Everyday Stupidities

you sing first, I sing last

2009-07-03T18:09:00.000-07:00

Hiya, folks. I've been busy with the back and side yards, plus ruminating through my own internal collection of distractions. I guess you could say I've been more social lately than usual, with the result being that it's great to have contact with the larger world but when the day of mirth ends or the conversation that made me smile concludes, I slip into a little bit of a funk because I wish the mirth and conversation could go on and on... it's all very addictive when life is too quiet and sparcely populated. As the old song says, "I had too much to think last night." But sometimes I channel that energy into shovelling and putting up edging, as today's progress photo shows. I dug out the path, laid down an inch or so of gravel, and added sand to hold that in place. The original plan for today was that we were going to get outside with a roller which Paige's coworker was going to bring over and get the gravel/sand you see tamped down; the next step will be to put stepping stones on this path, add more gravel and sand to hold them in place, and work on the areas around the boxes with dirt and stuff... just noticed an hour ago the two flats of Corsican mint I bought for that area is dying of thirst. Anyhow, the roller in question rusted solid so it wasn't brought over, thus tomorrow we'll get a different tool ourselves to compress the path because we didn't get out of our jammies today. The tomatoes and squash and pumpkin starts are there looking healthy but not really getting larger; the pea and bean and lettuce/spinach seeds have germinated and when kept damp enough the leafies' sprouts don't go flaccid by noon (this keeps happening!). That's my third of July, when plenty of people got the day off because no one likes having a holiday fall on a weekend so they don't get that extra day of slacking off. I don't have fourth of July plans.

Many years around this time I bring up that I went to a Methodist summer camp for a week every year in my teen years to try to bring some fellowship and spirit into my life, recharge my internal batteries, be around people on the same wavelength, remove my mind from the noise it perpetually had running through it, hopefully find something close to the heart, and of course get the hell away from my family and that hot dusty town for awhile. I have mentioned in the past that I miss the camp because I lack the escape from the noise in my head, and lack that kind of fun and fellowship. But since this blog is about everyday stupidities, there are two things about the progression of time that bother me. (Okay, there's a lot about the progression of time that bother me, but specific to the camp thing.) First, the camp system offered weekend retreats for young adults between 18 and 30 as a way of helping the post-teenagers find their centers and faith again... and never in that span of my life did I ever attend. Second, I always swore when I was a camper that I would "give back" by coming back as a counselor... have never made an effort to get back into the church, demonstrate any sort of youth leadership, etcetera with which to apply myself to be a counselor. And I am fully aware that both of those shortcomings are my own doing.

Until next time...

another photo of progress, another entry without substance

2009-06-16T20:12:00.000-07:00

Fence and gate up, potted starts in at last. Then comes the hard part, putting in the path and adding dirt so planting of smallish stuff can go on around the path and boxes.

"it ain't easy getting to heaven when you're going down" -- David Bowie

2009-06-14T02:24:00.000-07:00

I'm not quite up to writing a new post with anything interesting to say, but I did kind of promise something "next week" so I'm fulfilling the contractual obligation tonight. Here's the big change, click the pic for a bit larger; compare to last time's picture of the side yard, circa yesterday afternoon. This isn't how the day ended; this was shot after getting the land tilled and weedblocker laid, boxes installed in the area, and four wheelbarrow loads of gravel laid down for drainage -- but right before six wheelbarrow loads of composty matter went into the boxes. My arms are pretty sore right now (shoveling in, shoveling out...) and it's bound to get worse since I will be dumping probably another six or more loads of composty matter in the boxes, plus eventually a bunch on the weedblocker so it can host foliage one can walk on (only plants obtained thusfar for that purpose being Corsican mint). The fencepost goes in where that hole front & center is later today, and I've got 90 pounds of concrete to make it stay there. Tomorrow I'll mount the fence and gate up on that post, soon as the concrete is set, so the world won't have to watch any longer.

Hmm, could always add -- mercifully briefly -- that I added the Linux operating system to a partition on my notebook. That has been an adventure, and not just because I know no Linux command language. In terms anyone can grasp: There's a lot of hype in the support and geekery worlds for a distribution of Linux called Ubuntu because it can be run directly from disk -- helpful if Windows on your computer got broken so you can't boot up from the hard drive, so you can get in there and fix things. I started with that, and discovered an odd quirk: If I boot from the CD, I can get online; if I install Ubuntu (more accurately Xubuntu, a smaller version meant for low-memory computers like my notebook) everything works except networking, it refuses to use the connection... and also inexplicably has the same effect on Windows, which it shouldn't begin to meddle with. That's not right. So I guess I can use this disk for what people are always hyping it for, but that's it. Okay, still wanting to get a taste of Linux, I did some research and found that my best friend Chrome's preferred version, Slackware, has a tangental development called Slax which is very compact, runs faster!, boots off a CD, was constructed so you can just add programs by dropping a compressed file into a folder (think in Windows terms: "run a program from a Zip archive without having to unpack and install it"), and if one can install Slax to their hard drive (the latest version doesn't make it easy or obvious how, like the previous one which had an installer right there on the programs list) it does work just fine for getting online and so forth. So I've got that, I've played with it for a little while, and I'm happy... now to actually learn something practical from this.

3 a.m. and I need to go to bed, I know I'm gonna be sore and stiff when I wake up, but you got an update of sorts anyhow. Here, have a rose from my garden, I gots plenty of them.

after a month's silence...

2009-06-05T22:28:00.000-07:00

Wow, has it been a month? Sorry... I remember saying that I would blog from the road, and I did have online access every day (if you follow my Flickr stream you had daily updates), but as for writing? I kinda put it off. We left Tacoma on May 11 (happy 41st birthday, Karen) and drove to La Grande, Oregon for the night... We buzzed halfway through Idaho and spent the night in Tremonten, Utah... Drove all the way through Utah for a surreal night at the Tropicana in Las Vegas... visited Hoover Dam and since we had the Grand Canyon on our agenda we spent the night in Williams, Arizona and then visited the Canyon in the early afternoon... Finally we got to auntie's house in Sun City, Arizona on the evening of the 15th. Here's the Grand Canyon [click picture for a screen-size version]:
We stayed with her through the weekend, taking a day trip to the ghost town of Congress and the future ghost town of Yarnell, and saw other relatives. So we picked up our stakes on the 19th and cruised over to Banning, California... California is a long-ass state so we had a second night there, halfway up the map in Merced... Determined to get the hell out of California we stopped driving in Ashland, Oregon, home of the perpetual Shakespeare festival... We had a date in Portland with a friend of mine after he got off of work at 6 p.m. so we had a great time in the historic town of Jacksonville to pass the time, then met up with him for a fancy dinner, and since it's only another 120 miles to Tacoma from Portland we were in our driveway at ten minutes until midnight on the 21st (see the odometer, posted at 4 a.m. May 23nd).

We slept and lounged for the next three days. So since that point, once we got our butts back in gear, we've acquired materials for our next home improvement project: we're connecting the edge of the in-spite-of fence we put up between us and the neighbors a year ago to the unused side of the house (having ripped out the rotting fence that was there over the last few months), ripping up the weed-choked ground on that side of the house -- an 8' by 25' area -- to lay down weed blocker and put in a couple 8' by 3' planter boxes which I'm currently building, plus there will be the cleanup / weed-blocking / re-doing of the path between the porch and the side of the house as well as the planting area in the front yard next to where we're doing all this work. I haven't posted any pictures on Flickr of the progress yet, so the two below are more than anyone else in the world has seen unless you come by the house (y'all are welcome):
The big picture on the left is the Before image, the huge mess that side of the yard has become. The smaller picture on the right is the visible progress -- stained and bolted a 4x4 to the corner post (because of where the phone boxes are on the side of the house, the gatelatch post on the house side has to be back a bit) plus stained and rigged up a 2x6 to close the intentional gap between my front fence and the neighbor's back fence, and I've cut down the weeds so I could spray them with Roundup. Once those are dead I'll rake up and rototill the area, plant the center post for holding up the fence and a gate, etcetera ad nauseum.

What else is there to report? Eh, probably plenty. Maybe next week.

More useless information, all the time!

2009-05-05T00:44:00.000-07:00

Hello... It's been a busy two weeks and will be a bit more before I get back here to talk, since my wife and I are going to take a vacation drive down to Arizona next week. I intend to take a flock of pictures, digital and on film, though I hate to say the thought of the area doesn't excite me much. How can I not be excited by the Grand Canyon, Arches, several Indian reservations, and so forth? I don't rightly know, I've never pictured that part of the country as being my cup of tea. However, if I find a ghost town with a pioneer cemetary I might sing a different tune. The occasion of us having the time and ability, beside it being our 11th anniversary (a couple days ago), is that her library is having its air conditioning system replaced and that will take one to two weeks. I'm told that it's a necessary update since one can clean the counters at 9 p.m. before leaving for the night and there will be dust on them when the staff comes in at 9 a.m. -- personally, I think changing the air filters every three months as indicated rather than every two years might help some. I will be updating my Flickr stream as close to daily as possible, but I won't waste your time by blogging on my trip... or more than maybe once, depending upon accomidations.

This is the part of the entry where I usually write something about some stupidity seen out in the world, and there's always plenty to choose from. I don't have one that sticks out in my mind right now, which you should consider a good thing because I can only think of nice things that have happened lately... like two friends from different compass points driving over 120 miles to visit me on the same day, I spent an afternoon with my junior year locker partner the other day, my sister sent me a couple photos of her kids, and I have the big-ass boxed set of Depeche Mode's new album (it's overkill but there's some cool stuff in it). I can set aside my bothers and concerns for another week or so, or until I get back from the desert trip anyhow. So I'll catch you next time. Hope all is good with you.

