Chronicles, "Welcome To My Knightmare, Duck"

Knightmare Duck (KD) is one of my oldest friends. I have known people longer than him, but I have lost contact with them over the years. I guess he and I have known each other for about 30 years or so. We were next door neighbors for several years before I eventually moved to NC with my HSS. He and I have a lot of history as friends. We have been through some very interesting times before, during, and after "The BSOB Years". We competed with each other (intentional or not) in video games, sports, girls, chess, and cars...but not to the point of being obnoxious about it. Come on, we are guys.

I think KD was visiting his grandmother Marie (she lived across the street from me) the day I met him. He had some pretty interesting toys (like the guns of Navarone play set on the left) and we soon started playing war and Matchbox cars together on a regular basis. He eventually moved into our neighborhood and hanging out with him became common place. KD was always having people over to his house playing video games or watching HBO. He was the only one in the group that had a premium movie channel.

When we were younger, KD joined me and the rest of the kids that lived nearby in games of wiffle ball, kick ball, and football as well as none sport games like tag and hide and go seek (which we only played at night). He was a good competitor. Like me (and unlike most of the other kids), he did not have a lot of money so we had to improvise on things when we were younger. I clearly remember using sticks for guns (as well as swords, spears, bats, etc) and and squeeze bottles for squirt guns.

Going over to KD's house was never a predictable event. We could start off playing video games on his Atari 2600 or watching a movie on HBO and end up in a baby powder fight (powered by hair dryers...you had to see it to believe it) or water balloon fight. One thing was for certain...if you came over to KD's house, you were going to have fun. He had a pinball machine and a pool table (neither which were top of the line or new, but they were fun and full sized. KD's dad was always getting a great deal on used toys). Having those things in his possession meant that KD was the guy to beat...and he proved difficult to unseat most of the time. He was a natural competitor and hated to lose.

Out of all the group, KD probably was the biggest risk taker. He was a natural brawler and liked to mix it up whenever the opportunity presented itself. While he and I used to wrestle (and I was victorious some of the time but not very often), I avoided fights with him at all costs. He hit like a Mack truck and could take a lot of punishment. I do not think I ever saw him back down from a fight, no matter what the odds were (in retrospect, that is kinda scary considering the things we did). He would even keep others from jumping in when one of us was in a fight. While he had a bit of a short fuse, he had (and still does) honor. No sucker punches, no ganging up on someone. Just a "mano a mano" fight. In that way, I respected him because he had a degree of bravado and confidence that I never had. While hanging out with him was aways a risk, it was never boring. Even when we were pulled over by the police ("Do you know who my dad is?" ) he exuded confidence. I can safely say that most of the groups memorable moments occurred either because of or in the presence of KD. Never a dull moment...and if there was, he made sure it was short lived...usually at Carp's expense.

One of the more ironic things about our friendship is that while he was into technology before I was (and more heavily), I was the one who made it more of a career. KD was the first kid in the area to get a game console (Odyssey system, I believe) and a personal computer (Vic-20). His interest in tech spilled over to me and eventually I had an Atari 2600 and a Commodore 64. Of course by then, KD had upgrade beyond that. Oh how we loved our tech toys!

In our middle teen years, KD became heavily into playing "fujiball" (Baseball with a tennis ball) basketball with some of the guys from LA (Lower Adamston). He probably played every day of the week in the summer at a local church parking lot. I joined them every now and than, but I was not really part of that crowd. I was looking for a different scene and found it with Holmes and Charlie and the rest of the "Chunki's Junkies" After a few weeks of integrating myself with the new crowd KD and Carp joined in and thus began "The BSOB Years".

KD is kind of a big guy. Most big men usually have no trouble drinking at least their share of alcohol and KD was no exception. The year he attended DeVry University in Columbus, Ohio he learned a lot about alcohol from his dorm mates. After a couple of semesters, he came back a seasoned beer warrior that could out drink everyone...and he was not afraid to prove it. When we drank as as group, we rarely if ever went to clubs. We preferred to drink at the train yard or some other out of the way place (Snake Hollow...). We did however drink at his house on more than one occasion. I seem to remember episodes involving a pint of JD, lots of cheap wine, and 2 liter bottles of cheap wine cooler. My stomach is churning just thinking about it.

After the BSOB years we all began to go our separate ways. KD and Carp became very close and hung out together all the time. As a matter of fact, I think one of KD's girlfriends was introduced to him by Carp. Eventually (IIRC) KD and his girlfriend ended up living together in his parents old house and used Carp to help them remodel. I remember that time because either he or his girlfriend had a Renault...the first I had ever been in. I hung out with KD and his GF (for the life of me I cannot remember her name...but I bet I will at 3 AM...that is when I normally remember odd facts I have forgotten) a few times, but being married and having a kid on the way was not conducive to acting like a kid, so I had to dial it back a notch.

After I moved to NC, I lost track of KD for a couple of years but ran into him outside the county jail (I was at the courthouse filing legal documents and he was on a break) and we sat in his cruiser (he was a county deputy) in the A/C and talked. We caught up on things and made a promise to keep in touch...one that we failed to keep for some time. Oh, we went out once and while when I was in town, but that was about it. We got bit better once I moved to Texas.

I keep in touch with KD as much as I can via e-mail and IM's. I usually get to see him once a year or so when I go back home to visit. He has changed quite a bit...he has settled down and pretty mellow. He has a good wife and a good job (I know he gets shot at for a living but at least he is happy) and looks back at the "bad old days" as not so bad. I got brave and asked him some personal questions about the times we fought as kids and he floored me with his response: "I can' tell you why." I did not take this as a refusal to tell me, I toke it as, "we were kids and kids fight for no reason 95% of the time." Yep, he has changed. There was time he would have said, "We fought because you were an a$$hole." and he may have been partly correct. I guess Holmes was right when he said that it was "just water under the bridge".

I admire that.

An Open Letter To Recruiters

While this is fresh on my mind, I wanted to post this. Feel free to add to it:

Dear Recruiter,

Thank you for interrupting my lunch to call me about a job you have posted in Houston Texas. While I am honored that my diverse experience meets or exceeds the requirements of the job you are peddling, a five hour commute from Dallas to Houston is not reasonable at this time. If that condition changes, I will be sure to notify you immediately.

I would like to point out a few things about my resume that appear to have slipped by your eagle-like eyes. The first is my work history. Help Desk jobs paying $10-12 an hour are not part of my career path, neither is selling insurance. I can see how the Project Manager, Help Desk Manager, Escalation Manager, and Unix Administrator roles I have previously held could be confused with Sales Person or Call Center Agent so I will not hold you accountable for that. With that being said, I am not interested.

The second point pertains to dates of employment. While I agree it may seem old fashioned, dates of employment that include verbiage along the lines of "From June 2003 to Present" most likely indicates that I am not willing to take a three month contract that offers no benefits and less money than I make now. Call me fickle, but I just don't think that will work for me.

Thirdly, when you e-mail those well written and formatted form letters to me, would it be too much to ask for some spell and grammar checking? When an interview request or job posting includes "...attention to detale..." a red flag tends to go up. And speaking of detail, is it possible that you put the correct location in the job posting? Sending me a job advert for a position over an hour away (during the best road conditions) when the job is really 20 minutes away is a big deal. "Oh, I just forgot to change the city" is a poor excuse. Why would I want to put my career in the hands of someone who pays that little attention to "detale"?

Fourth, buzzwords are dangerous. If they are used out of context, you are going to make a fool of yourself and you will not get your commission on my account. Don't fake knowledge. It is not an N-O-C, it is a KNOCK.

One last point. Having XYZ experience is not the same as being an XYZ architect. I can have all the experience in the world using an application or platform, but there is no way I can design, build, ordeploy it. I have over 20 years experience with driving cars, but I cannot build one.

Thanks again for considering me for this position.

El Gee


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I have a question that I have not been able to find an answer for yet. Why do agencies post three month contracts for something like a Help Desk Manager? I got a call today (which prompted a fair percentage of the previous letter) for a Help Desk Manager's job on a three month contract with a HUGE (global) corporation. It is gonna take a person just that long to get up to speed on all the processes. What am I missing?

Small And Tasteless / I Just Want It To Work / Dog Update

I beat my wife home by about 45 minutes yesterday so I fed the dogs, let them out to do their thing, and washed/dried/put away the dishes. I had just finished when she pulled in. Go me! I had to take care of a few personal things and while I was doing that my wife threw her leftover dinner (brisket, mac and cheese, string beans) in the microwave. There was nothing prepared and I did not want a frozen dinner (I would be having that for lunch the next day), so I did the unthinkable...I went to McDonald's. Now, I hardly ever go to McDonald's...I have to look at the menu every time I go in (which is about 2 times a year) just to see what each thing is called. Well last night I ordered a "Big and Tasty" which was small and tasteless. It was OK, but after eating Scotty P's burgers, fast food sucks.

I got home and walked little man and then went in to do some work on the PC (I had to scan my son's w2 and e-mail it to him in Kuwait) and waited until Law and Order cam one. When it came time to watch LaO, it was a repeat...actually both episodes last night were repeats...that meant I was free to go experiment on a few things on the Linux box. The first thing I did was watch a episode of Battlestar Galactica on scifi.com . I did not know they were putting episodes on the web free (in flash format) and I was able to catch an episode I missed. Go Me!

