11:31 AM 02/22/2012

So the new job has kept me busy busy busy. The only reason I've got a chance to post right now is I had to take the morning off because my daughter got sick on the bus this morning and that means she can't be in school according to the rules.

She's sleeping quietly on the couch now and will likely be fine tomorrow. (I just woke up from a preemptive nap myself. I've been running a little stretched lately and definitely was able to use the extra sleep. That will get cleared up here soon enough as things at work are going well and I will be doing a little more dispatch and scheduling and a little less technical work. The two are supposed to be mutually exclusive and the former definitely doesn't happen as much after-hours as the latter.

In other news I reclaimed a laptop from a co-worker that had a bad motherboard. It almost wasn't worth repairing but my neighbors had me order a replacement motherboard for their laptop and I got a deal and was able to get the board for this one as well. Now all it needs is a new battery. It's a Dell Inspiron E1505, 15" Core2Duo, 2gig ram, and it was able to just up and run with my existing SSD installed with Mint 11 Linux on it. That laptop can also be upgraded to a 2.35 Ghz chip pretty cheaply but even with the old 1.6ghz and the SSD it just seems to fly. Faster than the 2.16 ghz C2D of the same year. Very strange.

Managed to get the garage connected with the house via gigabit ethernet cable. It's not pretty because I have blue Cat5E strung arially from the house to it but it works thankfully. With time and money this spring I'll get the yard trenched and a pipe put in between the two places and that'll be a great improvement. In the meantime if I find a cheap price on fiber and gbic connectors that arial cable may turn from blue to orange. What I'm most worried about with that is local lightning. If something hits close it will easily induce a current in that wire and probably kill the two switches at either end. Then I'd have to buy gigabit switches as well.

As for other things our daughter is gettng more used to not getting her way but it's still the typical teenagerism. Went to play Mahjonng at a friend's house and half the time she kept asking us if we were ready to go. That didn't work so she was a little perturbed but she didn't have a full scale meltdown so that's good.

Slightly irritated that I haven't started any seedlings yet. I've been so busy with work that I may have to just order starter plants this year. I _WILL_ have a garden this year dammit. Still really itching to have some sort of hydroponics setup but until I get other inside things taken care of that's not happening.

We're getting almost three grand back from the taxes this year (even some from the state) and while a chunk of that has to go to the mortgage this month some of that is definitely going into house repairs. Maybe I'll finally be able to buy the bags of concrete I need to fill that hole in the basement wall and start finishing out that space. That would be awesome.

Well my daughter is up and showing signs (and sounds...ugh) of still not feeling well. It's probably just the 24 hour thing my wife had the other night so I'm not too concerned. And my wife just arrived with food so I gotta go so I can get back to work. Later!

I'm _definitely_ stone-free now.

Last night at about 11:30 pm the pain woke me out of a sound sleep. It was pain in exactly the same place as before. Tried the Vicodin they gave be but it didn't touch it. Waited until 2 am to see if it was temporary then called the Urologist when it didn't go away. He sent me to the ER for "pain management" and an appointment for a kidney stent.

Meanwhile I tossed up all my dinner and anything else in my stomach due to the pain, got rushed from triage into a room where they gave me 2mg of something strong and that's when the Urologist scheduled me for the stent installation.

They get me into surgery around 9:30 am and the doc uses a camera and a grabby so to speak to remove the remaining piece of stone as well as install the stent.

I wake up and have been in recovery all day today. They've temporarily changed my glucose meds due to the dye used in the cycstoscopy so my wife's picking that up here in a little bit.

So talked to the doc this morning and he's sending me home with an oral medication. Not sure what the plan is but sad as it is I will likely go home, take a shower, get dressed, and go to work. I can't afford not to.

So thus begins another round of constant glucose testing among other things. Not thrilled by that but don't have a choice in the matter. One thing I'm going to do this time is make sure people stay out of my face about it. Last time I had people constantly up in my grill about what my numbers were all the time. I know you care people but WTF? I'm 42 years old - deal with your own lives and I'll deal with mine.

Regardless I'll get it all back on track. The workshop, the job, the house, everything.

Oh great Celestia! I have to order seeds next month and get them started! Wonderful. That alone will be a project.

That said seven years between reminders about one's stupidity is not too bad in my book. I know I can do better but honestly it's annoying.

20:46 PM 01/20/2012

So home safe and sound right now. Had the quarterly meeting of the place I'm working at today at a restaurant and it took me about 30 minutes to go a distance that usually takes me about 5 - 10 maximum.

And...I locked my keys in my car...while it was running...at the restaurant...in front of my co-workers...and my wife had to come and unlock it for me.

Fortunately she works on the same road I do and she was able to stop by on her way out from the office. I owe her one for that...but not too big a one.

Don't let up...SOPA/PIPA will be back...

Watched a good chunk of the internet get blacked out in protest the other day and that was a really really good thing. Big companies and small artists alike put forth the effort to black out their websites and put up notices informing people about how bad this legislation is. I am ashamed to admit that I was remiss in this one as I did nothing. (I have no excuse. "I was working." doesn't cut it because a lot of artists that make a living with their websites did it and if it cost them something of their daily income then I could have spared some of my time.)

Unfortunately while this is a nice temporary setback for the individuals funding SOPA/PIPA there is no way this is the end. They'll do like they have done in the past and slip it into a bill for funding faith based schools run by orphan nuns or something and it'll pass at 2 am with very little dissenting vote from those not paid millions of dollars by vested interests. (Side note: If so much of this lobbying money is being thrown around why isn't the nation debt being paid down??)

And then we'll be stuck with another bad law.