How to record on one channel while watching another channel on Digital TV

2009-04-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

Background: The Sony Betamax was introduced in 1975, and the VHS hit the market in 1976. By the late 1980's, most people were recording programs they would have otherwise missed by being absent as well as recording something on one channel while watching another channel. Advances in technology gave us the digital video recorder (DVR) in the 00's which did the same functions, recording something on one channel whether you were watching another channel or not at the time, and this activity became known as "time-shifting". Further advances in technology have caused the Federal Communications Commission to rule that all future broadcasts (after a date that keeps sliding, from Feb to June) must be transmitted in digital format rather than analog. Up until recently, all televisions and recording equipment people already own were analog devices. There are several converter boxes available, either on the shelf or provided by the cable television sources (I got one from Comcast free the other day) to accomidate this, and some new recorders (DVD as well as VCR/DVD combos) have digital tuners. DVR's should already have digital tuners.

Issue: Pretty much every new recorder, however, lacks the ability to record on one channel while viewing another channel. Not even the Panasonic VCR/DVD model displayed at Costco with a big placard saying "you can watch while recording" lets you do what those words appear to mean -- what they meant was that you can watch a videotape while recording programs to a DVD (or vice versa), not watching one channel while recording another. The wiring diagrams for converter boxes and digital tuner recorders may include how to hook multiple items up to one television, but none of the manuals say how one is supposed to watch "American Idol" while recording "NCIS" on your average (analog) TV.

Solution: I was looking at the wiring diagram for my new VCR/DVD recorder with digital tuner, which for the "to use with cable box" (if you have premium channels thus require one) section showed the wiring going from the wall to the RF jack on the recorder, the recorder to the RF jack on the cable box, cable box to the RF jack on the television, but then additionally cables going from the A/V-in jacks on the television to the A/V-out jacks on the recorder, and the A/V-in jacks on the recorder to the A/V-out jacks on the cable box. Hmm, maybe if you have a digital TV since the recorder has to be turned off to record (just like VCRs always did) and the TV would be doing the signal processing, but this is not what most of us have. So I got to thinking, what if I put that free converter box back into use -- a nice idea anyway since what the recorder determines as channels is vastly different than what the cable box lists (example: HGTV is 68 on the cable box and 102.7 on the recorder) and Comcast's special offerings are exclusive to their box -- on a splitter, then had the recorder going to the TV's RF jack and the cable box going to the TV's A/V jacks? I could flip between the two by pressing the TV/AV button on the television's remote, same as I already was doing before the changeover to go between cable or VCR and the DVD player. And in a few minutes of rewiring, I had things working such that I'm recording a Maniners baseball game on Fox Sports Network at this moment while watching "Good Buy, Bad Buy" on HGTV. Had enough of my balloon juice?

Procedure: I had a coaxial splitter from Radio Shack laying around, it's a pretty common piece of equipment. All the new equipment came with wires and cables, which I didn't necessarily need because I'd replaced the old VCR and DVD players so had existing rigging. I went from the wall to the splitter, then on one splitter jack the coax goes to the RF-in on the recorder, then from the RF-out to the RF jack on the TV (what comes this way is shown on channel 3) -- and on the other splitter jack the coax goes to the RF-in on the converter box, and connected A/V cables from the A/V-outs on the converter box to the A/V jacks on the TV (what comes this way is shown on the Video screen). See my rather bluish diagram below, cut-and-paste pieced from the Panasonic manual for my purposes, for a schematic. The TV/AV button (also known as TV/Media) does flip between the two, and both paths are providing crystal-clear digital signal to the TV.

a short pair of statements that aren't about computers

2009-04-15T22:18:00.000-07:00

Hiya, party people. So let's see, what's worth reporting... First thing that comes to mind is the stupidity of this whole teabagging thing. I don't mean sticking one's testacles in someone's face, though there are creative uses for that mental image. I mean all these mock Boston Tea Party protests people are staging. I haven't been keeping up as to what kind of taxation without representation people are talking about, though suspect that the folks who were at the original party in 1773, protesting against huge corporate tax cuts for the British East India Company, might get a weird look on their faces and say "what are you people bitching about?" (or the 1770's equivalent) to the riled citizens. I'm just curious: Where do these people think the money to fund the things they are also concerned about comes from? Do these people have a better plan or know of some elected/running-for-office figure that can get the country out of an economic crisis without anyone having to inconvenience anyone or spend any money? Of course not. If you're not about the solution, you're about the precipitate.

I will be visiting my beloved Yakima Valley one day next week for something to do, weather permitting. (Those who don't live in Washington: maaan, it's been weird here lately. Hailstorms one day, 70's and sunny the next... It's confusing the hell out of the plant life.) In an odd twist, one of the people I was going to visit at his work will be coming to my house this weekend so the things I'd want to give or show him when I get there I will have already done so. :-D I'll be letting the folks on Facebook that are on the travelogue know what's up. In other visitation news, I had the opportunity to see the inside of a local craftsman-style home that's between owners and needs a few repairs (most noteably the wood floors need to be stripped, sanded, and refinished); it's an odd case because it's probably the oldest house in that neighborhood and has the most history and character -- the other older houses there are either small or run-down, and the rest of the houses are new and pretty yet pretty much without a soul, and someone put a stupid friggin' duplex (also vacant and run-down) in the lot between the house and the street. Here's a picture of the art-glass window as taken from the livingroom. The ones I took six weeks ago when last I was through there were shot through the side windows, doing it little justice.

Geek Ranting Alert 2: how the optical media was lost

2009-04-08T04:07:00.000-07:00

Once again, if talking computers isn't your thing, drop down a couple entries. A regular one will be coming soon... just gotta bitch right here, right now. In the same itemized form as previously:

* Attempt to buy dual-layer DVD media from same low-price location as the dual-layer DVD burner. Curiously they don't have any.
* Find two-pack of dual-layer DVD media at drugstore for $10. Knowing it's way more expensive there than other places, buy it anyway.
* Spend an hour copying two single-layer DVD backups of files to the hard drive.
* Spend an hour or two sorting through the files to lessen the number of duplicates, misplaced items, and incorrect file/folder names.
* Open up burner program, spend less than an hour double-checking that there are even fewer duplicates, misplaced items, and incorrect file/folder names. With each change, update file list in burner program.
* Single-layer DVDs are advertised as 4.7gb, but really hold about 4.5gb. Dual-layer DVDs are advertised as holding 8.5gb (not 9.4 like you'd think) but really hold 8.1gb (not 8.5gb). Move some less imperative folders out of the list until the barometer at the bottom of the burner program is to the left of the limit-line.
* Insert one dual-layer DVD media, spend the next hour burning. Notice that despite the fact that the burn rate is 2.4x, computer lagging to hell when writing an email anyway.
* At the wrapup portion of the burn, discover that I forgot to remove one reference to one file that got moved. Which I find out in the summary message, saying that I've created a $5 coaster. See, "disk-at-once" style burning requires everything expected to be there before it will create the Table Of Contents index... so basically, it's spent the last hour burning a disk, but claims that there's no disk in the drive after because the list of files didn't get laid down. Not even the SmartErase program mentioned last entry recognises the disk.
* Get angry, cut up unuseable yet undestroyable disk with scissors [see illustration].
* Insert second dual-layer DVD media, check "Simulation" so it will make sure everything's fine with the file list before doing a burn, set burner program into motion.
* Notice this is going to take longer than expected, cancel operation. As usual, the burner program doesn't want to stop and the light on the burner flashes long after the program has been forced to close. Reboot computer.
* Pull out disk, see the widening white ring on the underside, and discover the damn thing was actually getting burned! Wonder what part of "Simulation" the computer didn't understand and cut up my last $5 coaster.
* Make plans to buy more disks, this time at Target which sells ten-packs of dual-layer DVD media for $15. Stop blogging, go to bed cuz it's quarter-til-5 a.m.
[oh but wait, there's more...]
* Actually get up, actually go to South Hill Target, actually buy the only package of $15-for-10 dual-layer DVD media, actually listen to the new Depeche Mode album to and from so I wound up sitting in my car for half an hour finishing it out.
* Turn on computer, open up package... discover half of these disks are used. Nice ploy, putting one's coasters in a package then returning it for a refund, so Target will put it back on the shelf. This was the only one, like I said.
* Go back to Target, get refund, go looking at other places nearby which don't carry dual-layer media if they have blank disks at all. Refuse to go to that drugstore.
* Go to the Lakewood Target, they have three boxes and the plastic wrap is intact, purchase. Come home, burn that disk, call it a night.
* Next morning, find 50 more files that didn't get burned because they were not in the right place (forgot I had, could not find when searching originally so thought I'd deleted, overnight updates to what I had archived). Toss out good ($1.50) disk, make better disk, NOW we're done.

Geek Ranting Alert 1: how the optical drive was won

2009-04-02T14:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I wrote "All is well now" at the end of the paragraph about having to replace my CD-RW drive, and that's still true. But there's more to the story that came along later. If computer wrangling talk isn't your thing just skip this and go to yesterday's entry, I'll understand. Seems everyone I've told the bare bones of the story to so far (having Facebook and a couple messenger programs open while I was doing the work) has universally used the phrase, "if I understood what you were talking about..." So here it is in bullet point form:

* Noticed on the drive's box that "SmartErase", which can securely destroy a CD or DVD that you had previously created (this doesn't work on store-bought disks so your music and movies are safe), is prominently mentioned. Also noticed this is not mentioned anywhere in the owner's manual, which does go on at length about the LightScribe label maker (which this drive doesn't have -- its sister model the HAP422 does that trick), and that the drive came with Nero 7 Essentials, a very basic burner software that is two full versions behind the current Nero version.
* I am using Nero 8.1, so I don't see the point of downgrading. But I want that SmartErase feature. Nero 8.1 doesn't offer it on the menu. Checked a drive review website, it mentions only Nero 7 Essentials and has a description of SmartErase being used. I am thinking that maybe the software didn't 'adjust' when I put in the new drive so I should reinstall it in hopes it will say, "oh, you have a LiteOn HAP322, let's add the option to the utilities menu!"
* Uninstall Nero 8.1 and reboot.
* Download Nero 9 from the maker's website. Download manager crashes twice due to other things I was doing. I remember when Nero 4 was like 14 megabytes because all it did was burn CDs; Nero 9 is like 835 megabytes and wants to be your everything. So this takes about an hour to complete.
* 23% of the way through the unpacking of Nero 9, error dialog: File corrupt.
* Delete and re-download Nero 9. No crashes.
* Gets 100% of the way through the unpacking of Nero 9, program disappears completely. Repeat this a couple times, it doesn't begin the install. Look up available hard drive space, figure 900 megs isn't enough, move my photos off that drive to another and this frees up 2 gigs.
* This time it completes the unpacking before putting up an error dialog: This will not work with this version of Windows, see website for details.
* Takes me 10 minutes to find the product specs, and this is the first I see anywhere that Nero 9 is for XP and Vista only... they dropped Windows 2000 use?!
* Spend time hunting for version 8.3.13, since if I'm going to be stuck with version 8 I might as well make sure it's the latest one. Don't find it offhand on maker's site, don't want to Torrent it, find that someone's made it available on Rapidshare as two RAR archives. Not being a member it's gonna take me an hour and being sneaky due to the site's limitations to download both parts...
* An hour and one modem powercycle later, I have both parts of Nero 8.3.13. They reintegrate fine. The program installs fine, and as usual I spend five minutes cutting down the install options of this 250 meg program into the three components I will ever use. I do not see SmartErase mentioned.
* Run program, insert an old CD-R of music, I still don't see how to erase a disk. Look on Nero's site, it mentions nothing about the SmartErase. But Nero 8.3.13 is working otherwise so that's one victory.
* Do yet another search on Google, and this time it points me to the SmartErase application which is available for download from a CD/DVD tweaker site's utilities section, uploaded in the same month in which the sticker says my drive was manufactured. The application looks like the screen pictured on the box, and the description only says it was part of a software bundle. Not Nero 7 Essentials, a different package. Hey, whatever's clever.
* Search the Nero 7 Essentials disk for this application as a stand-alone program, do not see it readily, figure it might be hiding in one of the CAB files but I'm not going to go hunting all over the disk for it if I can download the thing.
* Download SmartErase utility, run, erase the music disk as proof of concept, happy happy. Wonder aloud why this was so hard and why this is the only place with the utility. Add to the "Nero Tools" folder since that's where it should have been in the first place. There's no credits screen in this program to tell where it came from, who wrote it, or anything else that would be useful for seeking the source or newer versions. I visit LiteOn's site and find a few disk utilities but not this. Shrug.
* Mission accomplished, it's 3:30 a.m., consider myself victorious and go to bed.

a nice orderly rice pilaf with a side of Sizzlean (no joke)

2009-04-01T01:47:00.000-07:00

Greetings, people. I'm amused by the Conficker worm panic that is brewing because all the reports say, straight up, that despite the fact the virus keeps have known about this beast since last November they don't know what it does. And fear that today it will morph into some other form and/or be launched into action, whatever that is. Not to be a total cybercynic (oh wait, I am) but really, anyone remember Comet Kohoutek or the Y2K scare? I was thinking just the other day that no one talks about April Fools' Day anymore, but whatever media coverage that worm is getting might just make up for it. Anyhow. Pictured here is something more real, the first LED-based spotlight that screws into an average indoor light socket that I've held in my hands (after years of hearing about their development). While most reports about this type of lighting say that they have a life of 100,000 hours thus last 10 years, ergo why the outlets offering them charge so much, this one is a 45 watt equivalent that only uses 3.5 watts and cost $9. Stronger exist. Candelabra-style LED lights are also available at the same discounter I got this at.

I haven't taken the time to confirm this as a user error or an actual stupidity (it could be either, I was monkeying around inside my computer installing RAM afterall and could have knocked a cable loose) but at this moment my CD burner is listed in My Computer and reacts when the icon is clicked, but isn't actually reading disks. If it's a connection error, fine, I fix in seconds. If the drive actually has bit the electronic dust, which wouldn't be the first time (this Hi-Val internal was the replacement for a Phillips that died a poorly-timed death in front of company), I might have a spare sitting behind me but not as fast as this one. Grr. [later that same day...] Not the connections. Yes, I have three drives behind me -- one I know is broken because I replaced it for someone, two work but they are 2x CD-RWs made in 1999 -- so I hopped off to everyone's favorite store and bought a 22x dual layer DVD burner. All is well now.

A confession to make... For a long while I've sneered at sites like LiveJournal, MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook. I've even bragged about my sneering at those sites, because I like to be far too l33t about technology. Well, three out of four remain the same -- LiveJournal is way too emo, MySpace has too many vain kids, Twitter has a name that speaks for itself (lots of twits with only about 160 characters' worth of things to say), but... *sigh* I did join Facebook a couple weeks ago. Primarily to keep in touch with friends "back home" (or originally from there) who can't seem to write the same things in a direct email, share photos from a concert I went to beside those old friends with the folks in the bands as well as those 20 year high school reunion pictures only one other classmate had ever seen before, and chat with a couple people that can't seem to install a dedicated instant messenger program. Five people begged me to join, I did, and after their initial "we have converted j00!" messages haven't been on much themselves... figures. So beside the benefit of obtaining the phone numbers of a couple people I lost track of about twenty years ago, I say it's "just there." A nice tool for some purposes but not all that and a bag of coleslaw as some people act like it is, and (sorry, little brother) I wouldn't consider blogging or sharing anything personal there since the only people who would see stuff are people I've dubbed friends. That leaves out so many! The 80's trivia games are kinda cool but whomever wrote that "What flavor of lip gloss are you?" quiz needs to sprout some pubes. Oh, and whoever created that IQ Test bullshit, which has a game-looking ad on every Facebook game page and the tip-off that it's a scam is where it asks for your cell phone carrier and phone number, needs to die in a fire. So I bring up my Facebook presence, with a bit of sneer intact, not to invite anyone to look me up [don't] but because by now a number of the people who I told "I will never join!" for ages are aware that I have indeed joined and I don't want to be a total hypocrite. (Part-time, perhaps.) Just rolling with the new, since the previous edition of this exact same concept (realtime chat, message boards, special interest groups, email, door games) is something I subscribed to heavily in the late 1980's and through the 1990's, dial-up bulletin board systems... this is just on a more nationwide/global basis than Backwaters Of The Mind BBS ever was, and having broadband it doesn't tie up my phone line. :)

your love's contageous, one kiss is dangerous...

2009-03-16T20:58:00.000-07:00

Hello, one and all. The most interesting thing I've done lately is going to a show at a cafe/bar in Seattle a couple days ago to see a guy I hung out with in junior high perform with a couple bands, having been invited to this by my junior year locker partner, I got to talk to his sister who I had a class with when I was in the sixth grade, and I was joined by my best friend from elementary school [at right], another classmate, and the drummer for the band I was in during college. If you find that Mighty Shiny and/or Mountain Kids Fantasy are playing near you (it could happen) go see 'em. Yeah, yeah, everything was orchestrated through Facebook except getting me in, which used good old-fashioned email. I spent all of Sunday recuperating. :-D Paige meanwhile was on the other side of the state visiting relatives for their annual St. Patrick's Day festivities, with several people flying or driving hours to get there, and got back this afternoon because the mountain passes were being snowed under. So we both had an exciting time over the weekend.

The silly thing, some would even call it stupid (six people definitely would) is that 3/4 of the people in that place were there to hear the first two bands. And left when the bands did. The headliner, a six-piece band which included a steel drum and a violin, didn't have much of a crowd left by the time they started playing a Dave Matthews cover... My group felt kinda sorry for them as we left. Only kinda.

Trivial ~~life~~ computer notes: At long last the memory for my computer arrived so hopefully there will no longer be 20 seconds between when I click on the browser when I've been reading email and when it's ready to browse, and I spent a bit of time refurbishing an uninterruptable power supply (UPS) that I have had laying around for a year. It's a completely different model than the one I have been using for a few years so I had to make a communications cable (that's how the computer knows how much juice is in the battery and can shut it down if the AC goes out for more than fifteen minutes) and buy a replacement. After installing the software everything is good, things work as expected, except for one detail... The old one, for home use, would put a dialog onscreen when there was a problem with the backup power. This new one, meant for servers, will send an email or a network message to someone but not display a dialog (because admins don't sit at a server terminal all day; they have smoking out back and first-person shooter games in their office to do). But the solution was easy and what I rely upon with the previous UPS: a buzzer comes on if the power's been out for several seconds, and beeps a few times every minute while it's out. The UPS is less than 3 feet from the computer and about one foot from my legs so it's not like I'm going to miss the alarm.

The weather here has improved a bit, now we're up to rain (sometimes plain, sometimes blotchy sleetish) instead of snow. But it's still wonky because you look out the window to see if it's still raining, the sun is out and shining, then by the time you've gotten your shoes on it's dark and raining hard again. Plus there have been windstorms lately, not too bad where I am but the news has been filled with trees-on-powerlines stories from places 50 miles north.

Hope it's good where you are for the next week, Jamie, and decent where the rest of you readers are.

freshmen do it enthusiastically -- but bless them, they aren't that good at it

2009-03-10T13:13:00.000-07:00

Howdy hiya. The game was still on with the eBay seller for the battery until yesterday. *sigh* Here's a summation of the dialog. I hate bringing this up yet again but it shoulda been friggin' over by now! Okay. You saw a couple weeks ago, around Feb 20, that I had done a Return Merchandise Authorization through their website. Days pass and I don't hear anything from them except a note saying they'd left me positive feedback. It's not often sellers give feedback before the transaction is totally over, but left hand didn't tell right hand, etc. We're into March now, and the story resumes on the fifth through to today...

me: Hi, I haven't heard anything from you about my RMA so I was wondering what's happening.
them: Oh, that got sent out on Feb 26.
me: okay...
them: sends the shipping notice I didn't get earlier, saying it went out on Feb 25 and click this link for tracking.... USPS page says they didn't receive the package from the seller.
me: Hi again, you know that tracking link you gave me? It says the package didn't go out. Could you look into this?
them: Uh, what was the eBay item number and your username?
me: gave them item#, username, and RMA# - quoted the earlier email with the package tracking number and USPS's didn't-receive message. You already know how I hate techs that don't read ticket notes.
them: Oh, that got sent out on Feb 25.
me: Not according to your shipper! It's been over 10 days, it should have come by now. I'll be following up with you on Wednesday, two weeks after you say it was sent out. In the meantime, could you figure out what's up with that package?