After that was over, I worked on getting VNC to work from my Windows Box to my Linux box. I can already do the opposite of that, but I was having trouble with Win to Linux. Every time I tried to connect, I would connect but I got a blank desk top. I tried all manner of things I had found on the web and some got me closer than others, but none gave me the active desktop that was already up and running. After playing with that for 2 hours or so, I gave up and went to bed. I just want it to work. I have no problems using it Win to Win, or Lin to Win, but not Lin to Win (I have not tried Lin to Lin yet).

I got up and felt pretty good and was able to get ready for work in good time. My wife who came to bed after me and got up about the same time, was kinda grouchy (but I still love her) and was worried she had too much to do and not enough time to do it. I tried to help as much as I could (recyled items, garbage, dishes, feed walk and water the dogs, etc) but she really need to get more sleep.

Work was not too bad this morning and I have still not received any info from the person complaining about the service in Brazil to Sweden. I have a team looking into it from a high level, but without specifics we are flying blind.

We received a notice a few months ago about 3 pieces of training we needed to complete by jan 31 and I had forgotten about it. Well I was reminded last night to do it and I did it this morning. I will be fine for another quarter...that is when the next batch is due.

It is currnently snowing ever so lightly outside, alternating from big to little flakes...but none of it sticking.

My wife just called to remind me that we have small groups tonight and I am to make my special mashed potatoes and also to tell me that the visit with the vet went well. The golden has been limping but thankfully it is not serious. It looks like a strain from over compensating for her bad hip. She will be on limited mobility for 2-3 weeks and on anti-inflammatory meds for a while.

I released the second installment of my "Chronicles" the other day but none of the gang commented...I am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. My aim was not menevolent so I hope it was not perceived that way...I was just reminiscing....

Piece Of Me / Coming Under Fire / It Sure Doesn't Feel That Warm

Today was a repeat in many ways of yesterday in regard to business. There was some closure from the previous day, one carry over, and one new issue. It was enough to keep me hopping from the start of my shift until lunch.

I was pleased to hear that one of the issues (the one that did not follow the process) was closed. I figured that it would, but with our TPS (Third Party Supplier) we never take anything for granted. The issue that was a carry over from the day before frustrated me because the more I evaluated the data that was sent to me, the less it looked like it needed escalated. it honestly appears that the application architect/support person needs to contact the local customer (3500 miles away) and tell them how to tweak the app settings some. However, this is not happening and the people involved keep bouncing the ticket and that is how I got it. The customer got frustrated and asked to have the issue escalated. That means I get brought in. I asked for the customer to give me new info, but I never received it, so I had a meeting with the LAN guys and the Change Mgr from the affected area. He says while the logs show the app is slow, the customers do not share that opinion. Could his report be mistaken? Is it set in an overly sensitive manner? I will let the local team figure that out. I just hand out the assignments :)

The new issue happened while I was trying to tie up some loose ends on the previous issue. One of the Incident Mgrs in Europe called me up and asked me for some advice, then he wanted me to call the customer to relay some info. Normally I do not call the end using customer...I normally get to chat with Mgmt, but in this case it was not the person, it was the timing. Besides, the issue was going to have to wait until morning Having me call someone in Europe after hours to tell them what needs done (but can't because of security policies in place) is just silly. Call them first thing in the morning. Why does Europe wait until after business hours to ask for something to be escalated when they knew about this...DAYS AGO. Everyone's issue is important...the most important issue I should be dealing with. Well folks, take a number...I gots only two ears and I am trying tio concentrate on 3 conversations.

My wife called during the tail end of the mess and wanted my advice on something, so I delayed lunch so we could chat. Guys, if you are not already ware of this, keep in mind that your wife is important. If she needs to talk and you can make time to do so, do it. Do not risk your job, but if she needs to talk, take a break and do so.

Our son e-mailed us last night telling us that he made it back to base from Kuwait City. He took some good (and some not so good) pictures that made me laugh a couple of times. He stated that after they got back someone lobbed 2 mortars into his camp aiming for communications and weapons. They knocked out power for nine hours but he is okay. Obviously someone knows what they are doing. I continue to pray for his safety.

I took a walk around the block during the last part of my lunch. The weather says it is 46 degrees, but I sure feels colder than that to me. I realize that I had a shor tsleeve shirt on under my jacket (which to most people is a fall or spring jacket) and that I had just consumed a 20 oz cold Sobe bottled beverage, but I had trouble focusing on walking with the wind blowing in my face. The air temp may have been 46, but it fells a lot colder than that ...heh just I thought. The wind chill is 37 degrees.

Not Going Anywhere For A While...? and All At Once

Install Foresight Linux on a 650 mhz laptop. that should kill about 3 hours just in install time alone. Not kidding folks, the Fedora offshoot with its own package manager uses an older version of Anaconda and the install, while not painful, is sloooooooooooooooow. I made it to bed at 11:30 when I started this before 9 PM.

I got up and turned it one (the first boot after installation) and it looked nice and had the newest versions of many tools, but several of them were eye candy that my sandbox just could not handle. FL also did not detect my wireless card and there was not an easy way to get it running (there is an open source project on it but I wanted something a bit more user friendly). It has some unique things about it that might make it nice as a desk top OS but since I am looking for a laptop OS, I am going to try just one more before I go back to Mepis...OpenSuSE. It is five CD's, but I am sure it will be faster than FL was!


The last couple of weeks have been pretty slow at work...not as much going on as I thought. There have been some very quiet times during the day that are a little eerie. However, that changed today with the arrival of TWO escalations for me to handle. While they are not formal ones, they will give me the chance to do something.

The first one has to do with app performance/WAN performance between Brazil and Sweden. The Swedes are running tools in Brazil that until November were running fine. Now the apps are not performing as well and the Swede's think that the change that occurred in Novemeber is the cause. The WAN team (not under our jurisdiction ) states (emphatically) thatthere is nothing wrong with th WAN, so I have started an inquiry in Brazil regarding the suspected changes. I hope to know more soon.

The second one was kinda funny because it did not have a process to be followed. A third party vendor has received a ticket to perform a change to one of the systems they administer to correct an issue our customer is having. The change has not been completed yet and year end is coming up. Well there is no process governing things like this so I was called to get things moving. Always quick on my feet (or seat, depending on the situation) I called the Inc Mgmt team and opened a high severity ticket on the issue. While it is not the way that things would normally work, this will have to do until we get a formalized process in place agreed upon my our customer. The good thing about this is that the customer knows this is going on between the third party and us so they are not too upset...but they are a little disappointed with the TPV.

All I have to do now is to monitor the high sev ticket to make sure that the issue gets resolved.

S it was a fun morning ...and i forgot to add that our site did not have any network connectivity this morning when the first issue came through. Now THAT was fun!

The Party's Over...

The weekend is winding down and I am sitting here with two Linux boxes...my stable Ubuntu 6.10 workhorse and my sandbox laptop. The sandbox is getting it's second OS install of the weekend and I am typing up my blog on the other.

The sandbox has a spare hard drive (it is smaller, but usable) so I after getting Mepis configured with wifi I yanked the HD out and put in the spare to install PCLinuxOS, an Madriva offshoot. It loaded fast and everything worked...except wireless, even though the driver was included in the distro. I fought with it but no dice, so I wiped it and started on install #2, Foresight. The advert said it was easy enough for noobs (my term, not their's) but flexible enough for pro's. Well, I am still sitting here an hour after I started and it still says it has 75 minutes to go...I am not sure I want to stay up that long to finish it. Of course I will have an update on it later...

Yesterday the weather was nice but cool but later on it got COLD and rainy. All that happened while we were in Anna, TX visiting a friend and helping him celebrate his birthday with about 20 others...mostly from our church. We had pizza, punch, and cake and really had a great time chatting. There were "no gifts allowed" but since he is a Harley Davidson nut, we got him an authorized deck (actually 2 decks) of playing cards.

We stayed for about 3 hours and decided to let them have their house back...we figured we had stayed long enough. We jumped in the van and drove back home to feed, water, and walk the dogs.

After getting home and taking care of things, I jumped on the PC to make some updates to my blog, which I seem to be doing a lot of lately. I guess that is okay, but sometimes I wonder if I should cut back a bit.

Church was nice today. Mickey and a couple others from our church announced that we are starting a motorcycle ministry . Mickey is very excited and was almost in tears as he made the announcement and thanked everyone for helping. He even had the other two members join him and they all brought their bikes: A Harley, a Buell Blast, and a Honda Shadow. It looked neat.

We had lunch at Arby's and then went to Burlington Coat Factory to get a few things for me...socks and a new black belt. My wife returned something she bought a while back and bought some more socks to work out in.

We came back home and took care of the dogs and then I got on the PC and have been here most of the evening, except when I called mom and walked Little Man. I am turning into such a geek...at least I am not watching TV all the time...right?

Sissy

Those who know me well know that I am a big MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fan, especially the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship). UFC is not the only big MMA organization the the world, there are others (K1, Pride, MFC, Shooto, etc) but it is the one that is most accessible to me in this area. Lately the UFC has started importing fighters from other MMA organizations to "liven up" the heavy weight division. A few of the names being pushed are Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, and Heath "The Texas Crazy Horse" Herring. Thursday evening, Spike TV aired the debut of Heath Herring to the UFC. He went up against a young and undefeated "Irish" Jake O'Brian. Jake is a former Purdue wrestler who has only been in MMA for a couple of years. Heath is also young (although 6 years older than Jake), but he has been in MMA for years and is also a world renowned Mixed Martial Artist. However, what I saw on Spike TV the other night was a huge disappointment.

