The ravings of a keyboard cowboy
Major thunderstorms blew through yesterday, knocking out power all over the place. Our power company’s web site is still down so we can’t get updates that way (have to check from work since cable is still out.)
Home improvements suck only because they tend to cost money. Living in the sticks of Virginia, we risk loosing power for days while debris is cleared and power companies work to restore precious electricity. My solution to this dilemma was to buy a house generator. Not one of those wimpy roll-abouts with a 4 gallon gas tank and 2 outlets to keep the refrigerator running - we’re talking a permanently installed, propane/natural gas fueled generator that powers the whole house. Only two problems:
So, we couldn’t fuel the generator long enough to last an extended power outage nor power our primary heating source (we did have a propane fireplace in the living room.) Solution:
For those of you that have natural gas pumped into your house, a 45 gallon tank can be located next to your house but a 200 gallon tank must sit a minimum of 10 feet from any livable structure. That means trenching a line from the tank to the house, plus a large, white “pill” sitting in the yard looking all ghetto.
Ok. I can deal with the pill - just plant some shrubs around it to mask it’s hideousness. Trenching? There’s barely enough dirt covering the rock garden here to call it a yard. I’ll leave the trenching to the propane company. Too much headache for me. And a single propane fireplace won’t be sufficient so we opted to purchase another vented fireplace.
So, we now have a 2nd propane fireplace. This one is in the basement where the TV room is (going to be) and my office. With two fireplaces, we should have sufficient heat in winter if power goes out. A 200 gallon tank should last several days (even with the fireplaces going) as long as we conserve electricity by turning off unnecessary appliances during the outage.
Total cost, somewhere in the $12k range…I haven’t totaled everything up yet.
A while ago, I purchased a replica 1851 .44 caliber Navy revolver - a black powder, cap-n-ball revolver. I finally got to shoot it over the Labor Day weekend with my father. It was a pleasurable experience and it gave me a real admiration for the soldiers and officers who fought in the American Civil War. The effort that goes into loading and firing a cap-n-ball revolver (or rifle even) is tremendous!
A good soldier, with a reliable rifle, was able to load and fire 3 rounds in a minute. Considering how long it took me to load 6 chambers of my revolver using a pre-formed charge (no measuring required,) ball and wadding, then to put the caps on the nipples and finally to fire the weapon - I would have been counted among one of the dead. Of course, I experienced several misfires where the cap would go off but it wouldn’t ignite the powder in the chamber.
On the plus-side, out of 12 chambers, I managed to hit a target (8″ in diameter) 4 times at 25 yards, including 2 in the center bullseye. Considering it was my first time shooting that revolver and my first time shooting a cap-n-ball, I’d say it wasn’t too shabby.
This weekend was great. Absolutely great. Spent a lot of time with my brothers and my parents. I drove to my parents last Friday night, woke up and helped pour cement with my father, my middle brother and some neighbors. Now, pouring cement, in and of itself, sucks. But the time I spent with my brother and father was priceless. My brother taught me how to properly mix cement (ratio and consistency) while helping to finish off my parents’ basement after almost 40 years was nice.
After pouring cement, we went to my other brother’s place near the Pennsylvania/Ohio border. I always enjoy spending time with my nieces and nephew and seeing their new house was nice, too.
After that, on Monday, my father and I went to the sportsmen’s club to shoot. I had my Springfield 1911 and 1851 Navy black powder revolver (reproduction, of course) - he had his 1911 (I forget the manufacturer.) We squeezed off a bunch of clips from both 1911’s and fired several cylinders of the Navy. I actually hit the target 4 times out of 12 shots at 25 yards - not bad considering how inaccurate cap-n-ball revolvers were and it was my first time shooting it.
My dad enjoyed the shooting outage and that pleased me greatly. My father just retired…which to me means we don’t have much time left together, 20 years nominal. If that sounds like a long time, consider this: we were cleaning up after pouring cement when I noticed a young woman across the street. I made a comment and my father said “that’s their daughter, she’s 16.” I was stunned because the last time I had seen her, I was twice as tall as her and she was just starting kindergarten. That made me realize just how fast time can fly if you let it.