Why is this so bloody hard? [twelve hours later] Okay, I have the replacement battery now and it hasn't gone 'poof' yet. Wait, before you say, "you should be patient, Mushy!" -- the postage label on the package is dated March 7. Saturday, when they got the second-italicized-above message from me. I'm good with them realizing the shipping error and correcting it, but am unclear why the next volley still said it went out on Feb 25, not "whoops, error, we're sending it now"...

So, the previously-promised review of the Bio-Ear tinnitus remedy by Nature's Answer, which is $20 a half-ounce. What I've read says that one will see results in as little as a week... I decided to give myself two weeks just to be on the safe side. "Designed to safely and effectively stop the ringing and buzzing in your ears, this natural herbal remedy contains aloe vera for nourishing nerve endings and ginseng for stimulating blood flow so you can experience that inner peace and quiet you so desperately desire." So far, after probably a week and a half, I've heard no difference. Possibly because I'm paying attention to the noise, which I normally don't do. I realize there are various causes of this issue, and knowing me it might be from damage to a cranial nerve from popping my neck or damage to the eardrum itself from a cotton swab (I have had scarring before from overzealous earwax removal) rather than something this can remedy. It's not bad, it's just there, and before you say "go to a doctor"... like a lot of people, I will when I have a job with health insurance again.

The weather here in the Puget Sound area has been really stupid. It'll be totally sunny and warm, then ten minutes later there will be a driving hailstorm. Or you'll go out and get the paper off the porch, it's mildly overcast and a bit cool outside, then when you look up from the front page it's snowing heavily. Other than some Kodak moments and head-scratching, the only effect that it's had on me directly is that my wife and I didn't go out this weekend like we had planned. See, her mother was going to drive across Snoqualmie Pass to do some shopping at IKEA on Friday and it was all planned out how we were going to have lunch with her. Night before, the pass is closed because of heavy snow. Friday we sleep in. Friday afternoon we get a call from her saying that it's open so she'll be over on Saturday morning. Snowing again, and she calls at 10am to say cancel our noon rendezvous. More sleeping in. She's now saying Tuesday, when Paige has to work at noon, or failing that this coming Friday, which will be the last chance for her to do her furniture shopping before her granddaughter with the hex wrench shows up for their St. Patrick's Day festivities. Furthermore, since the nightly news says to expect 20 inches on the pass in the near future, it's possible that Paige might not be going over there for St. Patty's either. It's too warm for snow to stick in Tacoma because it's MARCH... enough with the pointless frozen precipitation already! Oh look, a snow flurry has just started [noon 3/9] and it's sticking in places...

So this morning [10am 3/10] the phone rings. Backstory first: Now, maybe I've mentioned this before, but I'm listed in the phone book by my first initial B, and there's some guy named Benjamin with the same last name that has been ducking his creditors since the late 1990's. We're not related, but the phone solicitors see the initial and immediately think I'm that deadbeat. Now then... The woman asks to speak to Benjamin. Nope, no Benjamin here, I tell her, and never has been. Now, most of the time the creditors will say "oh, sorry, I'll remove your name" or somesuch. This woman, after being told that I am not the 'droid she's looking for, corrects herself by saying this is Comcast and they want to send me a free digital converter box, they just need to confirm some information. *Click* Had I not been 1/4 asleep I would have said what came to me about a minute later: "Please work on your social engineering skills. Comcast knows my name." Needless to say, later when I checked the Caller ID box it was listed as "toll-free". FAIL

and wisdom to know the difference

2009-03-01T00:45:00.000-08:00

Hello, adoring public of my adorable public blog. There's only one item to offer, an update to last issue's story. A word of welcome to my seventh reader, my younger brother, who offers a word of greeting (by name!) to my second reader, Jamie. He wrote me back to clarify that he did indeed write the previous letter himself, and in this latest letter demonstrated further that his writing style is very much like that of our mother so I am convinced. He did show her the letter before responding, though, so it was not absolutely without influence. :) He also stated, pardon my lack of quoting, that what was said before was indeed the opinion he holds of me, and that he wishes to stay on the porch with our parents (yes, he phrased it in response to what I said here last week). There was more said but it's not germaine to the original issue; we did seem to agree on one thing, that I should [and do] praise God every day that I have never had children. And that as they say is that, his family and mine won't soon be having a weenie roast. I haven't heard anything from my youngest brother yet, and this email I got from my sister wasn't a reply -- it was a forwarded patriotic story making the rounds.

I had originally planned to send my mother an email on March 1 with a status report: who wrote, what they said, and who didn't respond. But I realized a week ago that word gets around so she already knows the score. What I was going to say in that letter was that due to something my mother had said in her Christmas card, I made a New Year's Resolution... and I kept it. I wanted her to know I found her advice to be correct and that I followed it. Good or bad, win or lose, come what may, I reached out to my three siblings and asked them for an opinion about reclaiming some lost ground. I couldn't rightly say whether my mother, in pointing out that I've been distant from my siblings and how this is hardly commendable, had any notion at the time of whether they agreed or disagreed with our distance, but I suppose she and I both know now. I didn't a month ago, for sure. Hey, I tried, so the subject should be off of the table now.

I'll write something more upbeat and stupid next time. The other things that come to mind right now, like getting positive feedback early from the eBay seller that will be sending me a replacement for the defective battery or how this homeopathic remedy for tinnitis is working, are fairly trivial and disorderly. And in looking back over the two posts for the month of February, I've said parts of this already (but as I learned at my last job, there are people who like it when you repeat what you said a couple inches downscreen because they're amazingly lazy). I just wanted to get this out in the open, say some hello's, and remind myself that I should accept the things I cannot change while finding courage to change the things I can.

contractual obligation

2009-02-20T22:48:00.000-08:00

Hiya... I'm not terribly inspired to write and the one major stupidity that I have to share is indeed major but I don't really want to relive it. It took me a couple days to get my head around and past this, and I suppose it was a happy (for me) coincidence that a dear friend was having absurd times with her family regarding wills and financial arrangements, and elected to tell me all the sordid details. [Thanks, Bertie, I needed the laugh... glad that you can laugh over them too.] I will quote something I wrote elsewhere however to get my point across. These are real quotes from the letter that I sent my siblings and a response received the other day from my five-years-younger brother:

Feb 2, 2009
Dear younger brother: I have not been much of a part of your family's lives. At no point in my adult life have I ever had a dislike for my siblings, and I have embraced that they have found special people and produced beautiful children. I would like to bridge the gap that has long existed between me and you, it just doesn’t seem like something that should exist. But it’s not as simple as just resolving to fix things, I want you to send me an email and tell me what you think. You can be honest if you are comfortable with our distance, but I want to know what your thoughts are regardless so please give me a response. I’ve long made no effort to keep in touch with my family and now I am making an earnest effort to reach out to you.

Feb 17, 2009
Dear older brother: I received your letter in regards to reconnecting and becoming a new and improved part of our lives. I must admit I was a little surprised to see a letter from you. Being that you have never really cared about anyone in this family except yourself, I must ask why you write this letter now. Is it really that you sincerely want to reconnect, someone trying to push you to reconnect, or maybe its even this years New Year’s resolution? Whatever your reason for this attempt to connect, I will play along.

Wow. I don't consider it paranoid to say that my mother wrote that, not my brother, and here is the evidence: First, the letter was an attachment in .doc format, not something that was typed in the email program. Second, there were two weeks between when I sent the letter and when I got the reply, which is ample time for my sibs to contact my parents and say "what shall we do with this?"... and my mother to jot something up for my brother to pass along. Third, while I have no idea what my brother's writing style is nowadays, that was most definitely my mother's writing style and phrasing. The first thing I wrote in reply was, "do you really feel that way?" I haven't had any follow-up from him or others just yet, but I decided after mulling for a couple days that if this is how my siblings think of me, it pains me but they will have to stay on the porch with our folks. See, it's been said in various ways and places, but I keep my parents at bay because I am happier without the drama and disregard. I'm the black sheep of the family and they let me know it at every opportunity. I would hope that my siblings realise (I know that my sister totally understands, she grinds an axe harder than I do at times!) that our parents' approach doesn't work, and not use it themselves. If they do, sigh, then they've made a bad choice and I'll stay over here in my world. They're welcome to think whatever they will after that.

There has been one other stupid thing... Okay, I told the story earlier about how the three laptop batteries I have are all nonfunctional (2 not recognised, 1 not charging). I had bookmarked a couple sellers online who offered them for under $30. I decided to wait until the tax refund was lined up, then I went on a shopping spree. Both of those websites had raised their prices above $60. Fine, I went to eBay and found someone offering the batteries for $29.95 and bought one, which came in the mail yesterday. I put it in, it's recognised! And charging! But inside of an hour later, after the charge level had gone from 59% to 68%, the red light on the notebook came on. The charging firmware says there's been a failure in the battery... and I can smell burned circuitry ("the magic smoke got out" as we techies say). Fuuuuuhh. Cooked. The seller's procedure says: email us, and if you don't hear anything within 4 business hours email us again, and if you don't hear anything from us within 8 hours call us at the number eBay has on record. Nothing in 4 hours, or the next morning. I can't find any phone number through eBay or the seller's website. Sent another email, they replied to this one telling how to plug in and charge a battery (I love script monkeys!) but to their credit also advising to go to their website and click on the "generate RMA" link at the top of the page (wow, had I known I would have done that yesterday!), and send it back. Bonus giggle: I went to the eBay page to get all the model details for the RMA, and the price they are charging went up to $33.95 -- what's the sudden rise, everyone? That's what I did around 4 p.m. today, so they should be replacing it shortly... Just bugs me that I have to wait some more. But they appear to be good sports so far so I'll just think positive.