First, Heath knew he was going up against a wrestler so he positioned himself to avoid take downs at the expense of his striking ability. Jake would wait until Heath missed with a big punch and then he would take Heath down and mount him. This same scenario was played out over and over again the first two rounds and most of the third until Heath finally started slugging like a real fighter.

After the match was over and Jake was declared the winner, Joe Rogan interviews Heath and asked him about the fight. The comments that came out of Heath's mouth were embarrassing. He said that he tried to give the people a fight but all they saw was a wrestling match. Earth to Heath, it is called MMA, not boxing or kick boxing. If you expect a grappler to stand toe to toe with a striker and trade hits, you are dumber than you look. MMA is about COMBINING more than one Martial Art into a unique fighting style. If all you want to do is punch, EXPECT for your opponent to take you to the ground. My only regret was that Jake did not do some ground and pound on him.

I guess what really irks me is all the hype that the UFC did for this fight. If the Rampage Jackson and Cro Cop fights are not any better, then I do not think that PRIDE has much to offer. If all they do is slug, it ain't MMA.

Chronicles, "Take The Long Way Holmes"

I first met Holmes, AKA Rycherox, in the summer of 1982 (the summer before I graduated high school) at Nicki’s, a local pizza joint. He was feeding quarters into one of the video games in an attempt to extend his reign as top dog of Asteroids. Holmes had a delightful and twisted sense of humor that only comes from watching countless hours of “Saturday Night Live” (SNL) and “Fridays” (a short-lived but incredibly hilarious Friday night version of SNL). We hit it off almost immediately.

I need to stop here to fill you in on a bit of my hometown etiquette. Back then, it was considered a faux paux to associate people from high schools other than your own. The county I grew up in had six high schools and it was rare that you had friends from any other than your own considering all the rivalries. I was a bit of an enigma to my peers, so it did not bother me that I would soon be looked upon as a bit of a rebel by doing this. I received some scorn from both my high school and Holmes' but we never let that interrupt an incredible friendship. And now, back to our first meeting.

After watching and playing games for about 30 minutes or so, Holmes decided to leave, but he invited me over to another pizza place to try out a few of the video game samplings they had. I followed him across and down the street to a little hole in the wall with about 5 video games in it. I think one of them was Galaga and another was Omega Race, but other than that, my mind is a blank. Not that it matters much...Holmes was the game player; I was just a trusty and faithful sidekick that would probably follow him to the Abyss and back, if video games, music, sci-fi, or girls were involved (which they usually were).

That first day when I met Holmes he was his usual self: carefree and uninhibited. Later on, when I met his mother and his brother JC, I saw a different side of him: The man of the house, the big brother, and the protector. I learned that Holmes was in a situation that affects many kids today...he never really knew his father. I was not sure how to approach the subject, so I never asked many questions about his fatherless home. When I was younger, I never felt comfortable asking anyone about personal matters. But now is a completely different story. If you have a past and want to talk about it, I will always listen. Maybe that is why my friends have always included a few outcasts. Society may not want them, but I always do.

Holmes was in most aspects, an incredibly mature 15 year old. He did not smoke or take drugs. He only drank when the rest of us goaded him into it. He even shared an apartment with his aging grandmother so he could help take care of her. He did that until she passed away a couple of years ago. I don't know to many people that would do that, especially at such a young age.

Holmes was the first best friend I ever had. Sure, I had several friends as I was growing up, but none stuck by me the same way he did. I used to spend almost every Friday and/or Saturday night at his house after I graduated high school. We would stay up late and watch TV until his mother got off work at a local club where she was waiting tables. She worked very hard to take care of her two boys. While it was evident that she appreciated Holmes taking care of his little brother in while she was at work, she appreciated Holmes having friends his own age. I think that is why she did not mind me being there so much.

Holmes and I clicked almost immediately. We had so much in common it was almost frightening. We spent hours at the local pizza ship/game room playing video games (not just playing...but watching as well) and talking with the regulars there. We stayed up late to watch "The Head Bangers Ball" on MTV hoping to get glimpse of a new Iron Maiden or Queensryche video. However, before that we watched SNL to get our comedy fix for the week. If the shows on TV were repeats, we would just read comic books and talk about the coolest new metal bands featured in Hit Parader or Circus magazine. If we were totally bored, we would just walk around town for a while and stop in by Kroger for a frozen pizza and a soda. Simple times, simple pleasures.

I envied the talent that God had given to Holmes. He is a gifted sketch artist and he also has a knack for writing parodies of all types (which came in handy during "The BSOB Years"). Early on he used these talents quite frequently (he had well used sketch pads all over his house) but he gave up drawing as he got older. I hope he starts up again...he was so good at it. Long live Laser Lad!

The knack for writing (and acting out) parodies was something he shared with CC. CC was one of Holmes' closest friends. The two of them created some rather interesting audio tapes parodying TV shows as well as performing Monty Python-esque humor. The two of them together were creative geniuses.

After I had spent a few months almost exclusively hanging out with Holmes, my old neighborhood friends asked me where I had been keeping myself. I told them that I was exploring the town a bit and I had found some new friend’s in town. Arrangements were made for Holmes and the old neighborhood guys meet. I brought Holmes over to our turf and introduced him to my friends KD and Carp. That first meeting was a bit childish, but it was productive.

All four of us were all fans of fantasy and sci-fi, so we drew up a plan to actually play the role playing game, Dungeons and Dragons, in a physical manner. We used wooden weapons, ran amuck in the woods, hoarded “treasure”, and formed alliances. Since Homes was "the new kid" and I was his friend, he and I partnered up. It turned out that Holmes was a fantastic swordsman, a skill he learned from watching the Star Wars Trilogy about 1000 times. That skill came in very handy that day.

Up until that time, KD had always been the better warrior, mainly due to his larger, more intimidating size (we were all under 6 foot and weighed about 150 pounds, whereas KD was 6'2" and weighted about 200 pounds.). Holmes was pretty close to KD's size so I let them square off and battle it out. Holmes finally won, but it was a long battle in which with both combatants left the woods very tired. That initial meeting helped form a new friendship between KD and Holmes. They are still very good friends.

Holmes enjoyed himself that day, but the woods where KD and I hung out and played was not really his cup of tea. Holmes was a man of the streets and preferred high tech over swords (which is quite ironic since I was the one that made tech my career). Holmes invited us to hang out in his part of town and we accepted. That began an era that I affectionately call, "The BSOB Years"...a time of video cameras, humor, cars, girls, and alcohol.

In the early 90's after I had lived in NC a couple of years, Holmes and I reestablished contact and added another chapter in the book of our friendship. We started trading home made audio tape mixes through the mail on a regular basis. The idea was to make the tapes like a radio show with dialog and music. I had collected quite a few CD's from the bargain bin that had one or two good (okay, average) songs on them and I had fun making them into mixes and adding commentary. I realize it was not the most mature thing two 20 something guys could do, but it was fun while it lasted.

Over the next few years, I hung out with Holmes and KD when I was back in town visiting. The meets were not as flamboyant as they were in the early days, but they served their purpose. We occasionally stopped by a watering hole and got caught up on things. Once or twice we went to watch Holmes' brother perform with the band that he was playing bass in at the time. It was nice to enjoy some good old fashioned American Rock and Roll along with a nice cold beer. On other visits we would just drive for hours (I really have no idea how far we actually went...Holmes and KD love to drive) laughing and reminiscing about the old days. Things had definitely changed, but let's face it, we were not kids anymore. We have our own lives to live.

Love Shack Updated and Lunch Is Served

The chapter in Chronicles entitled "Love Shack" has been updated courtesy of Knightmare Duck. I was simply amazed at what he remembered. Thanx KD, I appreciate it greatly. More chapters will follow (I am working on about 5 at the same time, but I have a lot of fleshing out to do still).

Yesterday I packed a lunch as I normally do and went to work to begin another days work. When I arrived, I discovered that the office was having lunch catered (yes they told us but I forgot), so my bagged lunch was not needed. I made a mental note to retrieve this BEFORE I went home because the cleaning crew will sometimes get the munchies and help themselves.

At 11:30 AM, we met in the B11 conference room and were told to help ourselves to sandwiches and salads from Cafe Max...I love the chicken salad they make. I had some pasta salad, a sandwich and some chicken salad, along with a few chips and a bottled water. They had fruit and muffins as well, but I was full with what I had. I allowed myself a Klondike bar (Heath flavored) then after spending the rest of the time chatting with colleagues, I helped clean up. I made up a container for my wife (chicken salad and fruit) and asked if I could have the bottled water to keep in my office (there was a six pack left) and I was told to help myself.

The rest of the day was slow and I ended up leaving at 4 PM (30 mins early) because of it. I got home and took care of the dogs, put the clothes that were in the washer into the dryer, and waited for my wife. Once she got home we ate (I had my bagged lunch, she had what I brought from lunch) and surfed the web. Nothing was on TV, so we just goofed off on the web and then hit the hay early...9:30 PM or so.

When I got up, I was not as rested as I hoped, but I did not feel too bad. I just followed my normal routine and went to work just like I always do..hoping that today would not be a bad day but a great way to start the weekend. We shall see...

