Very Local News

The earphones I carried in my bag died. Drag. I bought a couple pare a while back, but I was hoping to get more use out of them than just a couple months. I'm telling you, I need to find a place where I can buy them by the gross for pennies.

I didn't take a lunch today until 15:45. I just couldn't get away. Ended up leaving just after 17:00. My stomach hurt and I couldn't take any more.

It seems like all the fiction podcasts have to be related to climate change to be produced. I'm kind of getting tired of the same theme running at the spine of all the stories. It is getting old.

Let off the gas and everything will be fine. Do not enter the light (strong language)

Sons of Anarchy

I'm liking the series Sons of Anarchy . It is pretty hard hitting. People get hurt. People do bad things.

The story as I get it is this. A biker gang runs a local town. They have the current top cop in their pocket, but the next one coming up is not willing to be on their payroll. He is straight laced and hates the biker gang. The biker gang makes money by selling guns to city gangs in other areas. These other gangs are out to sell drugs and need the guns to make that happen. The biker gang sells to all sides.

So, you have to make the biker gang look sympathetic so they can fight for their very existence. How do you make a bunch of gun dealing murderous hooligans look like Robin Hoods? Well, you introduce someone even worse in to the mix. One day a bunch of white supremacists show up in town because they are pissed at the gun selling biker gang selling guns to undesirables. Hey, we can all hate white supremacists, right?

Up until the white supremacists came along, everything seemed to revolve around family and money. Now, they all have to deal with someone who believes in something beyond that. They all have to deal with people willing to make sacrifices for a belief in a purpose that they do not understand. Sounds like a microcosm of the whole U. S. and even world dealing with terrorists who want something we cannot let ourselves admit or comprehend because it flys in the face of our own beliefs.

There was an episode where a girl from the outside likes one of the bikers. She starts getting in to the whole biker chick thing, but figures out quickly it is not for her. There is another episode where a FED plays hard ball with some of the guys and tries to play the bikers against their local cop connections and she ends up getting one guy put in jail. Oh, and getting the shit kicked out of herself for her trouble. Recently a primary character was raped by the white supremacists in order to drive the bikers over the edge. She kept it quiet to prevent the destruction of her family, the biker gang.

Henry Rollins plays one of the primary white supremacists. I've listened to his rants for years. Not sure they could have picked someone who is ferther from the real deal. I like Henry. I'm glad he has the work. He is scary and hatable on Sons of Anarchy. Any one can play a good guy.

Very Local News

To AC on the bus again this morning. I may ask the bus driver what times he comes by with this bus so I can reschedule.

My phone takes unpredictable pictures. I took on last night of Elle's first sentences that was so blurry, you cannot make out all the scribbling. The sentences looked good. I just wish my phone took a clear picture. Oh, deer, I'm going to have to check the next phone I get to make sure the camera doesn't suck. DAMN!!!! I never wanted that to happen.

I missed yesterday and had to put in two days work. I thought for a moment I would have to stay late tonight, but it will have to be done tomorrow. I'm done. I ain't doing no more till morning.

LiveLeak has had some real junk on the last couple days. The last couple weeks have been very hit and miss. Mostly miss. Not sure if it just myself being jaded by all the exposure, or if there has been a fundamental change in the video selection lately.

Still one of the best car chases if only for the mayhem and amusement.

Jihadi robots

It looks like they are running low on people willing to blow themselves to Allah. I fully expect to hear about robotic cars slamming in to things and detonating. Hey, we kill them with robots. Tit for tat unfortunately.

Work is as work does

Stayed home sick today. Got some good sleep and went to the doctor. Got a shot in the butt. The doctor said it was a steroid. Something about kicking my immune system in to gear I think.

Work called me as I waited in the doctor's office. My work wanted to cut a release. I've tried to automate the process, but it isn't as easy as it sounds. I have to build on multiple machines and there are any number of things that might go wrong. There are any number of ways to turn it around and make it go right. Do we want a vendor build? Do we want a trunk, branch, or tagged release build? You have to build on machine A first so you have the same firmware file everywhere. I'm going to document the process in a wiki. It is going to be a long one because of all the possibilities and recovery.

It is another sinus infection.  I'm tired of sinus garbage. I need to do the yard, but I do not have the strength.  I must sound bad enough because Adam, the person who called me from work, didn't end up wanting me to come in. "We have a bug. ya, a bug we need to fix. Stay home. You going to be in tomorrow?" I'll be in to document the release process.

STOL

Short Take Off Landing. Maybe it is Short Takeoff Or Landing. Not sure to be honest.

It is all fun and games until someone plants a prop. Most of these are basically ultralights. I am amazed by the real planes, multiple passenger planes, that take off in 30m. I am terrified of hellicopters so planes that do the trick please me.

I found this on live leak, but they have a site just for this competition.

My fascination with slow flying and landing may stem from my childhood. There was a show on TV that showed a bird landing in a tree in slow motion. The wings flared out (flaps) and the bird nosed up. The bird's talons (raptor) reached out wide forward while their tail flared as well and fought for control. All this happened right at the moment of stall. When played in regular speed, it just looked like a bird landing on a limb. Once you cought it in slow motion with a comentator describing the effort and skill, it held me fixated.

Idea for a movie

Guy is born. Guy suffers lack of sleep. Guy goes ape shit, gets nothing accomplished by it, and then dies of Alzheimer's Disease brought on by sleep deprivation.

Generally, a story is much better for the listener ... if you have a point.

Walking Camera

My old Cannon 550 is showing it's age. The batteries no longer take a charge. The buttons are all rubbed off. It still takes pictures, but makes a funny noise when it starts up. I paid like $400 or something for it when 5 megapixel cameras first came out.

If I were buying today I would get the Nikon CoolPix L20 or something close to it. it just fits my budget of $100. Yes, I have to get an SD card too, but those are $10/$15 or so for a 4G. The prices on this stuff has plummeted. 

While doing research on a cheap replacement snapshot camera, Nat offered me her camera. it is an old CoolPix 4600. She is sweet. I wish she would leave that camera in the car. It is nice to have a camera laying around if something suddenly comes up while out driving. It is nice of her to offer. she was kind of freaked that her phone, which is 5mp is higher resolution than the camera.

The priority of having a camera that is dedicated has dropped auite a bit. With the advent and popularity of cameras on phones, the need for a seperate digital camera has wained.

Skating

Or not.

No Skating. We got in the car and were on our way to the skating place in Cornrow. I texted the folks we were supposed to meet with out there only to get texted back that skating had been canceled. Apparently the skate party we were invited to was canceled in favor of another skate party that we are not invited to.

We are really not part of that group. I must remember that. I think we are tolerated, but for some reason, we are not accepted. Nowhere is home.

Blogs 2009-09-26

Why is Russia so upset over missile defense.

Very red pictures of Sydney.

Military point of view for knuckle a dragger like me.

Scam email of old.

More work on artificial eyes.

Alzheimer's may be caused by lack of sleep. We are doomed as a nation. 

