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GRAFFITI -- September 22 thru September 28, 2003>> Latest: Sunday, 0830 EDT <<Last Week << Mon Tues Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun >> Next Week Welcome to Orb Graffiti, a place for me to write daily about life and computers. Contrary to popular belief, the two are not interchangeable. About eMail - I publish email sometimes. If you send me an email and you want privacy or anonymity, please say so clearly at the beginning of your message.. |
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September 22, 2003 - Updates at 0656 EST
Good morning. Well, wasn't that fun... not! Seventy one hours without power. What we didn't eat out of the fridge, or shuttle over to the neighbors freezer for safekeeping, we lost. But we came out well compared to people who had trees drop on their cars, houses or even just in their yards, as at right. 
The tomatoes came through alright, though. It's hard to spot in the picture at left, but I tied each frame to the other, then ran guy strings down to the side of the raised bed from each frame, making the whole assemblage rather rigid. Worked like a champ, too, so we've got a month's worth of tomato eating left before I rip these out before we move.
That first morning after the storm passed through, it dawned cloudy but otherwise unremarkable, until we looked outside and saw the carpet of leaves, twigs, branches and trees coating almost every flat surface around. Then we discovered the first downside - no power, no coffee machine. Fortunately, I was a forward-thinking fellow the day before and ground up about 4 day's worth of beans. So all we had to do was heat water... out came the camping burner, popped it under the kettle and the necessary caffeine was just a few minutes away.
On closer examination, I had a whole new crop coming up in the right-hand raised bed where the scallions failed earlier this summer. New fungi are making a fast and furious appearance, gathering primarily at the open end of the bed, but encroaching on the space where the summer squash continues to put out one fruit a week.
We didn't do much the rest of that first day. We stood in line for dry ice for an hour, arriving at the head of the line to get one of the last few packages being handed out. The thousand or so people in line still behind us were being promised that another truck was in route and to just stay in line. Then we read quite a lot, grilled some chicken for supper, and called it a night quite early.
On Saturday morning I set about cleaning the yard. I pulled branches from where they lay, dismantled them and stacked them in the bin, which made it easy to drag out and tip by the street. Then I came back and raked out the back yard, filling the bin once again, with just leaves this time. Following that, I used to lawnmower to provide the combination trim and vacuum action that left the yard looking fairly nice. The yardwork took most of the day and all of my energy.
As the day wound down I pulled steaks from the freezer then thawed, marinated and grilled them. Marcia had the leftover chicken from the night before reheated (in foil on the shelf above), 
and we shared broccoli steamed on the side-table burner. Yummerlischious, as you can see from my plated food at right. No ice cream to follow, but fortunately during the day, we'd stopped at The Cakery and I picked up a couple of chocolate croissants for just such an emergency.
After supper, Sally and I had a well-deserved nap. After all, I'd raked and mowed and all sorts of whatnot, while Sally supervised (when she could stay awake, anyway).
Of course, a few minutes laying about with Dad isn't good enough for a professional napping dog like Sally. She needed a post-action piece of shut-eye herself, especially since she didn't get any ice cream (nor any of the chocolate croissant). [You know, I have no idea what's causing that odd marking on the floor in front of Sally's nose. If it were cold, I'd suspect condensation from her breathing, but it wasn't. A reflection, instead? From where???] While she was doing that, Marcia and I played cards well into the night, mostly Rummy, if I recall correctly.
Sunday morning dawned sunny and balmy. I'd forgotten to mention that our landlady found another real doozy of a maintenance fellow. This one turned up on our doorstep at about 11 on Saturday morning, ready to start replacing the broken front walk. Of course, we'd heard none of this from the lady herself, as usual. As he finished unloading ... from his mom's Corolla ... we set out to do some errands on that Saturday morning (probably including that stop at The Cakery, I think). We got back an hour later to find sacks of cement, lumber and tools strewn across the lawn, and no young fellow working on the walk. From the looks of things, he'd taken two whacks at the concrete with the sledge, then left. Okay, perhaps he needed more supplies. But as another hour passed, and another, and another... Well, I'd parked our Santa Fe out of the way, and moved his materials off the lawn so that I could mow the front. About 3:30 he turns up again (with a truck, this time, and no Mom) and starts in on the walk. He whacked the concrete a few more times. Then he changed pace and trenched out to each side of it and started framing up the forms (using only two-by-fours). Then he continued to break and wedge out the concrete at the top and bottom of the walk, making a hash of the "forms" he'd cobbled together. Before he left, just as the dark turned pitch, I spoke to him, and we determined that he'd be out at around (but not before) 9 the following morning.