Chronicles, "Love Shack"

Growing up, a rite of passage for me and my friends included the building of a "club house" or cabin to hang out in. In our early teen years KD and I decided to build one in the woods near our neighborhood...someplace we could hang out away from everyone else (READ: little brothers and sisters). We actually built several of them over a 3 or 4 year period, with each being better than the one before. The cabins were usually built with scrap lumber that was either discarded from construction sites and/or remodels or it was donated by our parents. The first cabin I remember clearly was not even built by us. We found it one day as we were exploring a section of wooded area that we had not been in before. The cabin was a partially built structure of 2 inch diameter logs and from the condition of the cabin and the area around it, it had not seen any use in about a year. Liking what we saw, KD and I (as well as an off and on friend, KG) hauled some fiberglass roofing panels (that were donated by my father) to the location and claimed it as our own. The panels were secured to the structure with roofing nails and we stepped inside. It was nice. It only had a dirt floor and would not stand up to a heavy rain, but it was a place we could go to be away from our siblings...at lease for a little while. In my opinion it was pretty nice, but it was not in an ideal location. In the fall it was too easily visible from the gravel road on the hill above it. Nonetheless, it would do until we could work on a better location.

We met there off and on for a few weeks during the summer, then we stopped meeting since we were going on our individual vacations. I went camping with my family for a week and the others headed to the beach. When we got back (KD and KG beat me back by one day I think), we had discovered someone had torn down the cabin. I never found out who demolished it and I guess that does not matter now. A few names were mentioned as they say but easy come, easy go.

We did not waste too much time crying about our loss before we started working on another cabin, this time in a wooded area near "Monk's Hill". We found a level landing on the side of the hill that was about 10 x 15 feet in size. Framing began with some discarded 2 x 4's that we found and we roofed it with some old plywood. The walls were made from corrugated steel and the floor was plywood with old (Read: Nasty) carpet on top. We covered the walls on the inside with old blankets and made the roof (mostly) weather proof with old shingles, tar paper, and plastic. It was a hideous and ridiculous looking structure, but it was ours. We soon realized (after spending a lot of time there) that the area was very popular with the pre-teen heathens that lived near by and we had to chase them away frequently. How long we would have to do this was anyone's guess.

That cabin survived the rest of the summer, fall, and the winter (how, I have no idea) and the during the following spring/summer, we decided to add a second room to our hang out. I am not sure why...you can put lipstick on a pig and it is still a pig. Our new addition was not as appealing to look at as the original structure since our selection of materials was very limited, but it was just as strong. The majority of the work on the second room I did with the help of a local tomboy, BM. With her help I was able to get the second room on in short time.

The two room structure was used several times as shelter for the night, even in the winter. While it was not warm by any means, it was protection from the elements and as long as you kept your coat on, you would not freeze to death. Why would anyone want to spend a winters night outside in a ramshackle cabin without heat? Because we could and we wanted to prove that we were tough enough to do it. Boys will do stupid things if given the chance.

The following summer the cabin was completely demolished while a couple of us (again) were out of town. Obviously whoever did this knew us and chose the time carefully. We had an idea who did it, but we did not have any proof...just suspicions. We were eager to build another cabin as soon as possible, but we needed to find a more discrete location first. After looking around for several weeks, we found a good location nearby. Directly east of the old site was a ravine (that had the unique feature of being muddy year round) and beyond that ravine was a nearly untouched area with a small, level landing hidden by a smallish hill. It seemed like a good spot because it was still close by but it was hard to get to from every direction but one...and even that way was tricky.

I started the framing the cabin after I got out of school in the afternoon (I only had to go a half day my senior year) and the others joined me as they were able (they were juniors). In a couple of weeks we had a very nice cabin built in the new location...with much better materials. This one was the absolute best cabin yet we had built yet. It had real interior (paneled) walls (they did not match, but at least there were no studs showing), a solid wood floor (with nice carpet), a leak-free roof, a couch, a window, and a locking door. The exterior was solid plywood and overall the entire structure was weather proof. We dubbed it, "The Rage Cage" (AKA, The Cage), complete with artwork donated by either Carp or Holmes.

The Cage became a very popular spot with several of the teens in the area. Word had gotten out that we had a nice cabin and interest in it grew. A few of the guys from LA (Lower Adamston) asked where it was and if they could "use" it. I was keen on the idea of sharing our cabin, but letting the right people know about it had its benefits. If the right (READ: Popular) people were known to frequent The Cage, then the chances of it getting vandalized or destroyed were lessened. While KD, Carp, and I may not have had much clout in the area, others did. We took advantage of that.

"Usage" of the cabin ranged from overnight camp outs and partying, to...uhh...rendezvousing with certain females we knew. A system was put in place to alert people (by means of a specific marker on a tree) if the cabin was "in use". If the marker was in place, The Cage was in use...stay away. We had a few laughs at Carp's expense (and I think once with KD) when they had (on sepearate occasions) used The Cage. With Carp, we rolled several discarded tires towards the cage while he was "occupying" it. I think we freaked him out on that one. With KD, I believe we pelted The Cage with rocks and apples until he came out threatening whoever was disturbing him. It was in good fun and as Holmes told me recently, "It is all water under the bridge."

Oddly enough, as hard as I try I cannot remember what eventually happened to that cabin or even how long we had it. I am sure it was torn down (they all did eventually), but I have no idea when. I am certain that it survived the winter and most likely the spring, because I remember going down there when there was snow on the ground. Also the cabins all tended to get torn down in the summer while at least two of us were out of town. The last thing I remember about that cabin is that it was used as a hide out (albeit briefly) by a teen couple running away from home. That occurred either in the spring or summer but summertime seems to stand out in my mind. Nonetheless, some adults came to my house one night and asked me where our cabin was. I did not want to tell them, but I really did not have much choice with threats of police action being conveyed to me. With much regret, I led them to it. I was surprised that they had to asked where it was, but then I realized that the cabin must have been better hidden than I had originally thought. It was hard to see in the day and nearly impossible to find at night. The two were rounded up and that is the last that I can remember about it.

The cabins (and the activities associated with them) remind me of an old country and western song called "Behind the Barn", recorded my Little Jimmy Dickens. That song reflects a lot of what the cabin meant to me and some of the other people who congregated there. While I may not approve of that behavior now, it was a way of life then...it helped mold me into who I am, good or bad. The cabins may not have been places of "my first" anything, but they are memorable.

** Addendum (courtesy of Knightmare Duck) **

The cabins I listed were not the only ones we had...there were others. I had forgotten about the others and KD did a great job of bringing them back in my mind. KD also corrected me in the fact we never called them cabins, we called them club houses, just like the kids did in the 50's, 60's and 70's did. The term cabin was used by RD and it stuck with me, but not the others.

The other "club houses" were not always built by us, nor were they always in the woods. One was a tent in my back yard, another was constructed from car hoods and sheet metal built as a lean to against a small cliff face. It was located behind the city water tank in the woods (the club house was torn down by the city because it was their land and we were trespassing...go figure) and the other was built without nails as a lean to shack inside a block building that had never been completed. It had been used as a dump of sorts for old wood (some of which made it into other club houses). It was a very dangerous place to build...snakes, rusty nails, splinters...I am surprised we did not get tetanus! The actual compartment that we used was tiny...three people could sit (not stand) in it and it was incredibly strong. We lobbed concrete blocks on it and it did not fail. The laws of distributed weight helped a lot. Needless to say I never spent the night in that one...despite the "strength" of it.

KD also offered greater detail on the Monk's Hill Project as well as The Rage Cage (although I think he may have some of his data mixed up...he confuses TMHP and TRC a few times in his missive). KD remembers a lot about those two cabins that I had forgotten. Both cabins had "running" water (courtesy of jury rigged 2 liter bottles, rubber tubing, and a faucet) and "electric lights" (courtesy of a 6 volt lantern and a light switch...used until the candles could be lit), but only one had heat...the Monk's Hill Project. That foray into climate control was a disaster. While KD gives a very detailed account of how it was built and what happened, let's just say that a 55 gallon steel barrel and aluminum down spouts do not make a furnace...at least not one that is safe. KD was in charge of building it and I agreed the design should have worked. The downspouts were attached to the barrel and then pushed through holes in the cabin (to act as a radiator). I went inside and laid down as the fire was being built and thanks to the laws of air and heat draw...the cabin filled with smoke while I was laying down. I did not realize it at first (I think the carbon monoxide had built up and made me sleepy) but after a lung full of smoke, I woke up coughing. I crawled out with smoke emanating from my clothes and KD and Carp just stood there laughing. That design was altered and we ended up making a fireplace (which I only remember vaguely...it must not have lasted long) out of it.

The Monk's Hill Project had to be defended because of its proximity to homes. There was only a small stretch of woods that separated it from a group of homes that all had kids. To keep the kids out, we booby trapped one of the 42 steps dug (by KD...what a guy) into the hill. Stepping on step 16 would result in a nasty fall. We also put in a lookout tower so we could keep an eye out for any intruders. It was hidden well enough that intruders could not detect the lookout until it was to late. That lookout tower also came in handy when we played war and physical D&D...

KD ends his recollection of our club houses by telling me about the demise of The Rage Cage. KD reminded me that ultimately we abandoned it and let the others kids (who were not in our core group) take it over. We had pretty much outgrown the use of it since we were all over 17 or 18. That chapter of our life had been closed. The owners of the land found it (all the land is owned by someone) and tore it down to keep the kids out.

