that they asked for when you are done witch makes their appreciation about equal to the effort you put into the job.

Well this job started Friday night I thought I would just do a ghost back up and then hit all the hard stuff tomorrow. Well the backup process crashed about half way through and I don’t work well when I am tired so I just let it go until morning. So I woke up at 8:00 am after sleeping in for four hours. Had breakfast and jumped right back into the battle with this machine. This time I got rid of all the unnecessary file and programs ran the virus checker and reg-cleaner and ad-aware. Then I did the scan disk and defragmenter, and this time the ghost back up worked flawlessly. When I looked at the clock I realized that wow it’s lunchtime already. So I took a break for a half hour and then I got right back at it. This time it was partition magic’s turn and I found that there was half a gig in a partition that was not even formatted to be used, just one more thing that I fixed. Then came the exciting part of installing Windows ME, and all the drivers for the hardware and all the extra software that he wanted on the unit. Of course it had to be limited a bit because I had another ghost to do later and I did not want to have a lot crap that he did not need on it. Well once all the software was installed I ran the virus checker, reg-cleaner, and ad-aware once more to clean things up. Then with a finial scan disk and defrag it was ready for the final ghost. Jake has made me a firm believer in a fresh install back up. Its great because if anything goes horribly wrong you can be right back to the beginning with minimal effort. Finally I cleaned the case screen and key board to make it look good again and now I am done again and it is 5:00 pm on Saturday.

Hopefully this will be it for a while since all my parents’ computers have done. And I refuse to do the ones at their work; they have people who are paid to do that. I was thinking that I could get out of doing dishes and chores for a month as payment but we will see how that goes.

next time "the credit card".

Finally it is done.

Finally it is done.

My dad finally got everything together and backed up for the upgrade. I took the computer over to jakes house and we worked on it for 7 to 8 hours. But it is done. I promised never to touch that thing again and told my parents that if it dies they might as well get a new one because I would not fix this one again. So I showed my dad how to run the clean up utilities and update the virus checker. Already he found 120 different things of spy ware on the computer between 2 users. Well now we know who is causing all the problems and I am trying hard to get their access limited but it is an up hill battle and I just want to let them hang themselves again.

Well that is my only adventure for this week mostly because I cant think of any thing else to write.

/Strike *Off*

What do you know, it worked!

So I've got a lot of catching up to do.

First, I had a high-end FM modulator installed in my car. It works far better than the other two ever did, and it cost about four times as much as one and about six times as much as the other. But it works well.

Leon was extremely kind to stay by my side while the guys at the car audio shop tore into my 2003 Accord and nearly broke damned near everything therein.

Here's the thing; I LOVE my car. I mean, I love my wife and my kids more than anything ever.

But my car holds a separate partition of love for its own in the hard drive of my heart, and let me tell you, I am thoroughly taken with that thing. So watching the stupid car audio guy rip the dash to peices was TORTURE. Just ask Leon. Really, it was scary for a minute or two there. But we got through it, and the car is ok.

Next, the digitizer in my Tablet started to go out again, and they left dust between the digitizer and the LCD last time they fixed it. So Toshiba has it again. I also told them to replace the LCD (because of a few dead pixels) and update the BIOS for me. So hopefully they'll do it right this time.

Eric has a cell phone! I've been nagging him to get a cell phone for years now, and he finally did it. He called me yesterday, all happy and beaming through the repeaters between where he was and I was. Congrats Eric, on your new cell phone. I guess your next acquisition will be a laptop? AlienWare has some nice models.

Maybe that should be a new paragraph: Alienware has some nice models. I went on the Alienware website a while back and specced out my dream laptop. It came to over 8,000 bucks. So much for that. Besides, I'm too endeared of my Tablet to take any portable system that isn't a Tablet seriously.

I was going to use some space talking about my math professor, but I find that I just don't care enough. Maybe later.

Sanity check

So, I've been busy, and more importantly, I've been rather isolated from all my former internet hangouts. I'll be getting cable internet in a couple of weeks, so maybe things will improve then, but for now, I'm still guy incognito.

But while I've been busy, apparently Jake's been going schizo. If you need more collaborators, then ask me about it. Don't create two trollish alter egos.

Good news, by the way. I got my first pay check from my new job this week, and so this afternoon, we got cell phones. I've never had one before, and I'm very excited about it.

Video is trying to kill the gamer in me.