I shot the picture at left at around 10 AM Sunday. Hmmm. By mid-afternoon, figuring that he wouldn't be turning up at all, I shifted the sacks of concrete for a second time. This pass got them under cover on the front patio, in anticipation of the forcasted rain for today. Perhaps an hour after that, sometime after 3 in the afternoon, he turned up again, and started in. This time he was moving with considerably more vigor, quickly breaking up the balance of the walk and transferring it to his truck (somewhere he came up with this truck - that's a good thing, as rubble-ized concrete and Mom's Corolla probably don't mix.) Then he started rebuilding his forms so that they were even and level. The downside of this approach is that now they ended up nearly a foot above the level of the driveway. I wanted to snap something sarcastic about building a high-dive platform, but instead I disabused him of the odd notion that he had, and showed him how to transition from level at the top of the ramp smoothly to matching the slope of the driveway at the down end. I then called the landlady and said what I did, so that he wouldn't get in hot water, in case she'd really wanted him to do such an asinine setup (she hadn't, but he'd extrapolated badly from what little instruction she had given him). So today he should mix and pour the concrete (of which he doesn't have enough), but it's supposed to rain today and tomorrow - I shudder to think about what I am coming home to, tonight. Oh well, I'll be giving notice on the first, anyway. Who cares how it looks, as long as the handtrucks moving our stuff out aren't hampered.
To wrap this rant up quickly, power crews traversed our neighborhood all day Sunday, by truck and on foot, several times. At shortly past four in the afternoon, the power came on, and wonder of wonders, stayed on. We went to the store, picked up a few replacement items for all of the formerly cold and now discarded items filling our trash bin. Meantime a new catepillar spent time trying (and failing) to figure out how to eat the leaves of a summer squash. And while Sally's eyesight isn't really good enough to see such a wee beastie from much of a distance, she remained intrigued by the bushes, figuring that if I was interested in something there, she should be, too.
Today I've got two stops, and an early day to wrap up, since the home inspector's going to be doing his thing at the new house at four this afternoon. I'll be there with notepad, measuring tape, and camera, to start trying to see how we can lay our stuff out into this nice larger space that we'll probably be taking on ... unless the inspector finds something awful. So I'll be about my day, and hope yours is good, as well. See ya!
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September 23, 2003 - Updates at 0701
Good morning. So, how did you like my Dominik Post (tm)? Heh, just nooodging you, John! Hey, I read in a recent IEEE Computer magazine the following quote from Bob Colwell's column, entitled Tools of the Trade:
I am a woodworker by avocation, and over many years I have observed a few universal laws that apply to this craft:
1. Never pick a new project to build unless it justifies purchasing a new tool.
. . .
...It probably means you know what you're doing, or that you bought one of those machines that Norm Abram has, where you stick a tree in one end, and a finished canopy bed comes out the other, complete with down comforter and pillows.
I like a technical rag that has a bent sense of humor sprinkled liberally from time to time, and Bob's articles in IEEE Computer alone make it worth the price of admission. Additionally, the IEEE is a great body not just for standards-writing, but advocacy of issues importance to engineers and computer geeks of all stripes. Look into the IEEE, see what they can do for you, and decide to support them if you will. I did.
Jerry Pournelle sent the following warning. Heed his words...