Actual stupid thing someone said dept: Phone rings. Caller ID gives the name of a business I did a cattle-call interview with years ago, they sell air filtration systems and at the time were looking for demonstrators (a.k.a. salespeople) by advertising with the line "do you like to eat Doritos and chug Mountain Dew?"... when to do the job you had to be anything but a slacker. I didn't take them up on it because they repeatedly said this "was not sales"; sorry, selling an item is sales, not merely the operators who are standing by to take your order. I answer the phone, the person says this isn't a sales call (giggle!) but a survey about air quality. I answer the standard questions about my home and life, and the one that tripped me was, "okay, now what age bracket are you in... 21 to 75?" Only one. That's quite the demographic.

in case of emergency: scream a lot, it feels good

2009-02-06T23:08:00.000-08:00

Hi there. There isn't a lot to report about the world we live in and life in general, though I am probably overlooking something, but it is blog update time and I don't want to let the lot of you down. Right now I'm downloading a well-known software bundle that most new computers have preinstalled, which I cannot name because I don't really need the attention, but I think you know the one... you've seen the commercials with the guy in a suit and a bearded young man in casual clothes, which start off with the two announcing what form of computer they are? And the eventual message is that the latest major release by the suited guy has been somewhat of a disaster? Yeah, those ads, and that new product. But not for me, of course, it's for a friend who paid for that product (indirectly, with the purchase of a computer for her daughter) but cannot find the disks due to bad management and a recent move across the Cascade Mountains.

You have seen in previous entries how a friend deposited a desktop machine and a notebook computer at my house last year, so that I may invoke the power of Saint Dogbert -- heal broken technology with the wave of my paw and rid them of their demons of stupidity. The upshot of that tale, I think I reported, was that the owners of these computers needed to provide me with the CDs that came with the machines, a feat they could not and still cannot seem to accomplish. (The happy announcement "I found it!" which was followed by disks of one software package, some printer drivers, and the notebook's how-to-use guide was a letdown for all.) In time my friend said she would purchase new disks, not realizing that both the older stable version and the newer flaky version have a list price of $200 for the base installs, more if you want the ones that have psychic powers over kitchen appliances. So she's out hunting for better prices on those packages. Meanwhile, I'm taking the more direct route and downloading them from disreputable sources. I have one computer fixed using a ready-to-rock stripped down version of the older stable package, and according to BitZip (which somehow went from a beautiful and detailed Torrent client to a video player that, psst, also downloads Torrents and does a great job of it yet has lost all its beauty and detailedness) I have about twelve more hours to get the stripped-down version of the "ultimate" new package. I was given an option by my friend, after she'd made a couple calls, of me ordering it and someone else paying for it later so she could go pick it up tomorrow... no, I'm pretty sure that you have to pay when you order, so that won't work.

In other computer news, I haven't ordered the battery for my notebook yet but will do that sometime soon. Not a pressing issue. I want to have the tax refund on the way before I do that, and I would have gone on H&R Block's site a week an a half ago to do that had my wife not said, "We got this email at work, saying the office had messed up on our W-2's..." So far as I know the matter has been resolved but it's not as though she checks her email or remembers to ask anyone (or finishes the half-gallon of milk that expires in a week before starting a new container) so I have no idea. I'll do the taxes when I remember to do it in a lull.

And speaking of email and family nuttiness... I think I have mentioned that my mother gave me some grief in her Christmas card about not being tight with my siblings and their families. I did follow through on my New Year's resolution to get a letter drafted to my sister and two brothers by February 1, added ink to the printer, and sent them out on Groundhog's Day. In it, I asked them to each send me an email telling me their point of view about Paige and I being a new and improved part of their lives... I did it like that because I don't have my brothers' email addresses (they both Facebook so they do have computers and email) and my sister doesn't read her email. I have not received a response at this moment from any of them, but it's still early; they've only had those letters for 3-4 days. I plan to write my mother an email on March 1 to tell her who said what (or didn't say "what?") and politely add that I did take her words about my connection to my nestmates and their families to heart afterall. Little to no presentation on their part about wanting to be connected means she will never be able to give me any further static on the subject for the rest of either of our lives.

I used to write such fascinating posts...

and if it ain't that, what the hell is it?

2009-01-27T00:13:00.000-08:00

So the moment you've all been not particularly waiting for... After the last posting I got online and hunted up a new mainboard for the notebook, cheap ($10 plus $10 shipping, as opposed to $25-$250). And in fact, it's an upgrade -- I'm going from a 400MHz to a 500MHz so it's faster. Dell may suck at providing an owner's manual that's worth anything, but as for the Service Manual, it's amazing. So I spent an hour or so carefully taking the machine apart [photo] per the instructions, swapped out the motherboard, put everything back together, and it fired up on the first try so I did something right. But... It's still saying the unrecognised batteries are unrecognised and the one it does recognise isn't taking a charge. I know I asked last time, "what are the odds?" Well, there you go; the longshot wins, it's the batteries. Batteries cost $50-$125, though I've located two online dealers offering this model for $30. Hmm, welcome to my upgraded machine that for now I still have to plug into the wall?

On that other stupid issue I mentioned last time, the 2gb memory stick that isn't universally recognised... Kingston lamed out on me. If there's a known issue, for goodness sake, admit it. In this Information Age, we will know if there's a known issue courtesy of Google, possibly before the manufacturer is aware of it. So the end result of the back-and-forth was the guy suggesting I download USB driver updates from Dell (sorry, there are none) and ending that my port isn't compatable with the drive (gee, why not?). I thumbed my nose at the dude and told him there's a known issue, probably related to its power rating accidentally being higher than standard... look it up or own up to it, techie, Kingston 1gb and 4gb drives work where the 2gb drives fail. When I was checking notebook and UPS battery prices at Batteries Plus near the Mall ($33 for UPS cells is way good, $129 for the notebook battery is not so good) I noticed they had a pocketknife-folding 4gb drive made by MaxFlash [who?] for $20, so picked one up. Yeah, of course then I went across the Mall parking lot to BestBuy for a doodad and found they have Geek Squad branded 4gb thumbdrives for $12... I think I'll stick to no-name, I find myself assuming their Geek Squad drives are as reliable as their techie reputation. :-D

Photo: I was meandering through an abandoned house a few miles away with my camera, and the neighbor cat was looking through the big hole in the front door at me...

if it's not one thing, it's another -- or it's nothing realistic at all

2009-01-21T01:10:00.000-08:00

Hello, people. It's so good to see a new President inaugurated into office, and unlike most of the ceremonies that came before yesterday's this one actually had some spirit, some involvement from the citizens, instead of just being pomp and circumstance merely for the sake of expectation. It was a day! A day of celebration, excitement, joy, and enjoyment that everyone could share in. I watched the two swearings-in, followed by the next two hours of (in the words of the first President Bush, whispered to Barbara and caught by a CNN camera) "hurry up and wait". Then I went back to bed for another four hours because this boy does not live on five hours of sleep alone.

I have a serious stupidity or three to share. Here is the basic information which these apply to, which I will be repeating parts of in the context of the issues I am going to state: My new notebook computer has developed a new problem -- I hadn't touched it in a few weeks and had plugged it in the other day to charge, but it only looks like it is charging. The battery power remains at 0% after several hours. I have two other batteries, which the computer insists it cannot charge; the indications that it cannot recognise the batteries are a red light on the panel where it is usually green (okay) or yellow (charging) -- and a built-in utility in the computer's hardware [a BIOS feature for power monitoring] gives messages about not being able to identify the battery's manufacturer. Yes, the computer works fine when plugged in, but being a notebook the ability to run on battery alone is expected behavior. The same thing had happened to my older (Pentium 166) computer a few years ago; for whatever reason the recharging circuitry built into the mainboard can get fried if you leave it plugged in without using it for an extended period. I was looking up details about my issue on the Web, specifically "what does the battery charge light turning red mean?" because this isn't covered in the manual or anywhere on Dell's website. (That is a stupidity of its own.) I rephrased this at some point to something about the computer not recognising or charging the battery. After several hours of searching and reading things, I concluded it the recharging circuitry gone bad. I have ordered a replacement motherboard off eBay for one-third to one-twenthieth of the standard prices; notebook computers are similar to automobiles in that a new engine costs more than the value of the car, so the scrapyards collecting such machinery make a killing parting out the "useless" item you may have given them for free.

Let's start with one that can be considered universal: We have come to rely upon Internet search engines to answer our questions, which usually isn't that bad a thing (though teachers and librarians are beginning to be annoyed by students whose only source of information for reports is Wikipedia, one that is often correct and definitely more up-to-date than books for subjects that evolve, but yet offers information that is as subjective, slanted, or incorrect as the writers and contributors make it). But as with any cataloging system, the question has to be asked before it can be looked up, and it has to be answered before it's worth looking up. Additionally you have to understand the issue or have certain keywords before you can attempt an effectve search. There is an unbelieveable number of websites devoted to technical issues and specific computer-related subjects. Complaint number one is the uselessness of web resources. An example: Someone on WikiAnswers, a site whose name implies you can find answers, described a similar issue about how their brand new battery is not recognised when plugged into the computer. WikiAnswers operates like a cross between Yahoo Answers (if you ever wanted a serious question answered by a 14 year old) and Wikipedia. The "approved" answer: Someone quoted from the optional battery charger's manual to tell how to, are you ready?, plug the battery into the charger. That's the sort of thing that makes me want to go into impromptu colorectal surgery; someone needs to be torn a new anus for such a totally "I didn't actually read the question" reply on an ANSWERS webpage. Another example: My search took me to Microsoft's public forums, because I figured they might have something useful. Now, I've been teching for ten years so I should know by now that this isn't normally the case, even if you have the specific error code Windows or Microsoft apps generate. I found four or five instances where someone was repeating the error dialog that I was trying to look up, so my heart leapt and my spirits rose -- and the response each of those questions received, repeatedly from different people, was "you're in the wrong forum, case closed." As you can guess, the question was neither forwarded to the right forum nor was it ever re-asked in the right one as far as my search could conclude. Final example: Approximately half of the times I saw the question asked, whether it was 'around' through Google or on Dell's own forums, there was no answer at all... years pass and not one response, or the singular responses don't add anything meaningful ("what operating system are you using?").