Long Cold Winter and Locked Down

Weather can simply amaze us. Texas (the north central part) had the driest season it had seen in a long time last year and the new year has started with a large amount of rain and ice. We are looking at more rain yet again on Saturday. The nights have been cold the and the days not much warmer but it is getting better. Make no mistake...we have it easy here compared to other places, but it is not something the locals like. Heck if this was normal, we would own winter coats and rain gear. I have been wearing my fall/spring weight outerwear for years here with a sweatshirt underneath and have been mostly comfortable, most of the time. owning a winter coat to use a couple weeks of the year seems like such a waste.

I got home from a rather dull day at work, even though it could have been much busier. I took care of the dogs since my wife was at aerobics and after that was finished I started on the bills. We are doing ok, but we are pretty much out of bonus money, give or take $500 which we will need for our vacation. Extra money needs to be made to keep us from the "paycheck to paycheck" rut so many of us are in.

We made it to care group last night and after a brief time of eating and fellowship, they announced we are merging the groups back together. At one point, the group got so large that we had to split...the group was up to 20 people and that is a lot for the average house to hold. That made splitting up the group wise as well as the fact there was a minor power struggle between the current two leaders. I like them both but they each have a style that is unique and I think (I do not know this as fact) that they grate on each other a bit. Merging back may be a bit stressful, but considering that one group is a little stronger in their walk than the other, it could benefit us all.

The group broke up about 9:45 and my wife and I drove home to take care of the dogs. Little Man was ready to go do his thing...we did not get very far before he let'er rip and we were able to finish early...I was in bed by 10:15.

I wokr up just seconds before the alarm went off and I was alert, but still a bit tired. A brief walk with Little Man produced the desired results and allowed us to return home to get coffee (for me) and food and meds (for the dog). While the coffee was brewing and the dog was eating, I grabbed the sandbox laptop to check mail and news. Not finding anything thing important, I drank my coffee and packed my lunch (which was unnecessary because we are having lunch catered to the office today...the first time in months we have done this). The next minutes were spent reading my daily bible verses and showering. I guess the shower made enough noise to gently wake my bride because she had her laptop up and running as well as eating her cereal by the time I made it to the kitchen to get my breakfast.

We chatted news and current events while I ate and after she showed me a power point presentation (viewed in Open Office Presenter, of course) of a narrow mountain road in Latin America, I brushed my teeth, packed my truck, said good bye to my wife and hit the road. I just started the truck when my BiC called (the one with the new job...JG. JG was talking about work but mentioned nothing about his marital issues, so things must be looking up.

I got to work and saw a TON of open high severity issues, but few affected me so I did not worry much. The list just looks large :)

The other day the security officer at my site told me he wanted us to use laptop locks on our machines while we are in the office as well as outside the office. I told him that would be difficult because my desk does no have the security holes to run the cable. I have one of the nicer looking desks that were used by mgmt before we took over and they do not have the holes in them like the run down desks the employees use. The SecMgr told me to have holes drilled into the desk (!) and attach the cable. I jokingly asked him if I should call facilities or just bring in my 24 volt cordless and do it myself and he looked at me and told me to do it myself in the interest of time. I thought he was kidding but he asked me the next day if I had done it yet and when I told him no, he replied to me, "Please get it done as soon as possible...bring in your own drill if you have to." Knowing the speed and thoroughness of the facilities people, I decided to do it myself. Now I have a very secure laptop in a secure office in a badged entry building with a security guard. I feel so safe...and so does my laptop.

Sssssssssssssssssmokin'!

Yeah baby, I smoke...in the kitchen I am on fire! Just kidding. While I like to cook, I am not a chef. What I cook is edible but not always man food. Last night I left work but instead of going straight home, I gave the Swede (his BMW is in the shop...again) a lift to his apartment. I got home about 15 minutes later than normal but since my wife was not home yet, I was OK. I let the dogs out, grabbed the the mail and put water on to boil for pasta.

I check the fridge and my wife had the shrimp already thawed out so I grabbed that, the garlic, butter, parsley, basil and Parmesan cheese. It was pasta with shrimp tonight, courtesy of El Gee. As you can see it was not complicated at all but my wife was very happy with it. The only thing missing was a salad and crusty bread (we really do not need the bread, but the salad would have been nice) and wine if we drank it, but since we do not, cold cider was the drink du jour.

After I cooked, my wife said she would clean while I got ready for my gig. I had a job to do for a BiC (JK). JK is a nice guy and his PC (for his business) was not as in bad shape as I thought. His biggest problem was space. He had a ton of pics and music files on his small (20 gig) C:\ drive and tons of space on his D:\ drive. After a long process of making sure I was not covering up new files with old ones, I cleared about 6 gigs of space for him. I also turned off disk compression now that he had more space since that can slow read and writes to the HD. After that was done and a spyware check had been done, Crap Cleaner was ran to clean up any pesky temp and cache files. I cleared about 80 megs worth...not bad at all.

He asked me to look at his back-up issues with ACT, so I after a few minutes of poking around I made a sucessful back-up. He was beaming now and asked me to help him with his Blackberry sync. Again, a little research got that up and running. He was very happy.

After all that, I started a defrag. I checked his logs and he had never ran a defrag before (3 years). It was set in the scheduler, but his credentials were incorrect so it never kicked off. I left before it was even close to to finishing (it was still at 2% complete) but I am pretty sure the machine will be a lot faster than it was.

I was there just about three hours, but an hour of that was the machine running while he and I talked and watched a little TV, so I only charged him for two hours at the "church discount" and we were both happy. I also told him that I could answer calls if needed on an occasional basis.

There was only on thing I was not able to fix and that was why his PC fails on 3 certain MS Office patches. He said it was not important so I did not press the issue. To be honest, he would benefit from a re-roll, but I am not going to offer that. I am sure he will want to buy a new PC in a year or so and when that happens, I can help him if needed.
I got home and walked the dogs, checked my e-mail and went to sleep. I was tired then and I am still tired. My back and left hip are still sore (it has been a week and I have been taking Aleve, but not on a regular basis) so I am not in the best of shape. I hope today goes smooth.

Tonight we have care group and Saturday is Mickey's birthday party. I think we have a meeting with the trustees and the Christian school that is renting space from us. We are negotiating a lease with them and so far it has not been easy. What they get for what they pay us is pretty darn good and if they realize it then they are not letting on that they do. If they had to lease from an agent they would pay a lot more and get a lot less.

Invisible Sun and Phone Calls

Okay, where did all my sunshine and warm(er) weather go? It is currently cloudy (well, overcast) and 39 degrees...a far cry from the upper 40's the local weather folks told us was coming. Oh yeah, it was sunny yesterday, but it did not get very warm though. Weather.com said it got to 44, but it did not feel like it. Maybe it was just that darn wind that always blows making it feel colder than it actually is. No matter. I want SUNSHINE!

The forecast for tomorrow is for sun and a high of 51...but I will not hold my breath.

I have had several phone calls today...actually if my wife and my BiC call me, that is average. I do not talk much on the phone if possible. I prefer e-mail and IM :-) . First call was a wrong number. Somehow a person who called the switch board asking for the help desk was transferred to me. Then my boss called and asked about a non-issue that has been handed to me and I do not know why. A little later a BiC (JK) called and asked for a couple hours of my time to help him with his PC. He needs the help tonight so I told him I would as soon as I got home and ate.


Finally my wife called. She is worried about the Golden. She had surgery in the spring and while that leg has healed, she is showing problems in the other. My wife was asking me if she could take the dog to the vet to get a professional opinion on the situation. I told her to go ahead. If I have to spend bonus money on something, it should at least be on something meaningful to my wife. I am not trying to be cold...we have already put about $2500 into surgery for one leg, which we are still paying on (11 more months)...we do not have a great deal left from the bonus I got, (new mattress took about 25% of it, 50% went to building back up our buffer and the rest is put away for vacation, half which has been already paid) and I am not sure we can afford another surgery.
{sigh}

That's The Way I Like It...Uh huh, Uh Huh

I spent a little more time playing with Mepis last night. I have been tweaking it some and for the most part it is a very good second place behind Ubuntu. I guess that stands to reason since Mepis 6.0 has a little Ubuntu under the hood. Ubuntu jsut works form me and the support has been fantastic. It could be argued that Mark Shuttleworth (head honcho at Canonical, parent of Ubuntu) is trying to be the Bill Gates of Linux the way he is throwing all his support (and money) behind this project. One thing is for certain, distrowatch.org has been tracking the various distros and Ubuntu has been the most popular for a very long time.

The major sticking point for me with Mepist is KDE. I am not a fan of the overly busy desktop environment and KDE just appears too busy for my tastes. I am more of a "more is less" person when it comes to desktops (I prefer XFCE or IceWM). KDE has too much going on for me...a little too pretty at times. I know can tweak KDE more than I have, but it won't look like KDE when I am finished if I do :-) . One good thing Mepis has going for it is that one of my favorite add-ons, Automatix, works with Mepis. That made my life a little easier when setting the test box up.

My wife asked my why I had a sudden interest in various flavors of Linux and I guess that is a pretty good question. I am not a hardcore Linux admin nor am I a Linux fanboy (at least I hope I am not) but I see more and more interest in Linux and since IT is the industry I am in, it behooves me to be a bit more knowledgeable about it. If I change jobs and knowing Linux will help me in the new job, that is great. I like to learn and it appears that knowing Linux (at least in a corporate setting) will be of some value. I know that in an R&D environment that is pushing to save money, Linux on X86 hardware is cheaper than Solaris on Sun hardware. The tools are about as good and the enginerds are familair with Linux already since most of them use it at home.