Military Unmanned Air Ship. This time, they mean it. But don't call it a Zeppelin or a blimp.

Very Local News

2009-09-25

I walked in to a spider web on the way to the bus stop. It was one of those spider webs that stretch from the tree limbs to the ground. This has happened before. Those webs stick to me. It didn't help that the stubble on my head acts a bit like Velcro. After having been at work for an hour, I killed a bug on the back of my neck. Twenty minutes later, I picked a little centipede looking thing off my shirt.

Cuba has 11 million people and 600,000 computers. The person being interviewed said that people said they would meet somewhere at a certain time and actually showed up. They didn't text people changing plans at the last minute.

Fantasy camp. That is, Fantasies of camping are dancing in my head. We may not be able to afford very many trips to Fair, but I would like to make it out there one or two weekends. We will have to play it by ear.

HTML editing

I've used a bunch of HTML editors. The purists uses VIM. I just cannot remember all the tags and attributes. I need an editor that suggests or gives options for inserting code.

Open Office 3 has a poor HTML editor. It is better than Open Office 2. I have still not figured out how to set the column width with pixels. When  they say points, they mean 1/72 of an inch in Open Office. It is a Word Processor after all.

I've used the editor in SeaMonkey. I like it, but I do not want to install a gigabyte of program for a megabyte of usable code. Besides, you cannot insert objects and have them kept by the syntax jumble mechanism.

NVU or it's KDE front end, would not run past the menu bar without crashing. Useless.

BlueFish doesn't suck.

I wouldn't rehash this issue, except one of the guys at work has a nice little useful page on his computer that makes it easy for him to point people to documentation and reference materials. personally, I think we should all have a wiki page for this reason. It sounds like some other folks might start doing the same thing. I need to catch up.

I have no eye for design. There are blind people designing better looking pages than I can make. It is just not my bag.

Very Local News

There is a plan to raise Venus 30 cm over the next 10 years. It will cost billions of course. Doesn't everything that makes the news any more? How much is that per mm? Is it worth it? How high will the sea get over the next ten to twenty years?

What a long day. I got some things done in one day that surprised me. I thought I would fail at a coding task today in the allotted time. I managed to squeeze it in and make the nightly builds in time. I even found and fixed an unrelated bug in my own code. I hate that. I realized something would not work the way I needed it to as I was going over the code in the new area.

You know those Mac commercials. Ya, I'm sick of them. They were interesting for the first couple of years. Now they are droll.

Lesson in degrees

Long, my office partner, didn't know what an Edsel was. I had exclaimed that "Fortran is the Edsel of programming languages." This fact disproves my analogy. Fortran is still used. There are efforts to make it work on new hardware. This is not true of Edsel. It is not effectual and nearly forgotten. I stand corrected.

I'm walking through the halls at work and the big boss comes out of a computer lab talking to one of the other employees. "... don't close the door on it even if it is kind of ... weird." I've been intrigued all day. i will never ask.

Later the same morning, Adam walks by my office talking to Rod. All I hear is "blah blah Kelly blah blah"

Perhaps waring my earphones all the time at work is not a bad idea. It might save me from over hearing parts of conversations that catch me off guard that I was not meant to be part of anyway.

More Complaining

I haven't been writing that much on the blog lately. This is because all I want to do is bitch about my life. I already do plenty of that. No one wants to hear it. Well, Here is some more on the subject. sorry.

Work

Work is going well. I enjoy what I do for the most part. It is stressful most of the time, but fulfilling sometimes. It is outside of work that I have problems.

House

The house if falling apart. The back wall is going to rot because of hurricane damage and I think we have termites, but Nat refuses to call an exterminator. Trouble is, I just don't care. I hope it falls down around our ears. Well, not really, but we just don't have the money to fix anything. The fence if falling down. The grass is dying. The bugs are taking over.

Taxes

We have not filed for Homestead exemption. I asked Natalie to look in to it the last couple years and she blows it off. I cannot trust her on this front. I'm going to have to do it when it comes around again.

HOA

We have two Home Owner's Associations. We need to get a lawyer and only pay one. I do not have the money for this crap.

Boom Boom

The building behind us is used as an after hours club on the weekends. Sometimes on Sunday night, Monday morning. There have been times I've gotten up and left the house walking for the bus stop to find a parking lot full of Central Americans finally packing up and leaving because it was dawn.

I need to get a lawyer and find out how to properly contact the owner or sue. I'm so lazy. Maybe it is not laziness. Maybe it is fear of reality. I do not want to get a lawyer. There are so many issues in life that require a lawyer. I fear that once I get one, I will need one. Does that make sense?

Marriage

Nat and I have agreed that social media is outside boundaries when it comes to complaints about our marriage.

Faire

As far as i can tell we are not going to Faire this year. We just do not have the money. Nat can't get hold of her old boss for a job.

Dentist

Nat needs thousands of dollars of dentistry done. I wish I could get it for her because her teeth hurt her. I need some work done too. My teeth hurt too. No go. No money.

Illness

Nat is sick. We are not sure what is wrong. The doctor doesn't seem to know either.

Time

I just don't see myself doing anything spectacular in my life. That moment has past. That ship has sailed. I want to run out the clock in a warm dry place with plenty of food and drink. Good company. Enough to get by and a bit extra to leave behind. I give up. I'm content. Nothing to see here. No world changing events or plans. I'm done.

Friends

I haven't seen many friends lately unless I work with them. That is so sad. It kind of hurts to admit that. We need to do something. I'm sure Nat feels the same way.

Very Local News

It was a nice ride in this morning. The bus was packed, but not so bad you couldn't get round if you needed to. Every other person had to put money on their card which means running to the middle of the bus to put money on the card and then back to the front to pay. I was at the back so I just got to watch the fun.

"The Guiding Light" started on radio. You know, before TV was invented. It was produced by cooperations. It was all about product placement. Seventy years or so. Now it's gone. The era of soaps is over, so they say. People have enough drama in their own lives these days I suppose.

Don't expect a competitor to the Rumba from Dirt Devil. At least, not one that was engineered in the U. S.. There was a story on NPR how those engineers were dropped like a dust bunny earlier this year. Plenty of competition from China I bet. People are asking if China will lead the way out of the recession instead of the U. S.. I understand and cannot call them bad people for asking.

Had a chat with one of the 'old timers' at work. We spoke of z-80 and 80-08 chips, CPM and DOS, paper tape and punch cards, Packard Bell and Teletype. It was refreshing.

I am interested in researching just how IED (improvised Explosive Devices) are made. I missed my calling as an engineer. I have zero intention on becoming a terrorist or being a bad guy. If anything I look forward to writing a book one day that may have some of this subject matter included. I at least want to sound like I know what I'm talking about. How does one look up such a touchy subject for the purposes of self education only without ending up on the wrong lists?

A mental hospital lost a dangerous patient at a county fair. "Criminally insane killer on the loose" was thrown around. They say the longer he is off his meds the more likely he is to kill. Heads will roll, hopefully the pink slip kind.