An issue specific to my day but seen frequently from others: Notebook computer batteries often have a little bit of circuitry built in that measures how much energy there is inside the cells so that the battery life can be estimated. No one wants to be going along, going along, going along then suddenly *blah* they're out of juice and the computer dies without warning. But Dell seems to have taken this to a bonus level: Complaint number two is stupid battery identification. A few years ago there was a flap about how printer maker Lexmark had put chips in the ink cartridges for certain models of printers, with the result being that if you ran out of ink you had to buy a new ink cartridge, because if you refilled the cartridge you already own and put it back in the printer would refuse to use it because it 'knew' that the cartridge had been emptied. [The fix was simple -- have a second cartridge, put that in to 'reset' the identifier the printer got from the chip, and then you could use your first, refilled, cartridge thereafter.] For the battery situation, it too has an identifier built into the battery circuitry, which contains a manufacturer code or something. The result is that if you put a battery not sold by Dell into the computer, it may be a good battery but you will get an error message saying it doesn't like the battery. Ahem. My issue is that all three batteries I own are Dell parts indeed, but two of them it claims are not (or that it can't recognise them as being such). One of these two I took directly out of the package, so it had never been used, which nullifies the first thing people said in the web results I found: "you have a worn-out battery, it needs to be replaced." Several other people who asked the question to get that response also were not using old batteries, so that battery identifier thing has jinxed other people on various models. (The second thing people said, "update your BIOS", didn't fix my issue and apparently has only resolved one person's issue on one specific laptop -- only because that error was an actual known bug on one model so Dell created a new BIOS version explicity to fix it.)

The third issue is, "okay, tell me more now!" Summing up, I came across something from a former Dell employee online which talked like the issue was so well known as to be boring (I know the feeling, regarding some software and devices I gave tech support on in the past), and he made reference to a "BIOS hack" he'd often administered that would turn off the battery identifier check. He said that the caviat was that while this would get rid of the battery-not-recognised error and even lead to longer battery life, it also meant less monitoring of the battery thus a higher chance of battery overheating. (And the computer industry has had several lawsuits over instances of batteries bursting into flames while in use. A flaming notebook on your desk or in your lap is not a happy thing.) This message was posted in 2005, so let's consider him long-gone. Okay, this sounds like the fix I need to get those two spare batteries in gear, presuming the one that is recognised but is not charging has gone to seed (which is a possibility, it's likely been in the computer since the notebook's original sale around 2001). Did he say what it was? No. Did he say where to find it? No. Can I find this in a Google search? No. Do I find anything useful about BIOS editing on Dells through Google? Only as pertains to changing the Dell logo at powerup to something else, or removing a security password that keeps nosy people out of the BIOS. I am annoyed. But like I said, I'm attributing my battery recognision failure to the broken charging circuit on the hardware and not to the batteries themselves or the BIOS (which isn't getting passed the data from the circuit) so I can put that annoyance aside for now.

I do have one other computer annoyance tangentally connected to the notebook but isn't related to the battery and charging system... Circuit City, the second largest retailer of electronics in America, has decided to close its doors, putting about 13,000 people across the country out of work. (And that's yet another stupidity of its own, with several bad consequences.) I went there to pick up some stuff on sale, though their discounts were not that good considering that their prices were higher than their competition and the key items I wanted were gone. One of the things I wanted was a 2 gigabyte USB thumbdrive, which they had at $25 and up. Uh, no. I went to Big!Lots which always has plenty of memory devices, and found a bin of Kingston DataTraveler 2gb thumbdrives marked $10. It rang up as $8, so excellent. Kingston is one of the major reputable memory makers so I had no second thoughts about buying one. I got home, tried it out on my main computer, and all is well. But then I plugged it into my notebook, and it went through this loop of saying it couldn't figure the device out then checking again with the same result. I did a little web searching and the Kingston DataTraveler 2gb came up with some frequency. Hmm, this could be why there was a bin at Big!Lots... not because it was passé (like my wife's 128mb JumpDrive, another purchase from them awhile ago; you don't see anything smaller than 512mb nowadays except at back-to-school sales) but because it was problematic. None of the sites in my search that mentioned this make and model identified a known issue or named fixes that worked for everyone; one did imply that not all computers have enough power going to their USB ports to make them work, and that's probably the case here. My notebook has only one USB port (two when it is docked), which rules out the first suggestion made, "if the ports on the front of the computer don't work, try the ports on the back." Since Kingston gives free support, I've submitted a ticket to them with the full details, and if the issue is as widespread as the help forums imply they best offer a solution rather than teching this in ways that I have already been covered or asking questions that have already been asked. Nothing annoys a computer geek more than having their relevant teching or provided data ignored by a scriptmonkey. Okay, there is one thing: when someone closes a ticket without any sort of attention, or the tech throws out a blunt statement like "is it plugged in?" as though the person were an idiot and closes the ticket. This does inspire impromptu colorectal surgery.

Update, 3pm: I got a reply back from the scriptmonkey -- gawd, I was hoping not to get a scriptmonkey -- who did a cut-and-paste reply saying this: Reboot, try a different port, and we don't support USB 1.1 devices. I'd made it clear in my original ticket that this machine only has one port (and repeated that the thumbdrive works fine on other computers and other thumbdrives work fine on this machine) and he should know by the model that it's a 2.0 device. I deleted the words "please try again" from the end of my reply before sending, but left the two para-sarcastic "as you read previously..." statements in. Since he didn't.

Hmm, this may be heavy on computer ranting but if you're reading this, you have undoubtedly encountered something on your machine that made you say, "but WHY is this problem happening?" The picture of the day was taken a mile or two from my house on a back road. I looked up at this little field I drove by that I keep wanting to wander with my camera and there was a coyote! I turned around, drove back slowly with camera at the ready, the critter got camera-shy and trotted off, and so I could only take one photo... and what does the camera's autofocus pick up on? The big canine? Nope. The two milimeter wide stem of a weed.

raindrops keep falling in my life...

2009-01-08T12:53:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, each and every! So far not a lot has happened here, and I haven't broken any resolutions because frankly I haven't started doing any of them yet. The big news is that it's rained so much that there's flooding in my area... hasn't touched me but a block away on the roads along Clover Creek, where the two photos were taken, it's pretty ugly. It's worse on the Puyallup River. There's more rain coming (it restarted half an hour ago) so we're not done with this mess. Life is okay, such as it is, and people have been bringing me computers to f1x0r. One was easy, the power supply got nuked in a surge and that's the only damage I've found -- luckily I had a spare on my bedroom floor. One is still thorny, Windows needs to be reinstalled (blame Microsoft for Windows Genuine Disadvantage) and the batch of disks I was sent from the other side of the state doesn't contain the Windows CD. The third... well, that's what I should be working on instead of blogging or wading through puddles taking pictures.

[Later: Wrap-up of that third one... It wouldn't boot into Windows because the antivirus program was corrupted, so I uninstalled that in Safe Mode and it came up. It could go online but the first thing it wanted to do was download the latest version of the "XP Antispyware 2009" spyware, which attaches itself to a key Windows component so it will run even after you've deleted the program itself. Removing that worm from services.exe leaves Windows unable to go online because it breaks the networking ability (Windows knows there's a modem or network card yet doesn't "see" them) and also disables other Windows components. So she's going to have to give me her Windows XP Home SP1 disk for an operating system reinstall, since the obvious fix of upgrading to SP2 won't work -- the piece in Windows that checks installer file integrity (Cryptographic Service) depends upon the broken component thus won't let the SP2 installer install anything after unpacking the files, and the piece in Windows that lets one move and copy files (Remote Procedure Call Service) is also broken so I can't just replace that damaged file either. That's the simple version, and as Shannoon From The Caboon back in college said, "computers are diabolical."]

Here's today's major stupidity; An agency called me today to ask if I'd like to do a weekend stint, removing computers from a bankrupted bank office in Seattle. Yes, just manual labor, I'd be taking these things apart to put them into boxes or pallets or something. Gruntwork, the machines won't even be powered up. And the woman asks me if I have an A+ certification because this would somehow be beneficial. (Yes, I've submitted that to TSC.) She also asked me to send her my résumé again since she claims the copy she has from the last time she pinged me is "messed up", and I did soon after she called. I know from previous contacts that she's not going to call me back [this sentence is being written a day or two later so it's not pessimistic speculation] but it's nice to feel wanted for half an hour.

The way things go with my family is that my mother will call me a couple weeks before Christmas to ask if we're going to be in the neighborhood to visit their house. Most of the time we stay on this side of the state, so I say no and my mother sends a box of gifts. Longtime readers know I loathe this to a degree because my mother is a horrible gifter... I get the same stuff I got when I was 12, and I'm 41. Well, this year there was no call. There was no package. I finally called my parents on Christmas Eve morning to say hello and indirectly inquire about why I haven't received any contact. I can't say I received an answer, but my mother did ask if we got the Christmas card, which arrived in the mailbox about an hour later. So in one batch of mail I got a picture card from my youngest brother, a Christmas letter from my younger brothers, and a card with Christmas letter and personal stuff written in a card. I speculate that having wives has provided my brothers with a means of communication -- letting someone else make it. (This does not explain why my sister doesn't write.) But my mother's personal note contained four separate instances of attempting to apply a guilt trip, only one of which took hold because it's true that I've had no connection to my siblings and their families. That's one thing I want to change in 2009, I've never had anything against my sibs or their spouses [truth: I once did with my sis but I've been over that state for more than a decade] and children. But the sillyness unto stupidness that I want to state here: My mother is giving me flak in the note about how I don't play along with her, yet the annual Christmas letter doesn't mention me at all. Not even a token "Paige and Brian are doing home improvements in Tacoma" sentence. Hmm. At least I didn't get a crate of stuff that I'd be passing along to charity, which is something odd but I could get used to.

So I leave you with a couple photos from the next block over. It's sunny at this moment -- uh, it was raining and grey when I started this! -- but we're scheduled for another massive dump of rain for the next few days. Send hip-waders! Actually, the newspaper and nightly news say it's gonna be horrible, but the online weather services and the sky itself say things will be okay. Which should I believe?

