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GRAFFITI -- June 06, 2005 thru June 12, 2005 >> Link to the Current Week << Last Week << Mon   Tues   Wed   Thu   Fri   Sat   Sun >> Next Week Search this site : 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.

MONDAY    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
June 6, 2005

0659 - Good morning. Late yesterday afternoon I clambered over the chicken wire fence I put up to keep dogs and bunnies away from the berries, and harvested everything that looked ripe. Makes a nice plate-full, doesn't it? And to my taste, there's nothing better than fresh berries and chocolate ice cream. Well, almost chocolate ice cream - I have a container of Bryer's Vanilla Fudge Stripe (or some such yummy thing). The surprise in all of that is the restraint I showed. I could (should?) have put ALL of the berries on the four small scoops of ice cream.

On the mailserver gig, unsurprisingly, I decided to move away from the default Sendmail installation and use Postfix, along with sasl and TLS-required authentication. I like that much more than dracd, which is itself competent, but is a premise for opening a sending hole by IP ... not really a good thing, methinks. Sendmail is a bit of a bear, but Postfix is relatively simple (if I recall correctly) to setup for sasl and TLS. More on those explorations at a later date.

Well, I"m about 24 hours pre-op, now. I guess I'd better get to work, and get something done, in case my spine is accidentally severed during routine dental surgery. Has anyone else ever notices how much modern dentistry resembles ancient Egyptian mummification preparation? Hmmm. Happy Monday, have a great day!

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June 7, 2005

No Post!

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Mon    Tues    WEDNESDAY    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
June 8, 2005

1033 - But I had a good excuse. Good morning, more or less. The dental surgery went about as well as might be expected. I think I was totally out for the bone-graft portion of things, but remember most of the surgery pretty clearly. I also had virtually no after-effects such as problems with standing, walking and whatnot. So, final total for yesterday was four implants emplaced, one with bone grafting above and below to provide enough structure to support a molar. In addition, my lower right (# 32) wisdom tooth was extracted. The upper wisdom was out years ago, and this one was tilting forward and in the way of a decent implant crown. The novocaine finally wore off completely by mid evening, and while the Tylenol-3's do the job, I still didn't sleep very well. That makes two nights in a row, now, between Monday night's long Sturm und Drang (nearly continuous thunder and lighning from before 2000 until 0130 at least on Tuesday). I'm whacked (and not at work, as you will have guessed).

I did, however, stay in bed until about 0930 this morning. Now I've had a spot of breakfast, and my pills, it's time to get some cool-pack on my face to help with the pain and swelling. Oh, that and an oral rinse of some kind. Nothing else even remotely interesting to report. No, I don't count the Apple/Intel announcement as interesting. Ask me again in two years or so. Had I been thinking about an Apple laptop (and I might have been), I'm certainly not anymore. I hear deep echoes of the Osbourne swan dive. Anyway, stuff to do, naps to take. If not, I'll be in no shape to go to work tomorrow. Oh, glorious coffee!!! I'd had none since Monday morning ... I just slammed a cuppa! Yahoo!!! There goes that headache! Ciao!

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Mon    Tues    Wed    THURSDAY    Fri    Sat    Sun   
June 9, 2005

0718 - Good morning. Well, I'm not thrilled. I was hoping that the swelling and pain would drop to levels where I would feel comfortable with an OTC medication, and could go to work. But today it's the bone-graft location that's causing me grief, and the Tylenol Codeine pills the dentist prescribed (at my request, not the *really* heavy stuff) do the job, but no driving. And I can tell they make me a little less ... competent. But then, without them, it's hard to focus around the pain. Life, and it'll get better soon, I'm sure. My preference is to work right past and through this sort of thing, and I generally do pretty well putting up with pain ... Maybe it's just that I'm not twenty- or even thirty- something anymore. I sure don't like not being functional, though.

More later if I feel like it... Have a better day!

1321 - Good afternoon. I was reading on Bo Leuf's site the following:

Yeah, well ... yeah, in a sense. But then, I've always regarded the Stock Market as a peculiar form of gambling. I wouldn't put money I couldn't spare into the stock market, just as I wouldn't take money I couldn't spare to Atlantic City for a weekend of Blackjack. Personally, I think it ought to be illegal for pension funds and similar types of vehicles for minding money that people can't spare to invest in the stock market. But then, what do I know?

On the personal front, I'm feeling pretty shaky right now. May be due to no red meat over the last three days, or perhaps a reaction to the meds, or the heat, or a combination of many things. I think I'll go lay down for a little while.

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    FRIDAY    Sat    Sun   
June 10, 2005

0751 - Good morning. I certainly hope so, at any rate. I've got a followup appointment with the oral surgeon in a little while, then I'm going to head into work. Here's hoping for an untroubled day. Yeah, it still hurts, but not as much as yesterday, and I'll be taking anti-inflamatories, so that will make things tolerable. Naproxin last night instead of T3 got me through, so I'm hopeful.