So far, I have only experimented with Linux distros popular with home users. The two main Linux distros for enterprise (Red Hat and SuSE) are still pretty unfamiliar to me (although thanks supporting R&D at work, I am somewhat familiar with SuSE). I guess SuSE sholuld be next if I can find the time to start.

Red Hat has a "open" version called Fedora and SuSE's is called OpenSuSE. Both are free but they do not offer any "formal" support, only what is available online, which is okay with me. I am used to that kind of support. I have all 5 iso's for OpenSuSE at home, I just have not burned them yet.

I still have a couple more personal/hobby Linux distros to try, PCLinuxOS and Mandriva (the former Mandrake distro). There are others (Slackware, Debian, DSL, Gentoo, et al), but they go into the realm of hobbyist and not really desktop user ready/friendly, at least from what I am reading. There are also others that have greater demands (such as Freespire) than I can provide in a sandbox environment, although I do have a couple of spare hard drives I could toss into my main machine (3 GHZ, 512 RAM, Nvidia 5600 graphics card) that would allow me to test the more robust distros. The possibilities are many, but time is short. Maybe I will just keep reimaging the test laptop and see what I like. So far it has Xubuntu, then Mepis...nothing else comes close although I am really gonna have to give Fedora and SuSe a try.

I See Sunlight and Money Questions

After about 10 days of overcast cloudy skies, we finally were able to see some sunshine yesterday and it has carried over to today. The forecast says it should continue most of this week. My wife is happy...she was getting a bit blue.

Speaking of blue, today is historically the most depressing day of the year so I have made a commitment to remain upbeat all day...no matter what.

My weekend went rather well, despite the poor weather on Friday and Saturday. I found out Friday that the BiC I have been counseling with got a job with a very large construction firm. He could hardly contain himself he was so excited. I hope his excitement does not burn out too quickly...he needs this job in more ways than one.

Saturday I had breakfast with a few of my BiC's at the local IHoP, which was pretty tasty. I am not usually into those kinds of places, but it actually hit the spot. We ate and chatted for about an hour then I headed off to my "emergency" trustee meeting. The meeting that was scheduled for one hour took three (!) but it was not a bad meeting, just a lot of detail regarding a lease that we are drawing up with the school that sits that uses some of our buildings on our land. At the end of three hours, we had a good agreement that we hope the school will sign.

After the meeting I came home and let the dogs out, washed a few dishes and began my normal Saturday chores. My wife was out with a SiC shopping, so I had a few hours to get things done. By the time she had made it back, I was nearly done. We ate dinner but since it was raining we did not do much else. I was rather selfish and spent a lot of time in the office working on a Linux install (okay, one of many...see my previous post for details). I made a commitment to get back to spending more time with her...I can tell I have been bad about that lately.

Sunday started out on the wrong foot with my wife and I having a disagreement on some things that took longer to talk about than I had hoped. While I missed Sunday school, we were able to make service on time. We heard a good message that punctuated by back pain that plagues our associate pastor. He made it through, but you cold tell he was hurting.

After service some of us met at Genghis Grill in McKinney for some Mongolian stir fry. It was not busy when my wife and I showed up, but by the time the rest of the crew made it there, it was packed. The service was slow and I did not feel like getting a second helping, even though I was still a tad hungry. Better to go without than stuff myself. After we had finished and paid the bill, my wife and I headed home. I needed to let out the dogs and my wife was going to visit an older female member of our church who is a nursing home.

I spent the rest of the evening puttering around with a Mepis install (see previous post) and walking/feeding the dogs. Nothing was on TV that I wanted to watch and we did not have any movies that we hadn't already seen, so I read some and then hit the hay. I was a lot more tired than I had realized. My wife stayed up to watch TV, but her allergies were giving her fits...she was sneezing left and right. She did not come to bed until late and she did not sleep well.

I woke up feeling very good with the exception of some pain in my middle back. I took a couple of Aleve and did my normal routine. The BiC I have been counseling called at 6:30 AM, but I was not ready to talk to him yet, so I pushed it to VM until I could call him back. He did not leave a message but I knew he wanted to talk so I called him once I got on the road. He had an issue he wanted my opinion on regarding tithing and I simply told him that tithe means 1/10. God wants us to give cheerfully and if we give 10% and complain about it, he would rather not have it given. It is all about love. He then got a bit legalistic and asked if he was supposed to tithe on his gross or net salary. My opinion is that since he uses it as a tax deduction, it only seems fair to tithe on the gross. Then he asked about he business allowances (vehicle, Internet, etc reimbursements) and I told him he was just muddying the water. I told him if I were in his place, I would tithe on his gross only, but cheerfully. If he was blessed again and he could afford it that he could make an offering. I then told him that it whatever he decided, he had to do it consistently and cheerfully. Period.

With that I was at work and so was he, so I hung up and headed into the office to see what fun things waited on me. I was surprised to see that things were not horrible, but they were busy. The largest group of issues is WAN related and that is not something we have to worry about, but we have a couple others still open from the previous week that are still open, albeit being monitored.

This week I have a couple of meetings and gig to do for a BiC who lives nearby. Not overly busy so I think things will be okay. The BiC will get my discounted rate for our church members so he should be okay with the bill when he gets it. Speaking of which, I need to get with my neighbor and see what she needs me to do for her laptop. She told me around New Years she wanted some paid profession assistance, but she has not called back regarding exactly what she needs.

Linux Snob

I am posting this from a fresh Simply Mepis Linux Install. I have been reading a lot lately about various Linux distros and why people chose them. I have done a bit of research and found several that should run on the hardware I have for testing (an HP 4150 Omnibook (PIII, 650 mhz, 256 megs of RAM, DVD player, wireless B ethernet, wired 10/100 Ethernet). I had to do a little work on it before it was even usable, but that is another story.

I looked at several distros and installed quite a few over the past couple of days (it rained again on Friday and Saturday...Sunday was sunny). I did not install some of the more popular ones because I thought the minimum requirements would exceed what the laptop has, but it appears that Fedora Core and OpenSuse both could run (although a bit slow) on this laptop. OpenSuse is the most memory intensive...256 meg is the minimum. I still may give FC6 a try later if I get tired of what I am using now.

I started this project with Ubuntu 6.10 but it was an odd (albeit very easy) install. First had issues with a wireless card (even with WiFi Radar installed) that Edgy natively supports and later the network manager applets were acting very weird...saying that there was no network when I was running wirelessly. Also the ATI Rage Mobility card was causing issues with the install and it was frustrating to have poor graphics part of the time...enough for me to start over with another distro.

I played with Dream Linux next...both live and install. The live one went very well but the install was only a partial success. The setup was all graphical (similar to Ubuntu) but not quite as friendly to noobs. Since I was familiar with Linux partitions I did not have much trouble, but neophytes certainly would. The DL install had some minor file manager issues, but they were not show stoppers. It played media (ALL kinds) very well...I was quite impressed. The packages were a bit outdated so I did an apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and things went crazy. The repos were not all valid and finding valid ones was difficult since most of the support was in the native language of the distro...Portuguese. Since upgrade availability is a show stopper (package mgmt is very important to me), that was removed. I did not even try wireless. On to the next distro, Zenwalk.

Zenwalk was an ncurses based install and went pretty smoothly. I was happy with the speed and the overall look and feel (it uses XFCE as a desktop system...which I prefer) but it was not handling my touch pad and "eraser head" mouse of the laptop very well. When I plugged in and external PS/2 mouse, it was fine. Since I really do not want to rely on an external mouse, Zenwalk had its first strike. The second strike came when I tried to get the wireless card to work. The card was recognized but I could not get it to talk to my router. I gave up on it after looking online for support (which was not as good as Ubuntu by any means) and finding nothing. Strike three...on to the next distro.

I had tried Vector Linux once a while back and the only problem I had was my lack of familiarity with the package manager. Once that learning curve was over, I found a lot of little bugs in 5.0 that were annoying so I removed it and went back to Ubuntu. Now that I had a new piece of hardware to play with I thought that I would give VL 5.8 a try. I like the XFCE dekstop but it had the same issues that Zenwalk had with wireless and the support base is still very small. Strikes 1 and 2 had been thrown and I did not give it any more of my time. I went on to the next distro...

I had forgotten about Simply Mepis until I saw it on distrowatch.org the other day (BtW, that is a great resource if you are looking for info on new and updated Linux distributions). The latest stable release is 6.0 but a bug fix upgrade coming soon. I have read a lot of good things about SM from many newer Linux users and when I found out that the creator (a resident of my home state of WV) was using some Ubuntu repositories, I was excited. I read that the creator wanted the best of both distros and that is how SM was created. With a spark of excitement, I downloaded and installed it.

The install was not quite as easy as Ubuntu, but it was not hard. The desktop is KDE (not a favorite, but I wanted to at least give it a shot) and it took a while to find things...long enough that I had to go online to figure out where to set up the networking (it was not obvious to me). I found that I had to do was run "mutilities" from the command line and a config window opened and allowed me to configure networking. I got my wireless card set up very quickly...so quickly that I did not even set up wired Ethernet...I am writing this entry from the wireless connection! Okay, this is looking up...even if it is KDE.