I give you... Christmas Tree 2008

2008-12-22T21:54:00.000-08:00

Set up on the evening of December 21. Green and purple themed tree, with an overkill amount of tin stars and glass icicles. The snow crystals are just part of being married to a flake. We're happy with it.
Click image to see at 1064x1416.

Is your item bigger than a breadbox?

2008-12-18T22:58:00.000-08:00

Okay. Perhaps you have been wondering why I've been so quiet. So have I. I couldn't rightly tell you... Blame the holidays, since I have been gone a lot, but it's deeper than that. Frankly it's depression. I've spent too much time at the computer, not enough time doing practical things... and it could be true that idle hands (or minds) are the devil's playthings. I still need to try to figure some stuff out but there's always something shiny!shiny! in the path to stumble over. Heh, as a friend and I joked about his stepfather, who would come home from longhaul trucking and have my friend's mom cut the dingleberries off his butt: "There was a pretty blue rock, so I pulled over to look at it. I stared at that rock for two hours. Pretty blue rock. Damndest blue rock you ever saw."

So the image of the moment is some lights I have obtained for this year's tree... very unique in that they're avocado green and burgandy purple, along with the orange which I'll swap out when they go up, and that it's only 3 colors rather than 4 or 5. We haven't put up our tree yet, but we will this weekend I suppose. Sure, a little slow on the draw this year but we keep having guests over so don't want to get anything started when we're going to need the space. Also, since I haven't blogged yet this month (whoops), we've filled the display case at the library with our wonders for the sixth time in seven years... this year the theme is "A Homespun Christmas" and contains items you can either make yourself or look homemade. :)

Stupid thing I've wanted to say for awhile: There's this handheld toy gadget called the 20Q – actually, several of them – which plays 20 Questions with you to guess items (or sports figures, or TV shows, or whatever other specialty ones you find). I have discovered that if your thought is really good, it will go out to 25 questions before giving up. Okay, here is how you totally screw with a 20Q, the one intended for general subjects: Think about genitalia, whichever kind you prefer. The questions become very funny in that light, like playing an adult version of Mad-Libs. And twenty-five questions later, it will fail to have guessed the item... someone seems to have left those parts out of the database. That's today's holiday gifting tip; pass it along!

Okay, so, well, I can now say I've written something. Happy holiday of preference to you handful of readers, and I wish you a bountiful 2009. With the way the economy is going, that's not just a "how are you?" ersatz statement, I really do wish you a bountiful 2009 because you could probably use one. Hasta.

What part of the cow does 'angus beef' come from?

2008-11-26T01:08:00.001-08:00

I always know when it's time for me to get to bloggin' when I get a surge in comments from folks who have already commented before. This often means it'll be several more days before I ever get a new comment on my new entry because everyone has given up for the week. But hey, I have four readers; the impact of my tardiness is minimal upon the world. It's when other Blogger sites like Not So Motivational don't update in a month, then post a note saying it'll be another five or six weeks before there'll be another entry, that things get ugly. But in happier news, I have just posted the December '08 update to Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul, half of which is on a birthday theme (courtesy of a bunch of pictures I scanned for a Flickr group a few months ago), and it ends with a brand new Christmas fable. Enjoy!

The stupid of the moment is par for the course but pretty damned annoying. I got a call last Friday morning from an employment agency, asking if I was interested in a helpdesk position with the local rail transit authority in Seattle. She described it pretty much like what I'd been doing at PleaseGoAway dot caaaaaahm -- answering questions and helping people with issues on their computers and cellular ~~dildos~~ devices. She emailed me same information and asked me to get back to her about scheduling an interview after I'd read it. I'm not sure why she didn't offer to schedule an interview right then, but whatever. I got up once my sinus headache loosened its grip, wrote her back, and waited awhile. Around 3pm I called the number in her email to respond directly, and the front desk told me she'd already gone home for the day. That person took a message and I was told she'd get back to me on Monday, which seems reasonable. Today is Wednesday, and not a word. I'm unclear of why it is employment agencies play that game of tag... what is there for them to gain by teasing folks like that? You have an offer or you do not have an offer, you want me or you do not want me. You say 'jump!', I say 'how high?', then you tell me!... that's how it's supposed to work.

I am trying to get myself motivated to start a new craft. I've been gathering spare or broken computer parts for awhile (among other things, my room is a mess!) and I have seen artistic uses of technology around. [I won't add links; just Google "computer part art" and there will be nice image galleries.] Someone at the Sumner Arts Festival a few years ago was selling wall-hangings and other cool stuff made from old computer mainboards and parts, and I have plenty enough pieces laying around to do something swell. Or at the very least, I've been meaning to make a whole lotta keychains out of memory sticks. As a Libra, I know art when I see it but don't find it easy to create it... That's one thing that's holding me back, I need some ideas and inspiration. I was always the kid who saw the curvey line on the paper and made a snake out of it, not a clown's forehead or the profile of a woman reclining in a chaise lounge.

The image of this paragraph is from a special swell thing that the local power company did: They sent each of its customers five compact fluorescent lights, and good ones too (two 60W-equivalent, two 75W-equivalent, one 90W-equivalent)... click on the image to read the attached letter. But you will notice in that letter that they make no mention of how you're supposed to discard or recycle them; they contain mercury so they are not to go in the household waste, and if every house on the block gets 5 bulbs that quantity of quicksilver does add up. The letter should have told where to go to recycle them, and I can only think of one waste site on the other side of town that takes them. The monthly newsletter came with the bill, and it did have an article about what to do with them -- which only said to call the local waste removal company (which happens to be across the street and up three blocks) or check the EPA's website for what to do. That's not a direct answer, and how many people read that usually-meh newsletter? I went into their office the other day to thank them, pay my bill, and then give them a piece of my mind about not closing the loop (they care about being good corporate citizens and helping people lower their energy bills by sending items out, they need to continue this by providing proper information about recycling those items) and the woman at the counter seemed nonplussed... "I think they take them at Lowe's and Home Depot," she said like it was common knowledge. (I have yet to verify that data.) I replied, "And THAT is what the letter in the box and the newsletter needed to say," as I exited.

gimme the Costco-sized box of holiday cheer

2008-11-16T22:12:00.000-08:00

Hello, party people. I've been sitting on posting an entry because I can't think of much which bears writing. Sure, that's never stopped me before, but still, there's nothing worthwhile to say and then there's nothing at all to say. Life hasn't moved one way or the other, which I suppose is the result of finishing the kitchen project a week ago. 'Tis the season to attend holiday bazaars, work on the Christmas clutter collection (we've already obtained 3 pretty ornaments and 6 glass icicles in the last week), and gird your loins against the upcoming Thanksgiving fêtes. Well, for me, two out of three; Paige and I are following our recent-years tradition of going to the Black Angus for Thanksgiving dinner and maybe preparing small quantities of stuff we like (mashed potatoes, stuffing, etc.) after so we can have a managable amount of leftovers without having to stage or attend a family feast to get them.

I'm spacing right now on what in the world is stupid. There's plenty but I'm disremembering. In bright news, the price of gas has hit $2, but I think I talked about curious it was that it would drop so far and so quickly in the last month or two in my previous entry. My sister-in-law has made a mega-stupid decision to hook back up with the guy who was trying his damndest to wreck her life (and succeeded), but that's on the private side and I try not to think about her. I still haven't tried to think about what I'd prefer to be doing with my life, but I did put in an application with the City of Tacoma for a techie thing they were advertising. (I'm presuming a hundred others have too because this place is lousy with techs and geeks who would prefer to avoid a commute north, but I'll keep my fingers crossed.) My high school locker partner Kenny went back to the old 'hood to jam with my best friend from elementary school Richard, the first time those two have played together in about 23 years when they recorded a song about my best friend from high school, "Randy! Randy!"... wish I could have been in attendance. And the replacement hard drive for my notebook computer arrived but the extra memory (necessary for installing a few things!) will be here probably tomorrow. I told you I didn't have much to say!

One of the silliest things I ever did in elementary school was passed a note to my best friend Richard. Oh, it's a little more complex than that. First, the note was passed through the crack in a wall -- the classrooms had a windowframe in the corner that was shared by the next room, so one could slip things between the rooms through the gap between the wall and the frame. Second, the content of the note was derived from a Kurt Schaffer Bloopers album: this innocent nun voice was announcing there would be "a peter-pulling contest at St. Taffy's Church", so of course I illustrated this spectacle. Now, in retrospect I have no idea whether Richard got the note and had it taken away, or whether the fifth grade teacher on the other side of the wall snagged it. (I should ask Rich.) I do know that not long after I was sitting in the principal's office, having a chat with him about my line drawing of two guys swinging each other around by their anatomically exagerated private parts. (A cock-fight of sorts.) I also know that while I usually had a healthy fear of authority growing up, in this case I was aware that I just had to sit through this guy's wigging out because, since he was a friend of my parents, I had it from firsthand info that he had shit for brains. (My wife had that guy as a teacher for some education class a few years later when she was in college, so she found out his head's stuffing the hard way. Gail, you're a tool.) All's well that ends well; at the end of the school year when he was giving out awards to people who had not received any referrals [had not been sent to the office for breaking rules], and this is where I have to interject that there wasn't a Perfect Attendance award (which I would have also received) because the principal's belief was "why would we reward people for coming to school sick?", I got one of those no-trouble awards. He hesitated for a moment as he gave it to me because he knew that I'd been in trouble -- but see, my teacher wasn't involved in this issue so a written referral was never created for it, and neither my friend's teacher nor the principal bothered to write me up because it wasn't their job. No paper trail, the issue was swallowed by the cracks, now suck this and ante up. I displayed that award on my wall proudly all the way through high school.

hope and change (and pass it on)

2008-11-06T00:19:00.000-08:00

Well, the election is over and America did its duty to try to improve the nation's lot. It's good to see that some voters, unfortunately not all of them, conceded that they made a mistake four years ago (hell, eight years ago, but they had proof positive by the last election) and did not wish to repeat it. I was talking to a friend in Texas (red: 46% voted for Obama) last night after the results were in, and we came to the following conclusion: Several of the states that went red have a long history of being in the nation's jokes for seeming backward. Think about it: Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky... and the private militia compounds of Idaho? Yee-haw! But anyhow, the best part of the conclusion of the presidential and other races is no more political ads!!! Or for another two or three years anyhow, so enjoy the silence while we have it.