Jerry Pournelle wrote: > I have over 100 of those very sophisticated virus attacks that appear to be > from Microsoft and have a mail attachment that will patch your operating > system. > > I have now heard how this operates: it is terrible. It disables Regedit. It > sets up shared areas on your system and installs itself in there. I am not > making any of this up. Getting rid of this thing take hours, and may involve > trying to save your data which may or may not be corrupted and cleaning up > and starting over. It’s that bad. > > MICROSOFT WILL NEVER SEND YOU A PATCH AS AN EMAIL ATTACHMENT. > > MICROSOFT WILL NEVER SEND YOU A PATCH AS AN EMAIL ATTACHMENT. > > MICROSOFT WILL NEVER SEND YOU A PATCH AS AN EMAIL ATTACHMENT. > > What I tell you three times is true. > > Do not open unexpected mail attachments. Again, most of you do not need that > warning: but go tell your friends. This thing is serious, and it is swamping > my inbaskets: there are enough copies of it flowing about to slow down > Adelphia Cable Net and probably other services. > > Beware lest you become part of the zombie army this worm recruits. > > Jerry Pournelle > Chaos Manor
We had the home inspector spend time with us at the new house yesterday evening. Unexpectedly, the whole currently resident family was there, too. While that's a little unusual and occasionally very stressful, according to Shelley, it turned out quite nicely. They're a very nice couple with four well-mannered kids and a resident (grand-) mom. It was quite nice to meet the people who've been taking care of our house for us for the last thirteen years, until we were ready for it. I think we also impressed on them that it isn't just anyone who wants a place to sleep, but a couple ready for their own home, in the best sense.
The inspection itself went fine, with just a few items that we're pushing back for remediation. Shelley thinks it should breeze through just fine. We also got the formal loan application mailed off, and we'll be hunting up home-owners insurance next. Lots to do, and time is going to get very short before too long.
Now on with my day. I hope your's goes well, too. Later.
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September 24, 2003 - Updates at 2050
Sigh. Who has time for a post? Not me, apparently. I am done with a long, long day. In new-house news, the minor push-backs based on the home inspection were all accepted by the sellers - they'll have them fixed. One step closer. In the next day or two, insurance needs to get bought, I guess. Many steps. Now for supper...
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September 25, 2003 - Updates at n/a
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September 26, 2003 - Updates at 0712
As if to make up for the extravagance of Monday's overflowing post with pictures, I've been far too busy to have time for much of anything here in the latter part of the week. It's not that life hasn't continued, but that none of it is very new, and there's not as much time for writing about it. I'm hopeful of some stabilization shortly. Meantime, I've got a batch of Windows boxen to fetch, unpack, apply updates to, rebox, and prepare for a weekend install. So take it easy...
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September 27, 2003 - Updates at 0625
Good morning. I'm off to work in a few moments, but I just wanted to drop by and note that I hadn't forgotten you. Larry and I are installing a batch Dell boxes today - two Xeon/RAID servers and workstations to match at two facilities. Win2k3 Advanced Server on the servers, WinXP Pro on the workstations. We still have four more boxes to update this morning, prior to delivery and setup. We're doing the updates in our place, rather than on the customer site, because the connectivity at both of those locations is dialup. Whew. Anyway, I must go, so have a lovely weekend... Oh, yeah, the house stuff proceeds apace - no big bumps in the roadway yet. Take care!
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September 28, 2003 - Updates at 0830
Good morning. I've had my coffee, and it's time to go to work, again. Yesterday was, finally, a successful complete install for one of the two sites. The second should go smoothly, given what we learned in the installation process. But I must fly, so I'll leave you with this: BlackBoxVoting. This one is a blog-ish sort - there's an associated ORG site, but that's currently in DMCA shutdown by the offices of Diebold. Uh-oh. Anyway, I agree with a number of commentators - open the code, let it be audited by all comers - that's how voting methods should be, open and fair.
Have a great day, and I'll do my best to do the same.
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Visit the rest of the DAYNOTES GANG, a collection of bright minds and sharp wits. Really, I don't know why they tolerate me <grin>. My personal inspiration for these pages is Dr. Jerry Pournelle. I am also indebted to Bob Thompson and Tom Syroid for their patience, guidance and feedback. Of course, I am sustained by and beholden to my lovely wife, Marcia. You can find her online too, at http://www.dutchgirl.net/. Thanks for dropping by.
All Content Copyright © 1999-2003 Brian P. Bilbrey.