I've been carrying this Treo 600 camera phone for the last three months. Every once in a while I'm alert enough to pay attention to the people who decide that traffic is too much to bear, and they simply must use the emergency lane as their personal through-way. Here's just a representative sampling, I see between one and four cars a day make this sort of move on any given commute day ... and no, this isn't using the e-lane just to get to the next exit. This is to move ahead in traffic, and they'll use either the shoulder or the center-emergency lane (yeah, the one abutting the rollback barrier). Some of them are even kind enough to put on their hazard blinkers, so you can tell that they are really in a hurry and should be accomodated.

There's a variety of other special people on the road, from people who are simultaneously talking on a cell phone and eating|shaving|putting on makeup|whatever, to people like the maroon pictured at left, who has decided that stop-and-go traffic is a good time to read the newspaper. No, this wasn't just stopped traffic. He was reading a couple or three words, glancing up, braking/accelerating dynamically and going back to the reading throughout the time I was watching him. Then there are the road pictures that just cry out to be shared ... like the paint job at right. What was he thinking???

Cringley sez that the 'i' in Apple's iLifestyle stands for Intel in a much more personal way: He thinks we're looking at an impending Intel/Apple merger, the only possible reason that Jobs would risk Osborning his company. Read the article, and you tell me, is Bob Cringley seeing the next big thing? And is it real or an induced hallucination? This speculation interests me far more than the original OS-X on proprietary Intel hardware announcement does.

Okay. Off to the surgeon's with me. Have a lovely day, wish me luck! Oh, and Happy Friday!

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    SATURDAY    Sun   
June 11, 2005

0804 - Good morning. The surgeon said that everthing looked good. I've a packing to be removed next tuesday, and another checkup with him in three weeks. Still having trouble sleeping, but had a productive day yesterday. I'm hoping for another one today, so I need to hie me off to work at this moment. Back here later, if things go both well and quickly. Ciao!

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Mon    Tues    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    SUNDAY  
June 12, 2005

1411 - Good afternoon. There's still just enough discomfort to disrupt my sleeping habits - I was awake before 0600 this morning, and out of bed by 0630. Fair's fair, so I didn't let Marcia and the girls sleep in past 0730. The flip side of that coin is that the shopping was done by 1000, and I was having a little nap before noon. Probably it'll be a few more days before the little spikes and flashes of pain subside entirely.

The Logitech MX1000 mouse, Linux and me... Off and on, I've fought with making this mouse work for me. There's fun stuff available with this 12 button mouse, from 800 DPI resolution to more bells and whistles than I really need. But it's smooth, the right shape for my hand, has a charging dock, and when it's working right, a joy to own. The MX1000 is supported in the X.org servers with a new module called evdev (short for the Event Device interface). But you see, I'm not running X.org, I'm still running XFree86, because Debian hasn't cut over to X.org yet. So, no evdev support. When used as an IMPS/2 device, some funny behaviour is evoked. I would get SOME bits working right, so that other parts would break. I'd reached a truce with it a few months ago, accepting a couple of compromises to just have the stuff I needed most working. But a frustration in desktop flipping finally drove me over the edge today, so I googled around a bit for a while, and cobbled together something that's now working for me. Not all the buttons have functions yet, because I'm still going to look into xvkbd functionality. But all the scrolling, clicking bits that I *need* to have working in expected ways, now are. Here's what I've got. In my /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 file, the InputDevice stanza looks like this now:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Logitech Mouse"
        Driver          "mouse"
        Option          "CorePointer"
        Option          "Device"        "/dev/input/mice"
        Option          "Protocol"      "ExplorerPS/2"
        Option          "ZAxisMapping"  "11 12 10 9"
        Option          "Resolution" "800"
        Option          "Name" "Logitech MX1000 USB PS/2 Mouse"
EndSection

Then I've got a file in my home directory... .Xmodmap, that has these contents:

pointer = 1 2 3 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 4 5

That works great once you setup xmodmap -- add this line to your ~/.xinitrc file:

xmodmap /.Xmodmap

Yep, that reaches the goal. More about buttons when I take the time to muck with it. Some people just get tired of mucking with it, though. Jamie Zawinski has apparently had enough, made the switch from Linux to Mac, and got Slashdotted for his troubles. Grin.

It was an expensive week in Iraq. It's a saddeningly long list of lives given in the service of our country. Take a moment to observe the price we pay to give others freedom, as our CongressWeasels legislate our own away... 29 souls, including two women.