Well it is time once again to make my post for this week.
One good thing this week is that I bought a copy of splinter cell yesterday. It looks to be a great game. The down side is that I can’t play it because my video card does not support pixel shading. Every thing else about the card is great and passes the tests. Also I found that the game does not support my video card even though they had new drivers for it on the disk. This now means that I am in the market for a new video card. So I spent some time at both ATI’s and NVIDIA’s web sites. Wow, am I really getting that far behind? Here are the links:
http://www.atitech.ca/index.html http://nvidia.com/page/geforce_6800.html

If you go to NVIDIA’s site it works better with IE than with firefox. Both of these companies are doing some amazing stuff. I was thinking that I would go with an NVIDIA geforce 6800, an ATI 9800XT or the X800 platinum. I am leaning mostly to an ATI 9800XT it’s a great card a third generation witch is saying something in video cards. Though after doing some more surfing I have found that there are a lot more complaints about compatibility from ATI products then there are with NVIDIA when dealing with windows boxes. This bothers me because 1) I have a windows box. 2) I hate dinking around with things just to get them to work. I maybe good at it but I don’t like it. In defense of ATI and the new X800 when it works it out performs the 6800 hands down. But I have always been a fan of NVIDIA I currently run a GeForce 4 MX 440 64 MB and it has kept me playing any game I wanted for almost three years. Well now you begin to understand what I have been pondering and why. Oh for the benefit of others I refuse to upgrade anything until half-life 2 is released and I know the specs. Hopefully that last line will save me some harassment.

On Strike

That's right, you heard me.

Eric, you lazy heap of married junk, this is a collaborative project and thou shalt collaborate.

So get it together or don't. But until you do, the title holds.

Love,
Jake.

Super Happy Post Time ! ! !

Sounds Japanese, doesn't it? Makes me want to see a game show host with a cheesy smile and screaming Japanese 16-year-old girls. Oh, and Hello Kitty stuff. Because it's...SUPAH HAPPY POST TIMAH!!!

Does that make me racist? I make fun of Japanese people, but it's just because I think they're cute.

I've been learning how to use M$ OneNote, and so far it looks really good. If I use it as much this semester as much as I used M$ Journal last semester, it'll be worth the $50 I paid for it.

And have a mentioned my Tablet PC on this blog? It is, bar none, THE best tool for school I've ever had. It's great. Toshiba built it extremely well. I'm grateful to have my Tablet in school.

I bought new headphones for my Archos yesterday. They're a Koss set. I've had a no-Koss policy for ten years or so, but I really like these. Maybe I was wrong about Koss. I sure like these.

Last night I went and played pool with Brent, as usual, but unusually, I played very poorly. Oh, the frustration.

It's not the first time I've lost my game. It's just the first time since I was this good. And it pissed me off. So I spent three hours playing at Leon's today, and I got my game back. The culmination of the three-hour ordeal was Leon's younger brother, Mike, coming downstairs with some trash talk.

And with my newly-regained game I kicked his butt. Happy me! I took five games straight against Mike, and that humbled him a fair bit. Duff Man says: "Oh yeah!"

Ugh

Wow, Blogger's new layout is nice. It's better than before.

But anyway, 'Ugh', as stated above, is how I've been feeling. The newly-prescribed amphetamines mentioned earlier in this blog are not working out so well, and I've got attitude problems.

And it sucks! I've got good music, good friends, a cool family, and most other things going for me, and I still feel icky. Clearly, my drugs are a problem.

I had childhood depression and drugs for said problem when I was a kid. At the end of junior high school, I refused my drugs and finished school without them.

Things were good that way, and I made it through a mission and other trials, still undrugged. I think there have been times when it would have been wise to get me on something, though.

The Air Force almost killed me a couple of years ago, and I was pretty well down for the count for about six months after that.

Maybe the stresses of being back in school are just bringing out the manic depressive in me. The thing is that I'm not the creatively depressed type; I just ponder my depression and get more depressed. My analyzing and probing childhood ADD/Depression doctors taught me well!

It really is too bad I can't enjoy my amphetamines like everyone else, though. I really did try, but Speed...at least not this kind...doesn't make me have fun, or even help me be more productive. It does make me super-introspective though, which would be fun if I had more esteem right now.

Wow, look at that! I can write a depressing post, too! Who'd have thought?

I'll write a happy post right after I post this one to help cover it up a bit.

It is always nice to say I told you so. Or is it?

Yesterday I sat down with my dad and worked the “family” computer over getting it prepared for a back up, nuke, and upgrade. What brought this on? Well a lot a things put together but most of all negligence. What happens when you don’t update your virus checker? You get viruses. What happens when you don’t run your virus checker? Viruses run you. (Or at least your computer.) What happens when you don’t watch what the kids install on the computer? You end up with a bunch of crap that never gets used and takes up valuable memory and bogs down the processor. So all together, negligence. I spent two hours cleaning up this system getting rid of all the nonessential information and stuff that can be reinstalled by disks. Two hours!!! What ever happened to maintaining your systems? This dose not include the backup or the nuke or the upgrade. Ok I feel better now.

I can tell you it does feel good to wipe out all the video games and their save files before letting my siblings run their backups. But you must find comfort where you can. Not all the family has their files saved yet so I think tomorrow will be the day to nuke the monstrosity.

I also worked on my fathers PC and it is working well now. It was going to be a nuke and load as well but after removing a lot of crap it just started working well again. Well duh! Of course it is but since I did not remove the programs he really likes to use he is procrastinating letting me complete the job. Witch in the end will only make it worse. Another I told you so for the future.

