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GRAFFITI -- August 20, 2007 thru August 26, 2007 >> 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   
August 20, 2007

1958 - Good evening. Yay, it's still raining. We haven't had this many rain days in a row in months. I don't mean days of continuous rain, I mean days with ANY rain at all. But there's been measurable moisture perhaps 3 days in a row. Happy, happy lawns. All I really need to do is rake out the thatch, overseed, and throw a little leaf mulch over the whole place. That's about 10 yards of leaf mulch, and two or three weekends full of raking. Yikes!

Bills are done, so are the weekly backups, and the trash is out. A power-outage delayed Mailbag from Jerry is formatted and now posted. Now it's time for the dogs to get their treats. The fun never stops around here. Ciao!

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Mon    TUESDAY    Wed    Thu    Fri    Sat    Sun   
August 21, 2007

1217 - Good afternoon. I thought I'd pop in for a moment to point out that Marcia posted pictures of the bedspread she made. Yeah, that's king-size. The whole center section, from cord to cord, was quilted on the big frame I made for her in one pass. Now, back to the grindstone for me.

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August 22, 2007

XXXX - Good evening. The concept of the idea of dinner has begun to cross my mind, so I'd better tend to that quickly, But Marcia asked me to point out that everything on that bedspread was done on the long arm quilting machine and frame, except for assembling the sides, cording, and top. In other news, if you want to know just how cool stuff can be, look at this flash file - That's one hell of an "animation". Yes, it's work-safe. Okay. Column is formatted, posting shortly. Shupper dime.

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August 23, 2007

No Post....

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August 24, 2007

0938 - Good morning. Not much time, as I'm hard at work. But I wanted to stop in and say hello. I've been looking at zsh in place of bash, both on OS X and Linux. It has some nice features, especially those related to auto-completion. It's also a nice scripting shell (and I write lots of little adhoc scripts, nearly every day).

What with all the rain, I'm going to actually need to mow the lawns tomorrow. I'm going to get at that early, because heat and humidity are returning to our area in spades today and tomorrow, with heat indexes in the low 100's by afternoon Saturday. In the evening tomorrow, I'll be back in the office, working on an off-hours infrastructure reorganization project. Yay! Anyway, back to the grindstone...

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August 25, 2007

1534 - Good afternoon. Yeah, it's hot, and damp. Unfortunately, I contributed to the local humidity spike while I sweated out a couple of gallons mowing in front and back. This recent week's comparatively cool weather and rain gave the yards a much needed boost, especially the front lawn. Had I not shaved the brown stuff way down last week, I'd have been unable to complete my task today. As it is, I double-cut in front, at 90° angles, mulching this time. It looks pretty lawn-like again, from a bit of a distance. There's still work that needs to be done, of course, but that'll wait for later into the Fall.

Not much computerish going on around here... Well, we did finally break down and get Marcia a new Brother all-in-one printer, the MFC-7420 model. Because this new model has a flatbed scanner, we have chosen to pull the Epson scanner out of her setup, and I moved her computer into the niche below the printer. Since I was moving stuff about, I took her system downstairs and blew the dust out. Then I rationalized the cabling a little bit, and added an extra USB2 header on the back panel (easy since there was a spare header on the motherboard. That was last night's big task. I also took the opportunity to remove some software that crept onto her system along with desired bits: Adobe Photo Starter thingy (Marcia uses the Kodak software), and Yahoo Toolbar (which probably came down as default selection with an Acrobat Reader update. Those bastards...

Last weekend I finally disconnected Vroomfondel, the former home server. It is a perfectly capable single core, single socket Celeron machine with 512M of RAM and an Intel motherboard. But when I retired Vimes as a linux workstation, it made sense to reuse that system as the server, because I still do some occasional processor/memory intensive tasks. So the drives are out of Vroomfondel, and now part of my backup rotation. The rest of the hardware lies fallow, awaiting a task. At least it's not heating my upstairs office more than it already is. Hmmm...

Anyway, I have to work this evening, probably for only a hour or two. In the meantime ... I'll probably continue to putter a bit, and preserve my mental energy for the work. Ciao!

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August 26, 2007

1315 - Good afternoon. Four hours of a Saturday evening blown because the work we needed Verizon to do on our circuits ... they were incapable of doing. Sigh. I got home by midnight, though. That's something.

A bad week for our men and women in the mideast. We lost three women this week, and 14 brave blokes went when their helo crashed. It saddens me ... I don't think we can walk away without dire short and long term consequences, but while we're there, our boys and girls keep dying. My condolences to the families and units of the fallen.