My God, I'm going to watch House tonight. I want to know what the hell is going to happen in the asylum. I try so hard to be detached from shows and thus not committed to a series. I hate the character of House. I find him grating and hard to watch sometimes. Someone once told me you have your best actor play the bad guy. People want to like the good guy. People need to hate the bad guy. Maybe that is why House works so well. People seem to love to hate him. ... Wait a minute. That was last week? Or was it?

Obama

Obama went on five talk shows on Sunday. I'm not sure why. The audience for those talk shows have most likely made up their minds on the subject. Several of the blogs I frequent mention over exposure. I have noticed that people who really liked Obama are kind of getting sick if him all over the news and on every show that will have him. There are limits.

Carter came forward to fan the flames of racism. Someone, I can't keep the names straight, is putting words in people's mouths to bitterly make non racist statements sound racist. This makes me ill. People are desperate. So desperate, they are making stuff up to make it look like their winning some argument. Isn't that what children do in middle school? How has the U. S. sunk to this level? Where is it going?

They don't build them like they used to

Thank God. Kind of sorry to see the old gal go out like that, but it is worth knowing the innovations of the last half century have been for the better.

No if we could only do something about all the idiots being handed drivers licenses.

Weed Card

Weed card to Green card. This administration is handing out money, citizenship and weed to any one with no self respect. The U. S. is doomed.

Very Local News

The web page hulu.com will begin charging in some form or other soon. I plan on watching everything I can lay my hands on until the moment they start charging for my shows and then just dumping the service. I have too many options and too few dollar bills to spend money on TV.

King of the Hill was canceled. Dammit! It was not one of those shows that I went out of my way to watch,but I liked it. You could tell they were reaching in the last couple seasons.

I got my contacts in. They are one notch weaker than my older pare. I still see just fine (as compared to my normal). They are more comfortable the second say. This is due to the hydrogen peroxide solution I use. I like that stuff. I highly recommend it. I'm using the same prescription in both eyes. The only difference lately between my eyes is the angle of the astigmatism. This saves on contacts ordering. They have a huge discount per run. The more you order the cheaper they get, and rapidly. I only need two boxes. That should last me quite a while.

Wales may generate half a ton of milk a day after giving birth.

Chewing gum is 9000 years old.

U. S. Football

The NFL insists on blocking local viewing of game that are not sold out. They are crossing their fingers and hoping that people do not fin another distraction to replace worshiping their local U. S. football team. I know some folks who do not follow local football. The Texans suck, so I cannot blame them. I've never been in to U. S. football. I would rather watch soccer in Spanish than listen to some snobbish twit prattle statistics for three hours.

When I think about U. S. football, I think about a bunch of rich pimp wannabe drug addicts. Did I mention overpaid? No one I would want to chat over a beer with.

This is Texas. One must tread lightly when pissing on football. this State runs on high school and college football. There have been movies and TV  series on the subject. They were not very good, but then they didn't have to be.

Some guy tried to get permission from the Baseball League to describe a game to his friend. He wanted it in writing of course because that is what it says in the copyright notice. They turned him down. You are not aloud to blog or reproduce even the fact that you watched the game apparently. Good luck with that NBL. U. S. football is probably the in the same ballpark on copyright. =]

More Microsoft Tyranny

"Please insert a valid copy of Windows 2008 Server"

I had the opportunity to install Windows Server 2008 this morning. It prompted me to insert a 'valid' copy of the dvd. Thank you Microsoft for assuming I'm a cheat and reminding me to use a valid dvd. I so need this from an evil juggernaut that fully intends to become even more evil and even more juggernaut-sih.

Up yours Microsoft!!! I think you can safely say that I am an insulted paying customer.

Facebook mobile still sucks

The x.facebook.com link that you get whenever you try to hit facebook from a mobile phone is lacking. Even if you type in m.facebook.com you get redirected to x.facebook.com. I know why. It just pisses me off that I don't have a choice really.

The x.facebook.com link is lacking because you do not have access to the comments on the news feed. It turns out I rely on these links heavily. Without them, the facebook experience is next to worthless. The whole point behind web 2.0, which facebook is a part, is that users put up content and other users comment or add to that content. This cause and exponential growth in content. You could not just go to m.facebook.com which had the count of comments and aloud you to go check them out if you felt like it. You had to go through the x.facebook.com link first. You had the choice of hitting the full facebook.com page, but that was painfully slow and more than a bit clunky in the G1's web interface.

My satisfaction with my phone was dropping by the day due to the crappy facebook environment. I had no idea this was happening. That is, until I found the facebook app for Android.

There was a gaping hole for the longest time of a facebook app for the G1. I heard people complain about the facebook app for the iPhone. I tried to tell people that the iPhone app was better than the web interface. No one cared. Those iPhone snobs think their output isn't garbage.

The reason why the x.facebook.com page exists is because of database queries. When you hit the news page on facebook, that is a single query that has several tables and a complex lookup to get the information that is relevant to you from your friends. It is run through a filter to weed out what and whom you have blocked. Then it is rendered and sent to your phone. This on it's own is a pretty good hit for a page with a user base of a quarter billion world wide.

Now, add comments on the news feed. You have just added another dimension to the database lookup. it is all in one query, but for each news item from one of your friends an additional lookup has to be performed to a) count the comments and b) retrieve and display the comments. This is why the m.facebook page and even the Android app still do not display each comment. You must click through to get to them. At least they are only a click away.

The separate app helps cut down on queries by keeping data on the device between queries and only adding information as needed. The app also eliminates much of the rendering process.

The app method for facebook works for facebook and kind of for me. I wish I had the full web page that didn't break in my phone. Still, not every web page needs to come up with a specific app for their functionality. This seems to be a trend. I do not like this trend.  Most of the media sites have an app. Most of the news sites are coming out with an app. Banks are coming out with their one apps. This is bad. This means every po-dunk web site feels the interface for their data is not satisfied by the web interface of a phone. This means a million apps all being supported by a million different developers. This means confusion, apposing interfaces, propagated bugs, phones out of storage because the user wants to hit fifteen different web pages daily.

In Android, I cannot even figure out how to sort the bookmarks in the browser. It seems like the Android developers have abandon the phone interface and devoted every possible resource to the netbook interface. That's great for Google or Android or netbook sellers, but I am pissed at the responsible parties for leaving me to suffer with a contracted phone. I cannot upgrade or sidegrade for over a year.

Still needs a spell check.

Day Off Yesterday<

I took yesterday off. I woke with a sore throat and feeling like crap and decided to keep it to myself and my family. Elle had a low grade fever last Friday. She is better now.

Today was much better. The extra seven hours of sleep yesterday helped. I didn't do much else to hinder the illness. Drink fluids, rest, avoid alcohol,. You know the routine.

It was fun going with Nat to pick up Elle. Got to run in to Frow Moveyourass. She is the woman with the bullhorn who reads the window sign and bullhorns the grade and name to the top of the line. It is a surprisingly efficient mechanism.