Thanks to a good friend I have SP one and two for windows on CD and that will save me all kinds of time later.

Now I did have a good time Saturday, playing laser tag with Jake, when I did not have second place his sister did. Credit where credit is due. This means that either his sister is a good shot and player, or I got beat out by a girl. I prefer the first one.

I could tell you about the problems at work but not many care about a small dairy department in a small store in a small town, except me. So farewell and don’t forget to maintain your systems least the gods of technology frown on you and make your life a living ______.

The Word 'Unblowuppable' Gets Thrown Around A Lot These Days...

Don't get me wrong: My whole life isn't based on shooting people. I'm just really good at it.

Last night my brother, Jeff, had his belated laser tag birthday party. We played four games. I lead the scoring in all four.

Leon, again my teammate, was also my runner-up in most rounds. Just like Half-Life. Fun.

For all you budding laser taggers out there, here's my basic strategy.

1. Hold the gun high (next to your face) and always point it where you're looking. That way, you can shoot at whatever you see. The twin advantage to this strategy is that when your gun is by your face, it puts your elbows in the vicinity of your chest pack, making it harder for someone to kill you with a shot to the chest. This is not breaking rule #13 below because it’s a real combat strategy not a cowardly attempt at not getting shot.

2. Don't move too fast. First, you'll run into things if you go too fast. Second, you'll miss opportunities to shoot the other guys. Be methodical, and look everywhere. Point your gun where you’re looking, and shoot when you see something.

3. Shoot at everything, especially if there's no penalty for shooting your own teammates. Don't shoot your own guys intentionally, but if you're not sure, shoot first and get a positive ID later.

4. Find less-used areas of the playing field and exploit them. There's a part of our local arena that no one goes in much. Except me. I can shoot other players from there who don't expect me to be there.

5. Find well-traveled areas of the playing field and exploit them. I like to find the halls that feed in and out of the popular areas and shoot people as they come and go. That's a very handy trick.

6. Follow people. When someone runs right by you without shooting, it means they don't know you're there. Follow them and shoot them when you get a chance. Then duck behind a wall and if they're stupid enough not to get out of there, shoot them again when their pack comes back to life.

7. Always shoot the chest. Shoulders are a stun, but the chest is a kill. Big points difference. So learn to aim your gun and shoot at the good stuff.

8. Hide your own chest. If you're sniping, you WILL get seen eventually. So keep your vital parts hidden behind a wall. Only let the other guys see your gun. Then they can only shoot your gun. If you're running along a wall, crouch so your chest is below the wall. You don't want to die, do you?

9. Don't tell people where you're going. In other words, run away, but then run back. Odds are, you'll get an easy kill on someone who thinks you're long gone.

10. Oh yeah, when you're outnumbered, DO run. Run, damn you! Then maybe circle back and pick them off one at a time.

11. Don't get all hung up on bunkering down in a spot and holding it. Seriously, if it's such a great spot, why are so many people shooting you? Towers are a good example of this. Yeah, it's nice to have a height advantage, but when everyone flushes you out, maybe you don't want to go back there for a while, right? Last night we had guys that really, REALLY wanted to stay in the towers. So they died a lot. Because I killed them.

12. When you are shot (and you will be if you're playing with me), GO AWAY. Waiting around for your pack to come back to life so you can kill me is a bad strategy for two reasons. First, I'm probably not there anymore. Second, if I am sticking around to kill you again, I still have the advantage! Hello? My gun is still good! I can just shoot you over and over until you come back to life and then you're dead before you even get a shot off! Don't be stupid. Run when you're dead.

13. Don't cover your pack sensors with your hand. First, you've got three more sensors that your hand isn't covering that I WILL still shoot. And I'm a good shot. Second, you're a cowardly stupid little dink if you do this. Third, how are you going to use your gun effectively if you're too busy being a coward to think about shooting me? Fourth, did I mention that this is an extremely cowardly thing to do? Die with honor, you ugly Klingon.

My keyboard is going weird and I'm getting long-winded. So you're dismissed for now, maggots.

Congratulations, You Are Dead...

That was a pretty good LAN party.

Anyone who accuses me of feeling that way just because I did well and killed a lot will be vehemently shushed. And at least partly right.

I think we need to play that Subtransit map more often. On our last round in Subtransit, I lead the kills at 101. The runner-up was Leon, my team-mate, at 55. It was simply incredible.

I did OK in Crossfire and Boot Camp, but my-oh-my, I had no idea I could do that well in Subtransit. Wowser. And thanks for letting me win those, guys.

My son's face is just fine. It looked a lot worse at the time than it turned out to be. Now if he can just learn to stay in bed, we'll be great.

The wife and I are at peace again. The making up was nice. I like to make up.

Tomorrow I'll take my last final for this semester. It's been a hard semester.

Last night my parents got home from Bermuda. They had a great time, and they seem well sunned and rested.

And I'm going to be doing some fishing over the next couple of weeks.

In short, things are looking up! Now I have to find a job. Ick.