• Sgt. Princess C. Samuels, 22, of Mitchellville, Md., died Aug. 15 in Taji, Iraq, when the enemy attacked using indirect fire.
• Spc. Zandra T. Walker, 28, of Greenville, S.C., died Aug. 15 in Taji, Iraq, when the enemy attacked using indirect fire.
• 1st Lt. Jonathan W. Edds, 24, of White Pigeon, Mich., died Aug. 17 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his vehicle using an improvised explosive device and small arms fire.
• Capt. Michael S. Fielder, 35, of Holly Springs, N.C., died Aug. 19 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries suffered from a non-combat related incident.
• Staff Sgt. Paul B. Norris, 30, of Cullman, Ala., who died on Aug. 16 in Balad, Iraq, of injuries suffered from a non-combat related incident.
• Spc. Kamisha J. Block, 20, of Vidor, Texas, who died on Aug. 16 in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries suffered from a non-combat related incident.
• Spc. George V. Libby, 23, of Aberdeen, N.C., died Aug. 20 near Khowst, Afghanistan, of injuries suffered from a non-combat related incident.
• Cpl. Willard M. Powell, 21, of Evansville, Ind., died Aug. 16 in Balad, Iraq, of wounds sustained when the enemy attacked using small arms fire during combat operations in Taramiyah, Iraq.
• Pfc. Donovan D. Witham, 20, of Malvern, Ark., died Aug. 21 near Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle.
• Pfc. Omar E. Torres, 20, of Chicago, died Aug. 22 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit during combat operations.
• Capt. Corry P. Tyler, 29, of Georgia, died Aug. 22 in Multaka, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his helicopter crashed.
• Chief Warrant Officer Paul J. Flynn, 28, of Whitsett, N.C., died Aug. 22 in Multaka, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his helicopter crashed.
• Sgt. Matthew L. Tallman, 30, of Groveland, Calif., died Aug. 22 in Multaka, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his helicopter crashed.
• Spc. Rickey L. Bell, 21, of Caruthersville, Mo., died Aug. 22 in Multaka, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his helicopter crashed.
• Capt. Derek A. Dobogai, 26, of Fond du Lac, Wis., died Aug. 22 in Multaka, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his helicopter crashed.
• Staff Sgt. Jason L. Paton, 25, of Poway, Calif., died Aug. 22 in Multaka, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his helicopter crashed.
• Sgt. Garrett I. McLead, 23, of Rockport, Texas, died Aug. 22 in Multaka, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his helicopter crashed.
• Cpl. Jeremy P. Bouffard, 21, of Middlefield, Mass., died Aug. 22 in Multaka, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his helicopter crashed.
• Cpl. Phillip J. Brodnick, 25, of New Lenox, Ill., died Aug. 22 in Multaka, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his helicopter crashed.
• Cpl. Joshua S. Harmon, 20, of Mentor, Ohio., died Aug. 22 in Multaka, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his helicopter crashed.
• Cpl. Nathan C. Hubbard, 21, of Clovis, Calif., died Aug. 22 in Multaka, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his helicopter crashed.
• Spc. Michael A. Hook, 25, of Altoona, Penn., died Aug. 22 in Multaka, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his helicopter crashed.
• Spc. Jessy G. Pollard, 22, of Springfield, Mo., died Aug. 22 in Multaka, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his helicopter crashed.
• Spc. Tyler R. Seideman, 20, of Lincoln, Ark., died Aug. 22 in Multaka, Iraq, of injuries suffered when his helicopter crashed.
• Staff Sgt. Sandy R. Britt, 30, of Apopka, Fla., died Aug. 21 near Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit during combat operations.
• Sgt. 1st Class Adrian M. Elizalde, 30, of North Bend, Ind., died Aug. 23 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained from an improvised explosive device.
• Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. Tully, 33, of Falls Creek, Penn., died Aug. 23 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds sustained from an improvised explosive device.
• Pfc. Edgar E. Cardenas, 34, of Lilburn, Ga., died Aug. 22 in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, of wounds sustained from an improvised explosive device.
• Sgt. 1st Class David A. Heringes, 36, of Tampa, Fla., died Aug. 24 near Tikrit, Iraq, of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit during combat operations in Bayji, Iraq.
• Sgt. 1st Class Daniel E. Miller, 43, of Rossford, Ohio, died of wounds sustained from a non-combat related incident in Herat, Afghanistan.
• Sgt. 1st Class Scott M. Carney, 37, of Ankeny, Iowa, died of wounds sustained from a non-combat related incident in Herat, Afghanistan.

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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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