The rest of the days was spent surfing the net and generally getting nothing done. Well, I did pay some bills. that counts. The bills needed doing, but I wander if I did them in order to stave the discomfort of waking from a dream with a start, sitting up and muttering to myself "I paid the mortgage this month." I just had to go check and sure enough I had paid the mortgage.

I sent a text to Adam after 18:00 and asked "Did I miss anything at work?" He texted back with "Yup." and I couldn't get any more out of him after that. I was left hanging. Dammit! What did I miss? It turned out he had a busy day. Something cool did happen at work. Adam was pleased that his lack of response had me on pins and needles. Yup, that sounds like Adam.

Memories

Where were you when the Death Star blew up?

I laughed for ten minuets after the last line of dialog. The really did make it sound like some of the arguments I've heard by friends and enemies.

Google Docs still sucks

You do not have control over the format of dates in your spreadsheets. Well, you can change the US/Europe settings and the day and month will flip places. You also loose your currency settings with that. I do not want day/month/year. I want year/month/day. You cannot get this setting for date in Google Docs. This is ridiculous. The fact that GD has no facility to support date formats makes me yearn for a better online solution. I hear Microsoft Office is going to an online version. I bet you can change the date format in a spreadsheet.

So, why do you still use Google Docs Kelly? Well, I do not feel like I have a choice. I want to keep my documents online for better backup and access from multiple points. Yet, I want something that works and lets me do things that many offline office suites do. That is not too much to ask. It has not happened.

Open Office online is what I want. I am happy with Open Office. It does everything with the exception of using a common scripting language for macros that I want from an office suite.

Distraction

I use earphones at work for this very reason. There are a couple guys at work who do not use earphones insisting on playing their shit music, and it is shit music only because it is someoneelse's music, aloud. I listen to podcasts and would not inflict this addiction on people stuck within earshot.

It I were driven to to smash someone else's music box at work and got fired over it, I would sue and claim torture.

Flu vs cold

Symptom	Cold	Swine Flu
Fever	Fever is rare with a cold.	Fever is usually present with the flu in up to 80% of all flu cases. A temperature of 100°F or higher for 3 to 4 days is associated with the flu.
Coughing	A hacking, productive (mucus- producing) cough is often present with a cold.	A nonproductive (non-mucus producing) cough is usually present with the flu (sometimes referred to as dry cough).
Aches	Slight body aches and pains can be part of a cold.	Severe aches and pains are common with the flu.
Stuffy Nose	Stuffy nose is commonly present with a cold and typically resolves spontaneously within a week.	Stuffy nose is not commonly present with the flu.
Chills	Chills are uncommon with a cold.	60% of people who have the flu experience chills.
Tiredness	Tiredness is fairly mild with a cold.	Tiredness is moderate to severe with the flu.
Sneezing	Sneezing is commonly present with a cold.	Sneezing is not common with the flu.
Sudden Symptoms	Cold symptoms tend to develop over a few days.	The flu has a rapid onset within 3-6 hours. The flu hits hard and includes sudden symptoms like high fever, aches and pains.
Headache	A headache is fairly uncommon with a cold.	A headache is very common with the flu, present in 80% of flu cases.
Sore Throat	Sore throat is commonly present with a cold.	Sore throat is not commonly present with the flu..
Chest Discomfort	Chest discomfort is mild to moderate with a cold.	Chest discomfort is often severe with the flu.

I passed this out at work and someone pointed out the heading said Swine Flu and the rest of the table just said flu. Still, it sounds accurate. Please take with a grain of salt.

Money Monday

Universities all over the country are reporting loses. They are talking tuition hikes across the board. Financial aid is getting scaled back at the same time. it has become too easy to get a degree. Not every one should get a degree in my opinion. People with degrees are taking jobs at Starbucks and the mall. They are displacing illegal aliens. Something must be done.

There wouldn't be a problem with illegal aliens getting health care if they had to pay taxes like I do. I want people to understand that there is no free health care. Someone else is just paying your bills. We should call it moocher health care. That might get the point across.

I have middle of the month bills to pay this evening. I don't know if the money is in the account. I'll figure out how much I can afford to pay when I start filling in the spreadsheet. I also have some Elle school expenses that ended up on the credit card. This happened at the end of last month and I did not want to tap the savings account. This sort of thing happens more now than ever before in my life. I have to juggle one account and pay bills late because the money is not there. So far I've managed to keep the wolfs from the door.

Nothing to say

The tea party people did a great job. They even left the ground relatively clean.

The people in charge of the government really do want to rule me like a king over a subjects. The first step is to turn us all in to subjects. Then, when we pay everything we earn to the government, we cannot afford lawyers to fight for our rights.

I mowed this morning. I ran out of strength before mowing the back yard. I managed to kill a bunch of grass close to the house. I may have screwed myself. I hope there are no long term problems caused by this. This is one of those times where I screw something up because a) I don't know what I'm doing and b) I wasn't paying attention or reading instructions. It is all fun and gains until you get a cracked slab because of dead grass.

The oven doesn't close all the way and I do not know way. Nat says it is this way because it needs to vent. When you clean it, you pull a leaver and it closes the vent in the front and locks the door.

The boom boom behind the house got bad Friday and Saturday evening. I really hope they are not up for a repeat tonight. I may snap.

Nat gave me the lowdown on Vampire diaries the TV show. It has ripped off ten different shows. The Crow, Twilight, Covalent, et al. She is waiting on Underworld rip off sto show up. She noticed these all have the same production company. Things that make you go hmmmm.

Nothing to say

The tea party people did a great job. They even left the ground relatively clean.

The people in charge of the government really do want to rule me like a king over a subjects. The first step is to turn us all in to subjects. Then, when we pay everything we earn to the government, we cannot afford lawyers to fight for our rights.

I mowed this morning. I ran out of strength before mowing the back yard. I managed to kill a bunch of grass close to the house. I may have screwed myself. I hope there are no long term problems caused by this. This is one of those times where I screw something up because a) I don't know what I'm doing and b) I wasn't paying attention or reading instructions. It is all fun and gains until you get a cracked slab because of dead grass.

The oven doesn't close all the way and I do not know way. Nat says it is this way because it needs to vent. When you clean it, you pull a leaver and it closes the vent in the front and locks the door.

The boom boom behind the house got bad Friday and Saturday evening. I really hope they are not up for a repeat tonight. I may snap.

Nat gave me the lowdown on Vampire diaries the TV show. It has ripped off ten different shows. The Crow, Twilight, Covalent, et al. She is waiting on Underworld rip off sto show up. She noticed these all have the same production company. Things that make you go hmmmm.

Ya!!

A little Sunday afternoon violence.

I wish I could survive

If the shit really hits the fan, I will be one of the number who starve to death for lack of knowing how to live. I will fail to help my family. I will fail to provide.

This song is rolling around my head. IF only I had the knowing the strength to do the things that will make me a man of crisis survival. People call the financial turmoil slithering through the banks and investment houses a crisis. That is only a crises to people who will make money from it.