Because here's the thing - the US legal system is currently constructed so that it's very easy to make laws but very hard to get them removed. The best reason I can fathom for this is that the legal system has obviously grown over time to fit the needs of those using it as a career platform. So the more laws they can make that benefit themselves and the harder they are to remove then the safer their lives as lawmakers are. (That leads, best as I can tell, to a society of elite lawmakers/kings with a silent class of servants that do not step out of line for fear of breaking an unknown law.)

So...obviously...the time to fight these things is when they first get created. We need a public service that...

1) Watches the government as they create proposals.

2) Translate those proposals into common language.

3) Does automatic alerts of these laws to a network APP for phones or tablets or TVs or indeed anything networked. Perhaps by category.


The problem with this system is that it's spammable. You could in theory create a billion tiny proposals that mean nothing and flood the system hiding the real proposals for laws that you want to create.

Then you'd have to make the public service bigger. Which would introduce more errors into the translation of those proposals to common language. Or put the entire service at risk of infiltration or even being bought off.

As usual there are no easy answers.

But...BUT...if you _could_ make that system fairly secure...AND...people didn't get lazier about their governemnt than they already are...it woud be a good way to keep some of the legal stuff in check.

Maybe.

But honestly I think the best thing that people can do is just pay attention. Don't let them pull things over on you. You're smarter than that.

"People are dumb, panicky, and you know it!" is only a phrase from a movie. I have faith in people. They can do a lot.

You. You can do a lot.

...though my name isn't Galadriel.

Looking at the current political climate it's now unsafe to say anything over an open channel. (F-List protected, encrypted, or otherwise.) Therefore I will restrict my posts to fantasy, philosophy, and all things except politics and/or government.

We're entering some dark times. Have your papers ready, up to date, and upon you.

Me? I'm just going to work for a living for a while, fix things, and maybe try and make some art in my life.

03:32 AM 12/27/2011

So...awake again. This time I went to bed at around 11:00pm and woke up around 3:00am. And my mind is already full of things from work. Wonderful. (Oh and the title is just a title. No wife issues here.)

Not a bad thing really as it's been a long time since I had things from work to focus on. I've got a few tasks I'm behind on but I really need to run them by others to find out what the company procedure is about them. I'll hopefully do that today.
( Cut to spare people from my rambling... )

19:10 PM 12/18/2011

So sifting through my friends page and I notice that shinga of Head Trip had her Wacom tablet die on her. I'm currently seeing if I can dig one up for her but if you've got an old USB 3x5, 4x5, or 6x8 Wacom tablet you're willing to part with head on over there and talk to her. (The thread about the tablet is here: http://headtripcomics.livejournal.com/92708.html )

The world needs more people helping other people. Co-Ops seems to be a good solution to that in the short term. You pay in a little money each month ($5 - $10 - $20 and NO MORE WITHOUT APPROVAL OF ALL CONCERNED) and it builds up in a joint account. Each person submits a list of things they need and they all vote on the method in which those items are addressed. Then over time the money gets spent on the items to help each of the people paying into the account. I'm sure there are bugs in that plan but nothing that can't be worked out.

Other than that though there are _always_ things people can do to help out other people if only letting others know that someone needs a hand. Boosting The Signal as it were. ;-)
( In other ganooz... )

22:02 PM 12/14/2011

Worked 13.75 hours today.

But frankly I'm happy. I'm working again and I'm doing a good job. A lot of the self-doubt has gone away.

Now I just have to keep shining bright in day or night...

And very well I might add. I like the job, I like the people, and I like getting paid. (Did I mention the people I work with rock? ^_^)

It leaves me less time to get things done around the house but I wasn't really getting things done anyway.

I managed to order a Mr. Beer ingredients kit for cheap from Target so hopefully I'll be able to get a batch started next week when it arrives using my home-made fermenter made from a pretzel container. Still need a capper and caps. I should be able to make do for everything else but as finances become better I'll definitely be buying proper brewing equipment and cleaning/fixing the one turkey cooker to boil wort in.

And I finally got the One Wire Weather software to build on Luffy my WeatherQube:

http://luffy.nimitzbrood.com

It's accurate now and once that machine is on a battery backup it'll be quite reliable. I've got the oww software configured to log to Weather Underground but it hasn't shown as active there yet. Hopefully it'll be good for that by Monday.

Got to make sure I have some other way into my network before then as I had the main webserver die a couple of times on Thursday and Friday and couldn't get in to restart it. My whole shebang needs to be on battery backup units simple because the power here fluctuates on a semi-regular basis. It'll be even worse when I move them outside as the power dips whenever the space heater kicks in out there. I so need to be off the grid.

On the bench right now is an old Powerbook 100 that is having booting/P.O.S.T issues. It's for a good friend and it's a classic so it's a labor of love. Hope I can fix it.

Still not finished with the workshop out there. I suppose I should be doing that rather than posting here but I'm pretty tired. I'll try and get to it tomorrow as I don't really have any other plans than laundry and my wife and daughter will be out at a party for a our twin niece/nephews at my brother-in-law's house.

Also picked up the first repair part for the house so I'll be able to fix that leaky toilet and our water bill will be just that much lower. (It's minorly dripping but that can easily cause big problems.)

And I managed to get fuel system dryer into both vehicles so hopefully I won't have problems when the temp drops below a certain point. Protip: A bottle of isopropyl alcohol in the washer fluid before it freezes will help keep it from freezing up when it gets cold.

Off....my rocker... ;-)

Black Friday violence:

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/320-80/8589-black-friday-turns-violent-at-9-us-walmart-stores

I will only say this to all those people:

It's only things. And if you don't concentrate on fixing what's wrong in this country and in your lives versus fighting in line for $1.88 towels then you'll end up selling all those things just to buy food or keep your house or pay your bills.

Period.