I then looked at updating. Since this is Debian based, apt-get update && apt-get upgrade would get me my updates. 214 updates were waiting so I took them all. 30 or so minutes later...SM was updated. I launched Firefox and checked the version...uh oh .. version 1.5.9, not 2.0 like I had expected. I figured that when I have issues with my Ubuntu box, I go to the forums for help...I will give that a try here. It did not take much time at all to find articles on why I was having this issue. The fix was simple...editing the sources.list file just like I do with Ubuntu when I need specific updates. A copy and past over the old file gave me an updated list (actually only a few lines had been added. If I was smart, I would have saved a copy of the old file...just in case) that an update and upgrade used to upgrade a lot...including FF to 2.0. El Gee was happy! So far the only strike is KDE...It played DVD's without any problems (although they did stutter at bit...I read this is being fixed in the bug fix release) and mp3 playback was great "out of the box". It also detected, mounted, and opened my USB thumb drive flawlessly. This distro is looking pretty good. I will have to really put it through its paces to see what it can do on this humble 650 mhz machine.

More to come.

Shop Shop 'Til You Drop

Every now and then as I am link surfing (click on link on a page, then click a link on the new page, rinse, and repeat) I run across a thought provoking item. This one I just found a little while ago and after I read it I began to think about my own shopping habits when it comes to those types of stores.

The article is about Best Buy and how up to 20% of their customers are "devil" customers...ones that only buy the items that are sold at a loss (anyone who has worked retail knows about this. As a former Circuit City employee, I know how the game is played). Now I understand why BB feels this way, but there is a price to doing business.

Now when it comes to buying things from stores like BB, CC, Fry's, and Microcenter, I have to be a smart shopper. If my particular store of choice (let's say Fry's) is not running what I want on sale and Microcenter is, then guess where am going to purchase said item since both are equidistant from my job site?

I also use rebates whenever I can. Over the past 3 years I have gotten a rebate for a hard drive, a router, a CD-R/W, and a flat panel monitor (Web update says it should be here very soon). The fastest rebate was with the HD (3-4 weeks) and the slowest was the CD-R/W (almost a year...I would have given up but the rebate made the thing free). The rebates cut the cost of the router and the HD in HALF $30 for the Linksys wireless router and $80 for the WD hard drive.

I will take advantage of the loss leader sales now and then if a rebate puts the item to free or next to nothing. A large percentage of my blank CD's have ended up being $5.00 per 100 for name branded ones. I purchased compressed air at $5.00 for three cans, a 120 CD wallet for $5.00, open item cables, etc...I have even purchased things I did not need because they were free after rebates (game pad, joystick, etc)

Back when memory was still pretty high, I saved 50% on memory cards for my camera by purchasing them from Gateway...with free shipping no less. I will shop around (we are doing that now with printers) and I will find the best deal I can.

I once took the Fry's ad and the Microcenter ad and built (on paper) a PC dirt cheap. The case, power supply, floppy, CD-R/W were all free after rebates, the mobo/processor was a combo deal, the RAM and the HD were both half off. It was an entry level machine for something like $200. You can do if you work at it. Of course you could always wait until those same stores run the loss leader item for nearly the same price...already put together with an OS (Linux).

I do not return too many things if I can help it. I used to work in a returns department so I know the kinds of things that can happen there. I think the last thing I returned was a headset for my mobile phone that I purchased at Target. I bought the least expensive one and I really got my money's worth. I returned it the next day for a Jabra branded one Much nicer!

My choice for shopping is normally Fry's because of price and selection. I did have an issue once on a return but that was ignorance on my part. Fry's does not honor the manufacturer's warranty after 30 days, even if the same item is still in stock and on the item master. Back when I worked at CC, we had "RTV" items that we would return for items our repair center did not fix and that the vendor wanted back. Example: You have a Brand Z CD player and after 45 days, it stops working. At Fry's, you have to take it (or ship) it to a repair facility because it is beyond 30 days old, even if they are still selling it. At CC, you used to be able to bring Brand Z CD player back anytime during the warranty period as long as it was still returnable to the vendor. That saved me on several items (radar detector, boom box, Game boy, answering machine, cordless phones, etc) that petered out after 2-12 months of use.

I am not a fan of Best Buy for a couple of reasons, bit that stem from issues that happened 10 years ago. "Skippys" (Best Buy employees) there were the absolute worst in product info and sales help. They had no clue how to help someone or how to get a sale. Example: We go to buy a 27" TV. We know we either want the Sony or the Panasonic, both in stock at BB. Price is the same, features are very similar...almost exact. We tried to get Skippy to help (he was the only one nearby) and he took 30 minutes to get the set for us AFTER we made up our minds. He was no help on features because all he did was read the card on the front...he had no product knowledge...the guys at CC did, but they did not have it in stock.

Next example: I go to buy a PC (back before I had ever built one). I remember my experience at BB, but decide to give them another chance. The PC advertised (not the cheapest by any means) was out of stock, so I asked what the sales staff could do to compensate. He offers another one that is less powerful, but tells me we can "build it up" to be just like the other one. Well, that is service! I say sure and he starts the sales ticket. When he is done, the PC is $400 more than the one on sale, for essentially the same PC. I ask him why, and he tells me all the parts he added will cost money...and he is not going to eat it. I go 2 minutes south to CC and get the same PC for LESS (got a floor sample monitor at a huge discount that I ended up returning because it was defective. I got a new one for the same price) and they cut 10% off an HP laser printer (that lasted us 10 years) on top of that. Third example: It was after Christmas and I was returning a gift. It was what I wanted but the wrong brand and model, so I took it back with the receipt. The gift was bought the first of November and it was beyond the "30 day return" but gifts are usually given a bit of leeway at any store as long as it is complete and resellable or a defect. You may notget any money back but you will normally get a store credit. The person (young female) who was working the return counter informed me that I could not return it because it was beyond 30 days. I told her that I understood, but it was a gift and one that did not fit my needs. I told her I was going to get something with more features (READ: more expensive) and she told me again, "No". This was holding up the line and I asked to speak to her manager and she gave me an attitude look and said, "He is gonna tell you the same thing, I ain't gonna waste my time". With this, I became, "irritated". I raised my voice, ever so slightly so the rep next to her could hear and he did. He asked what the problem was and she told him and seemed to get upset when I added to her story that, "I plan to spend more money on a better unit." He told the girl to issue a store credit and she said she wasn't going to. I asked the male if he would and he said he would, after he called his manager. With that, the girl got mad and gave me my store credit, slamming it down on the counter.

Maybe she had a bad day, maybe she just was following the rules. I could sympathize, but when a customer asks to speak to the store manager and the rep refuses to call them (or at least a sales manager), then that rep is not helping the situation at all.

Moral of this story is do not go to BB unless you know beyond a shadow of a doubt what you want and that you can carry it yourself. Oh yeah, not to mention that returning gifts may be difficult as well.

It Was Only A Matter Of Time

We off shored our help(less) desk and our L1,L2, and L3 support. It was not announced to our customer in advance that we were off shoring the support, but it was pretty clear to them when it came time to get help. Our customers call up, request support that the desk cannot offer, and a ticket is routed to Asia to be 'resolved'. Our customer then gets an e-mail from the night shift in Asia (!!) asking questions in an attempt to resolve the issue. The trading of e-mails goes on for a few days and then usually one of two things happens: Either the ticket is put into the L4 queue (here in the US/Canada/Brazil) or it gets put into the R&D support queue. Teh closure rate by the Asian teams is not very high.

Before the off shoring, our customer asked to have an addendum made to their contract that would allow for dedicated R&D support for their site (DRaDS). Initially this was just to support the specifics of R&D engineers...a unique bunch. They had to pay extra for this because we had to make sure people were on site to help during business hours. An agreement was reached, but with caveats. The enginerds wanted a call back within 1 hour informing them that the ticket had been assigned to a person, not a queue. In return they agreed to dismiss the service level agreement on the RDaDS calls and make all their requests via phone, not the web system. We asked for this last part because it would be impossible to guarantee a call back within one hour for something that went over the public inernet. They agreed.

Now after a few months of off shoring, the R&D queue is getting a little busy. It appears that people are not satisfied with the support they get in Asia and are putting in DRaDS tickets. This trend is bothersome for a couple of reasons. One, the customer is not calling the help(less) desk to put these in..the tickets are being submitted via the web. This means no call to the customer. Two, the increase in R&D tickets means that the customer is paying more money for support without an SLA (Service Level Agreement). Three, the local techs are working very hard to keep up, but mgmt is not getting any extra help for them.

Another thing that makes me laugh is the fact that we went to centralized support to save our customers money. 1 desk to call, remote help, reasonable expectation. Now we have in some ways reverted back to the way we ran IT 5-10 years ago only there is no service level in place...and our customer is paying more for this?

Oh, by the way, we have a dedicated R&D Help Desk (actually two - Europe and Asia) that handles the "simple" issues like Unix and Windows permissions, PW resets, and the like worldwide. They also get some of the DRaDS calls, but instead of assigning them to the tech, they assign them to a queue so I can assign them. Yep, saving lots of money there...

It's Raining Again

Well, it is 34 degrees (weather.com says it feels like 27...joy) and raining...just like it was last weekend. Will it make it to 44 today like originally forecast? I doubt it. Will we have a repeat of last weekend? Our local team says no, but the national team says yes. Which weather geeks will be correct?

We got a surprise package in the mail yesterday. It was a career assessment pack from HR. I think everyone got one from the comments on people's faces and the new article on our intranet. I guess this is in response to all the complaints about how hard it is to establish a career path in this mega company. The internal job board has a lot of postings, but it is hard to tell from the names what each job is. Anyhoo, I put the CD-ROM in my laptop and poked around and I had to admit that whoever organized this did a pretty good job. The headings make sense (most of them) and you can tell from your experience which heading you belong in. Each job type has its own catagory (HR, IT, Ops, etc) and you drill down from there. I spent about 20-30 minutes on it and decided that I need to take it seriously. Action item...investigate the CD fully and start dialog with my boss concerning career path.