Being lazy on this subject is a bad thing. I'm looking for a good list of a 'go bag' for my family. I also want to know how to store water and purify it. I really need to develop the gene that peals me off my ass and gets me going. That is the hard one.

The honeymoon is over

Barack Obama seemed right. Processing his words through the frontal lobe, they sounded good. Since he wasn’t pressed or questioned, since even Bill O’Reilly seemed beguiled by Barack Obama’s verbal deftness, he rarely had to prove or defend. He was always given enough rhetorical wiggle room. He still is given that room, by the the press anyway. But something always felt wrong. It wasn’t a primal reaction to the “other,” like Olbermann and Garafalo like to claim. It was something ethereal, because Senator Obama had no concrete policies or past accomplishments besides community organizing upon which to stand. His associations aroused some suspicion, but to most they seemed trivial and the press was uninterested. His associations seem more important these days — at least to the voters. And they’re providing concrete evidence of why some voters felt discomfort before. The intangibles manifest now because the rhetorical rubber is meeting the policy road. President Obama still tries to have it all ways, but the constraints of legislation do not let that happen. His words matter now and his actions have consequences. PJ Media

I would like it noted for the record that I always knew Obama was a stuffed shirt. People on mass are seeng him for what he is. He is a community organizer that was a lawyer for a group who advises pimps on how to avoid taxes.

USB keys

From Left to right:

• 128 MB. Too fat to fit in many USB ports, especially on the front of some cases, this USB key has served me the longest.  I now use it for small boot drives. It is too small to haul very much around the network.
• 1 GB. This USB key was purchased by my parents at Wal-Mart for $9 as a "every one else got something" gift. The lanyard came with it. I use this as a loaner. I cannot find the lid. I hate USB keys with lids these days.
• 1 GB. This is a Sony USB key. It is cool looking with clear plastic. It looks just like the key used in a movie. I cannot remember which one. The lids are tethered together. I've had trouble with this drive refusing to be used as a boot device. My father gave me this drive a long time ago.
• 4 GB. This is a work horse. At the moment, this is my go to drive. I use it for everything. I haul files around. I use it for podcasts. It has been through the washer. The lid is in my desk drawer at work. I do not use it any more. The little handle thing on the back is broken. Still works like a champ. It isn't even the same color it was when i got it. The lanyard is a dress shoe string. I use that kind because they are the correct length and once you tie them, they never come untied.
  
• 16 GB. Future work horse. I use this drive sparingly at the moment. Only a precious few folks know I have it. There is no lid. I have had such good use out of my other Kensington that I got another. This time I specifically got a drive with no lid. There is a thumb handle on one side that slides the USB probe in and out of the plastic. That is another dress shoe string for a lanyard.

Saudi Red Necks

Those Saudis really are coming along nicely. They finally figured out that a pickup is the best burnout vehicle. Big engine and no weight over the drive wheels. It is even a stepside. Not the most useless truck, but you are in the ball park.

"Allah Akbar!!"

"Hell ya!! Getter-done Sahib!!"

Today's Notes

What to do with old boxes. I have three or four old computers that need to be recycled. I have no idea what to do with them. Some have batteries I really do not want to spend any money. Any ideas out there? I suppose I could make that sculpture I've been pondering for years.

There is a Commodore 64 emulator for the iPhone. Dammit. That means the Apple ][ can't be far behind. It comes with 4 old games.

A guy hit me up at lunch for some cash to get something to eat. I was on my way to McDonald's and didn't have any cash. I intended to get him some bergers, but when I stepped in line I released I had no card either. No lunch for me or the guy. never mind.

I don't think I've ever purchased a record. You know, one of those vinal flat things that old people used to put on turn tables? I cannot swear to it, but I really don't think I have ever put out money for one.

Sometime after lunch, visibility went to less than half a click for the rain. The wind was nuts too. Heck of a storm blew through.

Most stressful hectic day at work yet.

Why is Buffy the Vampire Slayer under Science Fiction on hulu.com?

Watched Halo Wars. It was a collection of cut scenes from a video game. That is how it felt anyway. I did not really like the direction. I did like the action scenes.

Hungry Kitty

September eleventh two thousand nine

My goodness, it is 9/11. It has been eight years and I still have a twinge or a pang when I hit the date. it has been like this every year since 2001. The first couple years were not that big a deal because there was some kind of remembrance. it helped me cope. The bad feeling I get is getting worse because so many people and government entities are blowing off the 9/11 day and even trying to hijack the day for other reasons.

There are people all over Facebook and Twitter talking about "Yay America" and the like. Some others are more sullen. That isn't what I'm talking about. There was a little meeting in 2002 at my last job for folks who wanted to go. There was something on TV about the progress being made to get the sons'a'bitches who perpetrated the terror act in New York. ti seems like we have gotten a whole lot of expensive nowhere in the last nine years. I do not expect to get any further in the foreseeable future.

NPR had a little story on the same subject. They didn't have a solution. They did mention that I'm not the only one who preys for retribution. That made me feel better in a "I'm not the only one." sort of way.

Finance

I've been listening to all kinds of financial news lately. Some papers have declared the end to the financial woes of our time. It hasn't even been a year since things went to shit. I just don't think they know what they are talking about. The worst fear of the financial world is the American consumer learning to put some pennies away for a rainy day. Spend spend spend seems to be the chant echoing from the halls of government and the entire consumer chain of command. They want to sell us stuff in mass quantity. They want to sell us stuff made in China. Nothing is too cheap, too useless, too ugly, to hock to the (once) all mighty American Consumer.

It kind of sort of looks like people, some any way, have figured out that saving is not evil. Self control is not a sin. Waiting until you can afford something that you don't really need is not torture. (quote from memory) "The quickest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it back in your pocket."  Mark Twain. He was right then and he is right today.

Some economists say consumer spending is not 70% of GDP. Some say it is more like 40%. The disparity comes in what you are getting for your dollar. (Michael Mandel from Business Week)

Don't live like a begger. Keep your children in cloths and well fed. Take care of your home. Have a pet. Find a way to enjoy your personal time that doesn't cost a fortune. You can relax without spending money. I find a good book relaxing. I find bad books annoying.

My father is looking at buying a new boat. I could smack him in the head. He has had boats. He is not a boat guy if I am honest. The man would be a millionaire if he had only held on to a vehicle for as long as it did the job and hadn't bought motorcycles and boats over the years. I worry he is a great guy. he is just looking for something in things that he cannot find in his heart. I hope he is not trying to fill a disappointment. He will not find satisfaction in material things.

Money affects everything we do. It affects every person. In the U. S., if you do not have money you will starve. You will have to take hand outs from kind people who have money or access to resources. I'm conflicted about that. I am a Capitalist, but that fact makes my gut go wiggly.

Very local News

I'm fed up with the G1. I may look at some sort of Balcbery next time around.