• Staff Sgt. Leroy E. Alexander, 27, of Dale City, Va. was killed on June 3 at Forward Operating Base Orgun-E in Afghanistan when his convoy vehicle was struck by an improvised expolsive device.
• Cpt. Charles D. Robinson, 29, of Haddon Heights, N. J. was killed on June 3 at Forward Operating Base Orgun-E in Afghanistan when his convoy vehicle was struck by an improvised expolsive device.
• Cpl. Antonio Mendoza, 21, of Santa Ana, Calif., died June 3 at Brook Army Medical Center, San Antonio, from wounds received as a result of an explosion while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Ar Ramadi, Iraq, on Feb. 22.
• Spc. Carrie L. French, 19, of Caldwell, Idaho, died June 5 in Kirkuk, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device hit the front of her convoy vehicle and detonated.
• Staff Sgt. Justin L. Vasquez, 26, of Manzanola, Colo. died on June 5 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his military vehicle.
• Spc. Eric J. Poelman, 21, of Racine, Wis.died on June 5 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his military vehicle.
• Pfc. Brian S. Ulbrich, 23, of Chapmanville, W. Va. died on June 5 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his military vehicle.
• Col. Theodore S. Westhusing, 44, of Dallas, Texas, died June 5 in Baghdad, Iraq, from non-combat related injuries.
• Spc. Brian M. Romines, 20, of Simpson, Ill., died June 6 in Baghdad, Iraq, where an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.
• Lance Cpl. Jonathan L. Smith, 22, of Eva, Ala., died June 6 from wounds received as a result of an explosion while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Fallujah, Iraq.
• Lance Cpl. Robert T. Mininger, 21, of Sellersville, Pa., died June 6 from wounds received as a result of an explosion while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Fallujah, Iraq.
• Spc. Eric T. Burri, 21, of Wyoming, Mich., died June 7 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.
• 1st Lt. Michael J. Fasnacht, 25, of Columbus, Ga., died June 8 in Tikrit, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
• Ms. Linda J. Villar, 41, of Franklinton, La., died June 3 in Baghdad, Iraq, from injuries sustained when a mortar struck her forward operating base.
• Lance Cpl. Marc L. Tucker, 24, of Pontotoc, Miss., died June 8 as a result of a non-hostile vehicle accident in Asr Uranium, Iraq.
• Sgt. Michael J. Kelley, 26, of Scituate, Mass., died June 8 in Shkin, Afghanistan, when his helicopter landing zone came under enemy fire.
• Sgt. Roberto Arizola, Jr., 31, of Laredo, Texas, died June 8 in Baghdad, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near his HMMWV.
• Capt. Phillip T. Esposito, 30, of Suffern, N.Y. died on June 8 in Tikrit, Iraq, of injuries sustained on June 7 in Tikrit, Iraq, when an explosion of unknown origin occurred near his location.
• 1st Lt. Louis E. Allen, 34, of Milford, Pa. died on June 8 in Tikrit, Iraq, of injuries sustained on June 7 in Tikrit, Iraq, when an explosion of unknown origin occurred near his location.
• Lt. Col. Terrence K. Crowe, 44, of New York, N.Y., died June 7 in Tal Afar, Iraq, when his unit was attacked by enemy forces using rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire.
• Lance Cpl. Dustin V. Birch, 22, of Saint Anthony, Idaho died June 9 as a result of an explosion while conducting combat operations in Haqlaniyah, Iraq.
• Lance Cpl. Daniel Chavez, 20, of Seattle, Wash. died June 9 as a result of an explosion while conducting combat operations in Haqlaniyah, Iraq.
• Lance Cpl. Thomas O. Keeling, 23, of Strongsville, Ohio died June 9 as a result of an explosion while conducting combat operations in Haqlaniyah, Iraq.
• Lance Cpl. Devon P. Seymour, 21, of St. Louisville, Ohio died June 9 as a result of an explosion while conducting combat operations in Haqlaniyah, Iraq.
• Cpl. Brad D. Squires, 26, of Middleburg Heights, Ohio died June 9 as a result of an explosion while conducting combat operations in Haqlaniyah, Iraq.
• Staff Sgt. Mark O. Edwards, 40, of Unicoi, Tenn., died June 9 at his forward operating base near Tuz, Iraq, from a non-combat related cause.
• Pfc. Emmanuel Hernandez, 22, of Yauco, Puerto Rico, died June 8 in Shkin, Afghanistan, when his helicopter-landing zone came under enemy fire.
• Pfc. Douglas E. Kashmer, 27, of Sharon, Pa., died June 8 in Nippur, Iraq, when the wrecker in which he was a passenger was involved in a non-combat related rollover.
• Sgt. First Class Victor H. Cervantes, 27, of Stockton, Calif., died June 10 in Orgun-e, Afghanistan, when he came under small arms fire while on patrol.

There must be something around here I can occupy myself with. Idle hands are the tools of Satan ... Hmmm, maybe I'll take a nap. Grin. Have a great day!

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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.

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