I did some reorganizing in my office before lunch since there was not much going on. Our set up is pretty unusual and I take advantage of that. We have a (direct) connection to our customers network as well as our own. Most of us have 2 data ports, so we normally use one machine to do the customer based stuff and one to
do our company based stuff. We have the ability to VPN to either net from the other, but it is normally slower and connections are not always stable...but I digress.

I have several machines in my office and for whatever reason, I had a couple of them behind me on the credenza and my laptop on my desk. It was an odd setup and I was getting tired of it, so I moved it all to my desk. With a KVM switch it does not look too bad..more like a tech than a manager, but I am a geek at heart. Maybe if I can remember I will get some photos...it has been a while since I took one of my workspace.

Back On The Chain Gang

Well, I am back in the office today...the real office 15 miles from home. Working from home was nice, but it has some drawbacks. My wife really cannot do things like she wants when I am home because she does not want to disturb me...so it is almost a wasted day for her. She managed to do a little, but not near as much as she would have liked.

After my "shift" was over, I washed dishes, bed the dogs, grabbed a little to eat (just a snack..we had care groupsat 7 PM), and took the dogs out to 'do their thing' while my wife ran an errand or three and went to go work out at the fitness center. When she got home she cleaned up and we headed to care group.

We had a light showing (I guess the weather) but it was nice to have an intimate evening with friends. We are going over a new series concerning balance and margins in our life. The first chapter was good...I am looking forward to more. We ate a quick dinner of brisket, sausage, and turkey (all from Dickey's BBQ Pit), sweet potatoes, mixed veggies, bread, drinks, and brownies for dessert. I left the house fat and happy :)

I got home and walked little man so he could get his evening exercise (well, I benefited as well), then I got ready for bed to get a few hours sleep.

I woke up a bit stiff, but not sore. I waited to see if my back would loosed on its own before I took any Aleve. My wife was not overly chipper this morning. She did not get up at 6:00 AM when her alarm went off and requested that she get another hour sleep. I let her because she needed it and because she does not have to be at work until 10:00 and then that is flexible.

I was happy to see the roads clear. The air is still near freezing, but it is expected to warm up 10+ degrees during the day...maybe more, but it will cool back down tonight. The real cold weather is gone as far as the weather forecast goes. I would not mind as much if the wind was not blowing all the time.

So far the day has been light, but we all know that can change. Most of the customer issues are WAN based and those are managed by the customer...not us. We just watch and monitor those. There are a lot of little issues open around the world, but they are local and I am not responsible for them. I have to get involved on Global issue or America's issues. All of the current ones are local Euro or Asian issues. w00t!

Live, From El Gee's Home Office...

That's right folks, today I work from home...this is becoming a habitual. Texas has been hit by a bit of ice, making travel a wee bit hazardous. I e-mailed my boss (and my DLM in Europe) as well as my team to tell them that I was not going to venture out. I got a response back from one of my team telling me that it was a smart choice. He decided to drive and it took him almost an hour to go 10 miles...

Yesterday was pretty cold all day long and it did not get as warm as expected...only about 29 degrees. Today the high is expected to remain below freezing (31 degrees) and with the sleet...things could get interesting...especially early tomorrow.

Could Be Worse

The 'work' day ended in a non-eventful fashion. I logged off the company VPN at 4:00 PM and immediately started to vacuum the house. I took care of the front part of the house while my wife was getting ready to go workout at the gym and then did the back half after she left. It took about 2 hours to get all that done (I try to do a thorough job), then I fed the dogs and myself. I let them out, but they did not want to do anything, so we came back and I checked my e-mail until 24 came back on.

I was very surprised by the amount of hair and dirt I picked up. Our dogs must really be shedding badly. If you saw the amount you would think (I know I have said this before) that we never vacuum, but we normally vacuum twice a week..one 'quick' (nothing is moved and no edging) and a 'thorough' (things moved and corners baseboards, windows sills edged). We may have missed the mid week vacuuming and that could account for the large amount of debris.

My wife got home 5 minutes after '24' started and she sat and watched it with me. That 2 hours went by QUICK. After that was said and done, I walked little man in the 20-ish degree night (with a strong wind giving a wind chill of 15 or so) until he did his business...which was at the very end of our walk. It may be cold out but he really does not mind...I think he likes it.

After I warmed up, I got ready for bed, played some Spider Solitaire on my Palm T|E for a while, prayed with my wife, and fell asleep. I slept very well. I got up once at 12:30 to get a drink and then again at 4 AM. I was not ready to get up, but not really ready to stay in bed. I did however cat nap until the alarm went off at 5 AM to repeat my even walk with little man. It was not any better this morning, but he did take care of business a little quicker.

Needless to say I was ready for my morning coffee today. My wife got a new one since the other one had rusted on the bottom. It will take a while to get used to this one...the opening to pour water is smaller (not good for me) and it takes a bit longer to brew.

After coffee and e-mail, I read my bible and hopped into the shower...not hot, but very warm. I made sure I dressed warmly since my office can get drafty (I have one outside wall that is all glass and not very well insulated). I ate some oatmeal, brushed my teeth, loaded up the the truck and moved to Beverly...just kidding. I did load up the truck but I needed to let it run since it was cold in the garage and I did not start it at all yesterday.

The trip in was uneventful, with the exception of a few icy spots that people were not respecting. I saw at least on driver in a full sized pick-up zig-zag in and out of traffic as he wished. When the weather is cold like it is now, you have to be careful.

So far there was not much to take care of, so I unloaded all the junk I brought to have recycled (two printers, and a tape drive), and after I placed it in the bins, I started to play with an OS called "Syllable" that I downloaded, but it would not install on my (extra) laptop at work. Bad burn, bad download...not sure. Maybe just incompatible hardware. It is still in beta so anything is possible. I will give it another try later.

Not Really A Holiday

NO, I am not being racist...I am simply stating that even though this is a company holiday for us at Mega IT Company, most of us are still working (the customer we support is working today). The one thing that makes it a semi-holiday for me is the fact that the north central Tejas area received some ice over night and that has made travel a bit hazardous for the residents of the area...so I am 'working' from home. It is nice to be in my sweats/jammies, unshaven with 3 terminals running, one of which is personal.

Now I am not sure, but today may be an inclement weather day for our customer in this area, but considering we support a lot more than one area...we still need to be available. So I sit at home, cell phone near by, logged on via VPN to two separate systems.

The weather over the past few days has been very bad...rain Friday night and all day Saturday with the temps just above freezing AND we have two dogs that need to go out every so often to 'do their thing'. Sunday the rain slacked off but the temps were about the same. Overnight the temps plummeted and the wind made it nasty cold (15 degree wind chill...something Texans ARE NOT used to) and my light coat was not much help. I never had purchased a heavy coat since it would get used maybe one week out of the year.

So I sit in my office with a slower than normal broadband connection (I guess all those who are home are surfing and that makes my connection rather slow) and I have 4 active machines of my own connected to the 'net right now. The wife has even complained about poor internet performance!

My Tarheels lost the battle on the hardwood with a scrappy Virginia Tech team on Saturday. They trailed most (if not all) of the game but poured on the gas the last 5 minutes. However, that was 'a dollar short and a day late' as my dad used to say and they lost by 6. That is okay...I think they needed the reality check. Besides, they also beat Duke...AT DUKE.

I missed the season opener (actually part one of a two parter) last night of '24'. My wife saw it (I was talking with mom...fair trade...I guess) and told me it was very suspenseful. Well, at least I should be able to see part two tonight.

Trapped Under Ice

In North Central Texas? Are you nuts? Well, we are not, (Thank you Lord) but the forecast had called for ice...up to an inch of accumulation for our area...seems there was some sort of little squall headed our way but it appears to have petered out. Do not get me wrong...we are still under an ice storm warning until Monday morning, but I believe that we will be spared the wrath.

The rain stopped yesterday evening (there is nothing more miserable than a constant hard rain with air temps at 33 degrees). The ground had reached saturation and the water was beginning to puddle up...flooding was eminent. Then it stopped later that evening, allowing the water to slowly absorb. The temp drifted below freezing, but the ground did not freeze solid since the temp was only slightly below freezing and the impurities in the soil raises lowers the freezing point. The high today is...32 degrees (0 for the metric folks) and more rain is forecast for us. As a matter of fact, only four of the next 10 days is supposed to be dry.

Well, my wife just got a call from the churches automated system telling us that Sunday School has been canceled for this week, although service will be held as usual. Normally I would scoff at this, but since we have a large number of poorer families and elderly at our church, it makes sense...at least to me.

Yesterday when I started to start the data retrieval from my BiC's HD, I noticed that HDD Health was reporting that the drive was going to have complete failure soon, so my initial diagnosis was correct. Yeah Me! I thought about giving it the old college try with Drive Rescue but after letting it run for 40 minutes and getting very little from it, I gave up. If a drive is in good health, Drive Rescue will pull a lot of data from even a formated drive (I have used it before when 'mistakes' were made...that is all I am going to say about that). While it is a little bit more complex to use than Restoration, it is more thorough.

With an attempt at recovering data (to prove my BiC wrong) from a faulty hard drive failing, I unhooked the drive and put it in my stack of things to hand out at church...if people are there!