If Facebook were a country, it would be #4 in the whole world. They have 250,000,000 users supposedly. No wonder shit breaks all the time. Half of them are logging in on a daily basis.

zhsy00001 is a bit too unique. it cracks me up when I try to tell people what my blog, twitter, facebook, email address or just about any other link is over the phone or while I'm trying to leave some place.

Five states have never elected a woman to the house or senate. They are Delaware, Iowa, Vermont, Mississippi, North Dakota. Thank you NPR.

Four fire trucks passed me as I got off the bus. They stopped at an apartment complex not far from my bus stop. Someone said their power was out. Nat said at least one of the lights on Westhiemer was out.

A day at my work

Walked in at 07:30 or so. Swapped muddy boots for not muddy shoes.

Started work by going through email and reviewing my notes for the day. If I didn't keep meticulous notes, I would realize that I have been suffering mental break down for years.

Downloaded RHEL 4.8 for a test machine. I tried to get the cds we already had, yesterday evening, but 18:45 is not the easiest time to find the correct people to nail down that sort of thing around my work. So, I started a download first thing.

Fixed a link that should have been just fine last night, but was not.

Listened to "News from Lake Woebegone" While working at my machine.

For some reason Windows would not copy the file from the hard drive to my flash card. In the process of trying it corrupted both files. Thanks Windows. Now I get to start over again. It would not let me delete the corrupted file in Windows and I do not have the privilege of fixing my flash drive on our internet machine. Back to linux where I have the power of a super user at my disposal. It cracks me up how much of my day is spent fixing crap like this.

When you copy a large file to a flash drive in Windows it doesn't give you a progress bar. This is a 2.3 GB file so it takes a while to sho up. The only way I have to tell something is going on is to watch the light blink on the thumb drive. This is the thumb drive that has been through the washer. Works like a champ.

Then I do not have any blank DVDs. The guy who keeps the $0.25 blank DVDs will not be in for a while. It would be faster to run across the street to Target and buy some. I'll end up waiting on the guy I was supposed to get the CDs from yesterday to get in.

I messed around for an hour trying to figure out why svn revision numbers come out messed up on some of your builds. It is because svn always reports the highest svn revision number of a project in a branch or tag regardless of the path you check it out from. This requires you to enter an svn revision number when checking out the project to get that svn number in the rpm name and elsewhere. I figured out what was going on and ten different ways to fix it. Now to decide which way to go. This is what is referred to in the industry as a pain in the ass.

I then connected a computer that has been a bane to the entire IT department. It is an old database box that just refuses to cooperate with anything we throw at it. This is the fourth time I've messed with the same box at the same steps. Now to install the backup software for the third time on this box.

Then I installed the Netbackup software. This would have been painless except for the fact that I forgot one of the files and the nine step process of copying from the windows to linux network was killing me.

Now it just needs the DB installed. Whole new can of worms.

Then, I set up a RAID system on a linux box that didn't work. I had to hunt down some help. That killed quite a while because the OS installed just fine. It just wouldn't boot. Details details.

Got the expert, the guy who has done this twice before, in there to help me and it seems he set the thing up the exact same way I did. Still didn't work.

Went over to a friend's place for lunch. We had homemade blue cheese burgers, fresh brewed tea and watermelon. How awesome is that. Only an hour and ten minutes Adam makes a mean lunch and doesn't drag ass about it. He did forget the damn cin8imon buns. four otu of five. Not shabby. It took me half the afternoon to recover.

Tried to use a separate boot patrician on the RAID box. It came up and seems to be working, but that may be an issue when one of the drives goes down. This doesn't seem to be a problem with later versions of Red Hat.

There was a computer in one of the labs with a history of a bad hard drive. I turned on the computer and it did not come up even in the bios. I thought for a moment. That only happens when the drive is not getting power or is not plugged in. Even when drives have all kinds of surface problems or other errors, something shows up in the bios. I swapped cables on the power and it came up. We planned on leaving it for a while, but it died. New drive and OS install regardless. Thought I had one there. Chris popped the new drive on the board (literally a piece of plywood) for me. Heck of a guy that Chris. I kicked off the install before I left.

The five o'clock thump of the auxiliary AC hits and I am informed that what I've just gotten to work will not work and they want to do it a different way. I choose the wall in the stairwell because it will be more effective when I bang my head against it.

No RC or nightly build this evening. Outstanding issue make it moot.

It has been raining all day. We need it. Nat was kind enough to come get me. I need to find a cheep pare of tennis shoes for work. The shoes I use now are too small.  Put on the muddy boots and went home.

It just doesn't sound like I got anything done today when I read this back. It is a pile of crap that equals Kelly's day at work. Nothing interesting happened. I did learn some things. I had an awesome lunch. Where did the then hours go?

Childish rant

Please do not listen to the following rant. I was all stressed out when I wrote it.

Sick of living like this

Contact places won't sell me contacts without a doctor signing off on them so they won't get sued. I cannot afford an extra $100 for a a doctor's visit out of sync with my normal once a year visit. So, Kelly does not get contacts. I don't need to see as well as possible or anything.

When I get run over by a truck, would someone please sue my eye doctor and the contact place because I did not have the best possible vision that I could have had. I even just got some more fluid.

The trouble is, I do not want my prescription. I only want the left lens. The prescription for both eyes is exactly the same except for the astigmatism angle, which his 10 degrees different. I love the vision I have if I put my left lens in both eyes. That is what I'm trying to order. They will not sell them to me. This is one time I wished I lived in some place like Mexico where they don't care.

Thank you.

Why did God make me what I am? I'm sick of being this person. I'm sick of being the buy who needs glasses and still can't see. I'm tired of being the blind guy. I'm tired of being me today. I hate the fact I cannot drive over to my doctor's office and give them a piece of my mind. I hate this.

Dear God; Fix me.

Preparedness

I'm struggling to put food on the table. Nat and I need to put together a disaster kit for survival. We need a wad of cash to cover emergencies. Water purification, ammo. We need our paperwork in order in case the house is not there when we get back.

Officials said 3 days for the longest time. 72 hours is not enough time. Since Katrina, the Red Cross says two weeks.

The Boy Scouts had a great motto. Always be prepared.  I was a Boy Scout for a couple weeks. I blame that for carrying all the crap in my backpack that I do.

The thought of looking at my dead phone and pondering how much money I spend on the phones monthly after a disaster hits worries me. I want to avoid that moment and think "Well, I spend a fortune on phones, but I got a disaster kit together didn't I?" There is hope.

Thank goodness Nat has the first aid kit bits covered. That is half the battle. She is on top of it. It does take up half the trunk, but that is a small <snicker /> price to pay.

I won't have any contacts to worry about.

Videos

Three related videos.

This pilot "must be board." The screeches are the stall alarm sounding. They have plenty of altitude and do not appear to be in any danger.

This is a very short takeoff plane. It is specifically designed for tight takeoff and landings. Most planes cannot just nose up right after they start rolling like this.

This is a safe landing at high altitude in the French Alps. Listen closely and you can hear the stall alarm again just before the wheels touch down. You can also hear the plane creak a bit. That is the scariest part of this otherwise safe landing.