There isn't much to say about me and my life, really. I have done a little work on the trim around the kitchen but not finished it, I'm still waiting for the last two boxes of floor tile, I haven't received any earth-shaking news that would improve my well-being, gasoline is $2.239 the last time I looked (hey, that's two dollars less than earlier this year, proving it was all bilking and not supply issues), and I made some beigli using Ariel The Thief's family recipe, which she gave me in 2004 but now I have a proper kitchen to prepare it in. That's it on the left. It was a challenge and my results were good and edible but not great and "looks like what we think it should". Will I do it again? Mmm, probably, now that I have a little better concept of what I could do differently for better results. :) Paige came home from work and saw it, tried a couple pieces, then took a few slices back to her work (at her coworkers' request!) so others could enjoy it.

Okay, I have but one stupidity on my mind. Saturday of last week, which would be three days before people went to the polls, the phone rings around dinnertime (as if we eat at that hour). The Caller ID box listed the name of a polling company, and we're okay with surveys, so Paige picked up. But it wasn't a polling company, it was some pro-life group's recorded message making a statement about Obama's position on partial-birth abortion and got pretty graphic about how the procedure is done. Now, never mind your [the readers'] point of view about the subject of abortion, that's not what I'm addressing here. What was irksomely stupid about this call was that the subject was addressed during the second presidential debate, in detail, and broadcast on at least five networks -- and what this recorded message said did not bear any semblance to what the candidate himself said when asked the question this call was attempting to answer. In other words, the call was an outright lie, and a very easily disproven and corrected one. No protracted research needed, it was right there on TV on all the channels and in the newspapers. This sort of call is effective only to people who feel strongly about a subject yet don't pay attention to available facts. I don't care what topic we're talking about, it drives me batty when people purposely spread misinformation that everyone should know the truth on... about as batty as how somehow not everyone tries to learn anything about what they're talking about. ('Cheesepuff' back in Yakima, that'd be you. You can't seriously believe all the crap you forward me in email is true.)

Parting thought: Yesterday I was walking into a supermarket as a woman I was very close with ten years ago and still occasionally spent time with over the next few years was walking out. First time we've talked in five years, and since it was sort of a surprise I didn't ask half of the things I'd want to know, like "how's your family?" She almost left without me giving an answer to her asking how I have been doing, she was in that sort of hurry. Here's the thing I want to get off my chest... A year or two before the end of our acquaintance she had an appendectomy which for some reason caused her to get a little paunchy (no extra weight gain, just a pooch below the belt), a detail she was not happy about, and was doing everything she could to try to get rid of it. And here she is standing before me -- probably seventy-five pounds heavier than she was five years ago. I was too much of a nice guy, still too much of a friend (long gone), to say anything to her but I'm saying it here: dear heart, daaaaaamn!

I've got eight drive platters and a microphone...

2008-10-29T17:38:00.000-07:00

ZOMG, a second blog entry in a week, posted before Jamie could see the first! Okay, really this is to show off two photos, the second of which I didn't take. At right is the new and improved WiFi booster antenna developed from the prototype seen a couple days ago. It's not elegant but it's shiiiny and functional. So what it is: I took a regular slim CD case, folded it open, covered the inside with aluminum foil, hot-glued a couple Twis-Ties to the corners so the WiFi card can act as a tripod to hold the antenna up, and did some cutting/filing so that the case would close flat. If you looked at the video linked in the previous post, these are variations from what the Turkish guy advised -- gluing the case into a 90° angle permanently which reduces its ease of portability, foiling what was the outside of the case, and constantly having to prop the antenna up somehow. I've only given it a test run from the end of my driveway, I haven't gone out looking for trouble, but it works and unlike the model shown online it can be folded up and put away in the computer's totebag.

For an actual stupidity, this one just became evident about half an hour ago: As you may know, on Sept 1 the skanky people across the street moved out of the hovel. The owners of the hovel are again trying to rent it out, initially without doing any work on the place first but I think they saw the light so there have been some workers in at random intervals to do various things. Okay, so I'm sitting here and a pickup hauling a hot-tub backs into that driveway, and four people get out. The magnetic sign on the truck says they're a hot-tub installer but also do verandas. They go in the front door, wander through the house, go out the back door and look at the back yard (the renters of 20 years had an above-ground pool back there which they took with them, so basically the back yard is a large round hole surrounded by tall grass and weeds), and then three of them leave with the hot tub and the fourth starts in on painting the master bedroom. My wife and I said to each other, "how can they be planning a hot-tub when they need a new bathtub?" [See that house's bathroom for what I mean.] Okay, to be honest, we don't know what the plan is, or if they were just friends coming to see the house rather than a professional call, but we have no doubt that with all the lipstick the owners have applied to that pig corpse of a house (the neighbor says they plan to replace the roof; that's long overdue since it's concave on one side) beautifying the back yard would come before fixing the inside.

The Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul site had its November update, y'all.

Okay, now for something especially for my bud The Illiterate: After we ~~were shoved out of~~ gracefully left vee-zed-dub for more competent cellular teledildonics technical support management, there was a large backfill that should have required the use of more office space but, true to form, dub-dee-ass couldn't get authorization from the vendor for more equipment. So here's what their office looks like now... and aren't you glad you're not still there?:

It's the Information Superhighway version of a string and two tin cans

2008-10-27T03:01:00.000-07:00

Hello, my two ~~disciples~~ followers out of four readers, and the rest of ye mythical folks as well. Yes, I survived my 41st birthday... wasn't really that hard, the day was busy yet not what anyone would call exciting in a "it's your birthday!" way. First, before I tell you about the day, dig my birthday present on the left! It's a Dell Latitude LS400 notebook computer, courtesy of my dear friend Wayne. More on that shortly. I'll itemize now how the day went:

I got up around noon, which isn't unusual for me, and it was Paige's day off. We eventually got ourselves moving, we had a couple events down the street to attend -- a Lutheran church having a rummage sale, and the Lutheran university having a surplus sale. I spent 10¢ total. We got home and sat down to watch the Saturday morning ~~cartoons~~ home improvement shows on HGTV on tape, then started working on painting and putting up the trim in the utility room. Eventually my friend Wayne from the other side of the state showed up, with a box containing three notebook computers in tow. His mother had gotten them as surplus from a family services agency that was getting rid of the junk in the closet. Also in the box were three sets of external CDROMs and 3½" drives, six batteries, five docking stations, several pairs of Harmon/Kardon powered speakers, and other "wow, you got this free?!" stuff. (Summary for the geeks: 700MHz, 6gb HD, 128mb RAM, 1 USB 1.1 and 1 PCMCIA, 56k and NIC, Win98, circa 2002. See YouTube for how fast it can run XP.) So we had them on my livingroom floor... One booted just fine, and I got to keep that machine. One took 15 minutes to get to the desktop. One never got to the desktop (unless booted into Safe Mode), it was even slower. Performed some stupid Windows tricks (doo dah, doo dah...) and got those two functional. So once that was done and Wayne left, Paige and I headed to The Outback for dinner, and we were nearly the only customers so it all worked out. We got home and there were cupcakes... I blew out the candle on my carrotcake cupcake. A little checking of email and off to bed.

So I got a computer, two docking stations (one in box), two spare batteries (one in original package), CD and floppy drives, power supply (and a spare in the docking box). I'm not going to change the CDROM to a burner until I have a larger hard drive, and the stray 30gb 2½" drive I had laying around died a clicking death after finishing the Windows install so no rush. But one upgrade I did see fit to make...

After doing a little research and a system overhaul on my notebook, I ordered a WiFi card on eBay for cheap, which I had by the end of the week. (And had not noticed that I had received a 10% off coupon in eBay's messages before making the purchase, d'oh!) Today I did a little experimentation. There is no WiFi signal in my house, so I took a trip to the library to see how well it worked outside the building. Hmm, one bar in the parking lot outside the periodicals, three to four bars in the parking lot by the front door and the children's area. I had noticed yesterday when I was at a crafts bazaar at the Masonic Temple there was someone online on his notebook so I thought, "hey, signal!" So I drove over to the funeral home parking lot which is next door to the Temple. (I sense a connection between the Masons and the morticians. Both are even named after the same person.) Check for signal... woot, four connections listed, one of which is unprotected and has one bar. The connection name coincides with an office in the next building, so I drove around the building checking for better signal. Left side, same. Right side, same. Front side, same -- but a new unprotected connection was listed, with three bars. I grinned as I thought, "Someone could sit in the supermarket's parking lot across the street and do some serious browsing unnoticed!" I came home and decided I'd try something I saw on teh intarweb, making a WiFi booster antenna out of aluminum foil and a CD case. I didn't follow the directions exactly because I disagree with the guy's gluing a case together backwards into a stiff angle -- I think it should be able to fold up flat, like a CD case, for portability. Here at right is a photo of the result in use from the edge of my driveway. It's ghetto but it works. You will notice it found that open connection again, maybe it is the supermarket two blocks up the street that is the source of it since it is in line-of-sight from where I was sitting, with one or two bars depending on how I aim the case. Yeah!!

Hmm, I don't have any real stupidities to report (you all know about the political races, that'll be stupid for another three weeks) and here's one thing I hope does not evolve into stupid: I've been using the same Unemployment claim since Internet Identity gave me the boot on Oct 20, 2007 (I've worked at two places since then, and just keep reopening the same claim when I need to) and since there's a year expiration that one's done and I need to open a new one, which will only take a few minutes to do and (sigh) possibly a week or two for them to approve. My wife discovered a different kind of stupid yesterday -- she had been taking these round purple pills, and when she got a refill she noticed the new ones were white and oblong. The paperwork with the bottle says they're supposed to be round and purple. A few calls and a followup from a pharmacist in a different city later, and it turns out those are the right pills, just a different maker of them with a different appearnace, but no one had updated the computer to reflect this change. Anyhow, it's 3am and I needs to go to bed. Hasta yer pasta.