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GRAFFITI -- October 13, 2008 thru October 19, 2008>> Link to the Current Week <<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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October 13, 2008
No Post.
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October 14, 2008
Let sleeping dogs lie... |
1923 - Good evening. I'm still catching up. Monday was a Federal holiday, where we celebrate one of the great Bringer's of Disease to the New World. By way of celebration and holiday-ness, Russ, Matt, and I worked all day doing server moves and cabling changes on a low-impact day. Dirty, crufty work - much accomplished and nothing broken. I call it a win. Then it was back home for the standard Monday evening fare of chores, and a bonus - preparing Jerry's mailbag for posting. No energy left for here, after all that, so sorry.
Lucy is getting old. She sleeps a lot more than she used to, and much harder, too. But when she's up and around, the energy and vitality are all still there, ready to rip your head off your neck if you look cross-eyed at her. Heh. Above (or right, depending on browser rendering), I caught her in a cute Wonder Dog, Only Asleep, sort of pose. I thought I'd share that moment with y'all.
Now, schoolwork. This week: a chapter, a module, an exercise, and, I think, a quiz. And that's quite enough commas for the night. Ciao!
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October 15, 2008
2055 - Good evening. Awesome. I followed Jerry's link to Passing the Torch. Think on this: "He is saying that for the first time in our history, we are not doing things for one man, but we are doing it for all the people of Iraq. He is saying the US has showed us how, and we must not forget when we thank God every day, we must also ask him to bless the US." and this: "Ask any of these three brand-new pilots if the Surge worked. [Picture] Yeah, that's Class 67. There are only three of them.They volunteered when it was a tossup whether they'd even live to graduate." Awesome. We don't get enough stories about the great, hard work our folks are doing over there.
The week's schoolwork is done. I do have a midterm project paper — a mock training manual for a few simple administrative operations — to write, it's due in a bit over two weeks. Unlike earlier in life, I'd rather be done early, and have a chance to read it and make it better. We'll see how that goes... Anyway, g'night.
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October 16, 2008
Old garage door |
New garage door |
1748 - Good evening. Today was trades day. We had Overhead Door folks (or should I say, folk, since there was just the one of him, here. He replaced the old, rotting, wood door with a new, insulated, steel door. It's lighter, stronger, and nicer looking. Oh, and it doesn't sag in the middle, like the old one does. I, too, sag a bit in the middle, but Marcia promises she doesn't mind...
Matt from A. P. Matthews, our HVAC vendor, was in for the Fall checkup on our heating systems. One part needs replacing - he'll be back with that tomorrow, with luck. Not that we've needed the heat yet this season... Then there was my work. I did some repairs to the front storm door, and used the lawnmower to vacuum up all the leaves on the front lawns ... before they got rained into a grass-killing leaf-mache. Back to work for the Friday tomorrow. Tonight? I dunno... relax? Ciao!
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October 17, 2008
2101 - Good evening. Not a bad day. Now I'm struggling with an interesting problem: When I plug my Logitech Extreme 3D Pro joystick into my Ubuntu 8.04 box, udev enumerates it at /dev/input/js1, after hooking up the Microsoft Optical Wireless Desktop device(s) up at /dev/input/js0. Sigh. This means that most of the controls on the actual joystick are pushed right off the list of potential configurations in the X-Plane 9 joystick configurator. That sucks. I found someone else with the same problem on the Ubuntu Forums, but he's had no answer. So now I'm going to look at the joydev module options to see if I can figure out how to prevent it from latching onto the MS gear. Ciao!
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October 18, 2008
1521 - Good afternoon. After a late morning a'bed, we got rolling on a number of Fall projects around here. Marcia's doing the wardrobe swap (Fall/Winter out of storage closets, Spring/Summer in) and the laundry. I've gone through our canned goods for the annual Food Bank donation drives, and we put together our clothing donations for Purple Heart, the organization we've selected for such things. I swapped in Marcia's new inexpensive Toshiba DVD player for her office, replacing the Cyberhome piece of crap that was there. At the time we got them, the Cyberhome players seemed a good, inexpensive choice. Unfortunately, they weren't inexpensive, just cheap. Oh, well.
I managed to find a solution to the joystick problems I was experiencing yesterday: I booted the box with the joystick attached, and the keyboard/mouse combo not attached. Yeah, it's a kludge, but it's easier than it sounds, because I have an IO Gear USB/DVI KVM, and all I have to do is give focus to my school system while my Ubuntu desktop/server system reboots - all it sees is the joystick. It gets enumerated first, then when I flip focus back to that system, the MS gear is recognized. Then I have to restart X to get the monitor recognized. It's not a deep problem, nor an elegant solution ... but it lets me muck about with X Plane, which is fun. Oh, hey, and X Plane is running a sale right now - you get some of the best physics in flight simulation available, and a globe's worth of terrain (on 6 DVD-DL discs). Go for it, the price is right.
Now I have to finish tweaking my resume to follow up on a request from the IEEE (it's a membership thing). I've got a shed-load of reading to do, and I should check up on class. I've also got some hard drives that I need to forcefully decommission, an idea for a Steampunk external drive chassis I want to fabricate, some thinking to do about new cabinetry for Marcia's sewing room ... the list goes on. Ciao!
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October 19, 2008
2204 - Good evening. A bit of shopping, a bit of cooking, a whole lot of relaxation. That's what the weekend turned out to be, though it wasn't planned that way. I've been pushing pretty hard, and the body said take a break. I listen to that better than I used to.
The beat goes on. While the politicos try to negotiate our continued presence in Iraq, al Sadr's folks are chanting for us to get out. Were I in a position to influence things, I'd love to be able to say, "Okay, we're outta here. It's up to you how things go from now on. But if you attack America or our allies, or harbor those that do, you won't see our soldiers. You'll just see the bombers, then it'll be Welcome to the Stone Age." Of course, no one has the stones for that, not even Condi. But until they figure out what's next, our armed services are doing their best to help rebuild the nation that was Hussein's sandbox for so long. And each week we lose a few more souls. Our condolences to the families and units of the fallen.
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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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