Death will not stop the wheel of time series

New Wheel of Time Book — Chapter One Online, Released Oct 27 Tor Books has made the first chapter of the latest Wheel of Time book available to readers for free via their website. This is the first book to have work from Robert Jordan's replacement, Brandon Sanderson, since Jordan died in September of 2007. The Gathering Storm is complete and will be released on October 27th of this year. In addition, the prologue to this book will be available in e-book format on October 17th for $2.99. The whole of the Wheel of Time series will also be released as e-books with several of the books receiving new cover art as well. Update: 09/07 23:42 GMT by KD : Reader Daniel Benamy points out that the correct release date for the prologue e-book is September 17. SlashDot

I have been waiting for years for this news. I do not care if it is online or in a book. I just want the series continued. Someone said the stile of the new writer is appropriate. Once it comes out in full, there will be a way of getting an audio book or perhaps the library for the blind will have something. This one will be popular.

I read the 11 book series in record time. I could not find audio versions of the book and I would have borrowed the books anyway. So, I downloaded text files and had my computer read them to me. shhhh. I know that is not the best way to do things. I try to keep it to a minimum. Promise.

Real

I am so glad that someone is out there kicking ass and taking names. Someone is keeping the current administration in check. someone is comparing the patriotic activism that kept Bush from taking over the world and the other side of the coin doing the exact same thing to the Obama administration are called right-wing extremists.

There are posts galore comparing the actions of the current administration to those of the Bush and Clinton administration There are some people comparing Obama to Carter. I tell you, if another Ronald Reagan can be found, the Republicans will have a decade locked.

Only a couple bloggers admit that it will always be like this from now on. The party in power will go on defense and the party on the bottom will go on the attack. That is just the way of things. We are in an age of never ending campaigns. Every day I'd the day to win or loose the next election. I think this is hindering the ability of the people in charge of our lives to lead and be effective planners.

I still say we should ban lawyers from public office. I think this would help greatly. Plumbers would be better. I still believe this as well. You just have to understand reality to be successful at plumbing.

Weekend dog

We are dog sitting for a friend. The dog is hyper. He wants to play fetch until your arm falls off.

That was the most still I could get this dog.

On to politics.

The cats are displeased with the presents of a dog in the house. This particular dog has been in the house before. We had a dog named Molly for a bit. Things have settled in to this new dog chasing a cat under something and then getting popped when he tries to sniff them.  Merlin runs and hides more out of annoyance than fear. Tiger is just to cantankerous to run and hide. He stands his ground and gives dirty looks. This is followed by meowing at Nat and I after each incident.

Things calm down for longer and longer periods. Merlin hates it when I pet the dog. He doesn't let on. He just sits there and ignores the situation. But, I know.

Elle will still not outlast the dog. she will play and play and yet the dog runs her out of steam. That is a good thing. She was looking forward to having the dog visit for a while. I know it will not satisfy that itch, but maybe having the gate between the living room and kitchen and all the other little annoyances will help her understand that dogs are responsibility.

The dog goes back tomorrow sometime. I will not miss the barking, smell, and annoying optimism. I will miss how much this pisses the cats off.

Influence

I am not nearly as influenced by commercials as people who make the commercials would like me to be. I like to thing I have ad blindness. There is more influence on their part than I like to admit.

I am, however highly influenced by my friend's choices. People I consider my peers have a great deal of power over my decisions even if they do not set out to to do so.

Someone mentions waffles on their status and I want waffles. Someone dares to mention french toast, and I want french toast. Someone says they got a new motorcycle, you get the idea.

It doesn't work with pets, people or phones.  It works with Japanese Animation, movies and most of all, food.

Bucky Ball magnets

Home Page

Found Here

I'm not sure I should order some of these. I will never get any work done again. They are not in shapes out of the jar. They are just magnets and seem to hold the shape you put them in if it is balanced. Anyway, I love these things. They make all other office goof off toys look like crap!

I'm in an office of engineers. If I bought a bucket of these and left them in the lunch room they would all starve to death playing with them.

Friday

It is Friday before a three day weekend. Where I work, we do not get blow-off days. I don't think I've had more than two or three in my four years at this job. That is not a bad thing. It keeps us on our toes. it is not for everyone. Not every one can be 'on' every day. I didn't think I had it in me at first.

first thing this morning I did the whole routine. When I got around to my contacts, the left contact refused to cooperate. I made it out the door and across the street before aborting and heading back to the house to get my glasses.

Nat heard me sneeze and offered me a ride to work. "Sweet." says I.

Elle needed a shower before school so Nat pried her out out of bed early. While they were occupied I tried to order contacts.

There are fifteen trillion web pages to order contacts. I took the first ten and narrowed them down to five, then two, then one. by the time I had entered most of the ordering information I decided to go with a different web page. Why do they need my doctor's information? It isn't like they are going to call and make sure I didn't screw up the order. They all charge a price per box based on the number of boxes you order. I just know contact lenses are cheap to make. it is the liability that costs money. so if they can charge you for 1 box or 10 boxes, they have about the same liability expense. I only need two boxes.

I ran out of time. I didn't get the contacts ordered in the thirty minutes I had to do so. It takes longer. I've pretty much decided whether to buy. That took most of the time. It is just a matter of plugging information in to a form at this point.

Nat tried to convince me to have little pancakes with Elle at school. I have been craving pancakes, but I want to get some real pancakes this weekend somewhere. Nat didn't tell me that she had intended to join Elle for breakfast this morning without me until we were pulling away from the school. Dang-it. I felt two inches tall. I didn't mean to keep her from sharing that time with Elle. We are going to have to schedule time next week for breakfast.

In the elevator, a guy was complaining about being sued. His lawyer was a dip shit. It made me never want to sue or be sued. It would be a better life for me if all that could be avoided.

I was pulled aside to help with one project and missed the meeting for the other. My role comes in to play at the end of things so I'm quite in demand at the moment. This was not a big deal because all the information said in the meeting was useless and changed by lunch time. Then changed some more.

The thing I do was due to be done early in the day today. I wish that meant I could take off early or a half day or something. That is not in the cards. I need to stick around in case there are troubles with the thing I do.

By the time I got my 'big task' done, many people were headed out for the weekend. it was 14:00 or so.  I sat for a moment listening to a podcast that contained fiction. it was a disturbing, but fascinating. I was adrift for a moment. Some things worked and some thing broke. I had to work more before I could go home.

Go home. Nothing sounds better to a working stiff. I fear I will work until I die. I have no retirement to speak of. I fear not being able to work even more than working for ever. That makes me a working man.

A Cure song came on and took me back to the late eighties. I was a waste of a human life. No prospects. I was not even any good at digging ditches. That is how I felt at the time anyway. I'm a bit more confident now, but not a lot.

Nat called me right before I was ready to leave for the day. She asked how work was going and offered me a ride. Hey, I'll take you up on that any time. I said my goodbyes at work. It is a holiday weekend after all. I have been watching Dead Like Me a lot lately and they hang out in a diner and the lead character Roob cares how his eggs look. That makes me want pancakes. I've mentioned this to Nat.

Nat and Elle were in the car of course. We turned right instead of left at Westhiemer. "Where are we going?" asks I.

"Crazy. And you are along for the ride." says Nat.

"Where are we going?" asks I.

"Crazy. And you are along for the ride." says Nat.

"Where are we going?" asks I.

"Crazy. And you are along for the ride." says Nat.

"Elle, Where are we going?" asks I.

"Don't you dare or you are grounded!" asserts Nat. Elle remained silent.

We took a right on the Beltway. Are we headed to my parents? No ... We ... are pulling in to I-HOP!! Whoo-hoo! Pancakes. I also got fried eggs and toast because I wanted a fried egg sandwich.

Our server was in pain. She did a great job.

Nat and I both went home and crashed. I really hope Elle got to bed at a decent time.

Saying of the day

Grinding one's enemies in to a fine paste is a great way to release the daily stresses of life.

Just words

Tip the vessel of missing sols and watch the puddle grow to live a life and feel the warmth of freedom, then tip the vessel one day.

At once with that paragraph I see many symbols.

a foundry making machines

birth and raising a child

rain watering crops

cooking a meal

the big bang and rebirth of a universe

writing a line and editing it to perfection

Another day at the Office

I think he would have been fine if he had about 5 more pounds of wood on that truck.

Trouble out in Calli

I have relatives living in LA. They have not commented much on the fires out that way on their facebook pages or other media that I've found. The one time my cousin mentioned it I commented that I would prefer floods and hurricanes to fires. What do I know about it to be honest.

There are dozens of videos of fires burning hillsides in the background of normal life going on in the foreground. There are time laps films of hills burning bare. People have lost everything. A couple firefighters have lost their lives. A couple years ago a helicopter crashed. I haven't heard about that sort of thing this year thank God.

People in California seem to love it there. the government is a mess. The budget is out of control. The taxes are high and I read somewhere that there has been a net loss in investment in the State over the last couple years. That combination weighs heavy against the great weather and cheap drugs. The cost of living is high in California and companies are tired of footing the extra bill.

The weather reporter here in Houston reported a bit on California weather where all the firs are and the humidity was abnormally high at 28% which should lend a hand to the firefighters. Our humidity here in H town was abnormally low at 70% this morning.

NPR interviewed several people who had done the hot-shot fire fighting. They all sounded like stout people. I'm going to have to rejigger my opinion of pussy Californians. So many people have died fighting those fires over the years that it seriously raises my average opinion of the entire population. The median is still in about the same spot.

Multitasking

There really is something about Tuesdays for me. I looked at the list of crap I got done yesterday and it is painful. I was pulled in many directions and got a lot done. I did make a mistake or two.

I also listened to a podcast in the background about about multitasking. The money quote from memory "The better people think they are at multitasking the worse they really are." People who multitask are not only worse when they are multitasking, but even when they try to concentrate, they are still worse off.

I know I'm rubbish at multitasking and yet, I still suck either way. Like I said, painful.

Old is new again yay

I used to have an old black and white TV. It was small and beat up, but it was mine. It was in my room and it was mine. It had three knobs. VHF channel, UHF channel, and volume that also doubled as on and off. There were little recessed adjustment knobs on the back that set picture and the pitch of the sound.

I did not care. It was my TV. It was a little bit of freedom in my life that set me on my own. I could choose the one of five channels I wanted to watch. Color be dammed.

The volume adjustment slider bar on my computer at work does not work properly. It sticks and the left and right channel of audio just unhook randomly so half way through moving the bar the left and right volume snap to the wrong values. I

 do not know why , but this reminds me a bit of the TV from my childhood. The volume knob had to turned clockwise with a snap to activate the power of the TV. Then you advanced the knob farther clockwise to make the volume go louder. as the TV aged, you had to turn the volume knob far in to the loud range to get the speaker to kick in, then lower it anticlockwise to a reasonable level. It sucked, but it was my TV dammit.

My G1 phone, fresh off the cutting edge of 3G technology, requires me, when answering a phone call, to advance the volume all the way to the highest level before turning it down to a reasonable level. Ridiculous poor testing. At least my old TV was old and physical parts were warring out from use. This G1 bit of personality is a result of poor product testing and a lack of the will to make something good. Something that works.

When pressing the volume buttons, the real system volume level is either added to or subtracted from as needed. If the volume is already at the highest level then the plus (volume up) button is ignored. What is happening on the G1 is the minus button to lower the volume is pressed, but the real system volume is ignoring the action for whatever reason. The progress bar on the screen that reports the volume graphically goes down all the way if you keep pressing the minus button, but the real system volume remains high. Not until you pres the plus button to raise the volume all the way to the loudest level and the progress bar is all the way to the right can you then actually lower the system volume by pressing the minus button.

Poor testing. Bad form Google. Bad form company that makes the G1. Bad form T-Mobile. No one tested this. Fail.

Tuesday Evening

I worked very hard today. I should be proud of myself. i guess I am proud of myself. Maybe I shouldn't be proud of myself.

First ting in the door this morning I added a bunch of files to an RPM and Windows distribution. I would remove some other files right next to them later in the day. I would move a bunch of stuff around in the hierarchy for reasons that seem very important to others. I mean they make sense to me. I'm just the guy who turns the wrench in this case.

Later in the day I figured out, with John's help, why a real SUSE machine had so much trouble loading a kernel module built on a virtual SUSE box. It has nothing to do with the virtual part of the equation. I would fix the VM later in the day, again with help from John. This issue has come up before. It is going to be one of those things that kills us every time we have to deal with it. It is one of those things that doesn't really have a one step solution. Well, it has a one step solution every time you come across it. Same step next time.

At some point I did something with a bunch of other shit. I don't remember. That is the trouble. I work too many hours.I need a vacation. I need to win the lottery and retire. Who doesn't?

I'm Sick

It never fails. Elle starts school and I come down with something. This time Nat was not feeling well for a couple days after Elle started school. Then, without fail, I caught the same thing. It is invertible. I should not let myself get upset. I did the same thing to my parents. I remember them complaining all those years ago. yes, payback is heck.

When I woke this morning, the little voice in my head told me I just might consider taking the day off. I thought "I don't feel that bad." so I got ready and walked in. On my commute, I noticed my balance was even worse than usual and I was dragging ass on the walk. I'm coughing and sneezing and drippy.

Earlier this year I missed a couple days because of a sinus infection. I'm tired of being sick. I have a history missing days due to sinus trouble. Drink water. Lay off the antihistamines unless needed or a doctor says so. Expectorants are your friend.

My contacts refused to go on properly this morning. I bet it had something to do with my upset 'sticky-bits' system. They should just call it the snot system or something. That is what it is. My mucus membranes are out of balance so I have to ware my glasses instead of contacts. That is an interesting symptom. "He is waring his glass. He must have stubbed hiss toe recently." ... "What?"