Well, I don’t want to turn around and see my father lying on his death bed and suddenly realize that I’d wasted all that time. I want to learn from him, spend time with him, do whatever I can to make his retirement happy and fulfilling. And that goes the same with my mother - although she doesn’t like to go shooting. 
Well, maybe not Super Colossal but busy, none the less. On Saturday, I drove to the NOVALUG meeting to sit on a panel for a database discussion. I represented MySQL, Peter took Oracle and Angelo was PostgreSQL. We each did a 10 minute run-down of the major features of the database, then into a Q&A session. Or at least, that’s what we planned to do. Had to take a lot of time to define basics of databases, including terminology like “tables”, “columns” and “database.” I guess I assumed too much of the audience.
We had some good discussions around questions like “How do you size a database server for 500 gigs of data? For 1 terabyte of data? How do you detect and repair corruption? Can I have the database fire off an event when a piece of data changes” etc. Afterwards, a buddy of mine and I went to Old Dominion Brewery for lunch. I had my usual, Angus burger (medium rare) with fries and an Oak Barrel Stout (draft, not bottle.) If you can find Oak Barrel Stout, give it a shot - but be warned, they change the recipe slightly for the bottled version. OBS draft is a whole other world of goodness.
After I got home, I played World of Warcraft for a few hours then went to bed.
On Sunday, after dealing with a client melt-down, I grabbed my .45 and 410 shotgun and headed to Blue Ridge Arsenal to squeeze off a few hundred rounds with my friend. He had his .38 revolver and rented a 9mm pistol and we spent a good hour blowing holes in paper targets. I did manage to shoot myself in the finger….with a staple gun. I reached around the cardboard to put pressure on it so I could staple the target to it and CLICK. Damn staple went into the tip of my trigger finger. Afterwards, we went to Starbucks for some coffee and lengthly discussions on Brazilian strip clubs, Bruce Campbell’s appearances in the Spiderman trilogy, rednecks and other topics of interest.
When I got home, I rinsed the dirt off my car (you have to driver a half mile on the dirt road to get to my house.) Then I picked up a lot of branches and crap in my front lawn. I never raked the leaves from the fall and the wind storms of this spring blew a lot of dead branches down. Yard work is satisfying work…especially when it’s your own lawn. I have a huge pile of leaves to mulch up…and nothing that needs mulching so I’ll have to dump it in the woods out back. Oh well.
Saturday was rain and fog. Sunday was fog and rain. Monday was 24+ hours of 30+ MPH winds. Monday night was…darkness. Somewhere, a spark happened and we & many of our neighbors ended up 17 hours without power. When Denise and I woke up Tuesday morning at 7, Allegheney Power was “investigating” the power loss situation.
So, Denise lightly washed up and dressed while I detached the garage door from the chain by pulling the dangling rope, then hefted the door up so she could go to work. Then I went and lightly washed…and ran out of water when it came time to brush my teeth (we have a well and small tank.) So I got dressed, unhitched the other garage door and moved the Blazer into the drive way. Since both garage doors were detached from the chain, I had to go back in the garage, lock the inside door, then go out the back door, then proceeded to hop in the Blazer and drive to Apple Mountain Garage and convenience store to buy some breath mints and a cup of coffee.
During the power loss, the propane fireplace worked though without the fan running, it didn’t seem to be too effective. Also got another few hour’s use out of our Mr. Heater, a portable heater than runs on those 1 lb. propane tanks and has that ceramic plate with hundreds of holes in it. It totally rocks.
While at work, Allegheney Power’s automated system called the house, which kicks to my cell phone because I switched off the surge protector to the cable modem and VoIP router before leaving for work (thinking to further protect my equipment in the event of a surge.) It asked me if power was restored to the house. The menu didn’t have a “How the hell should I know I’m at work” option so I just hung up. I figured if they wanted to know bad enough, they could drive by my place and check the meter.
This is the second power loss that lasted more than 6 hours since we moved here. I’m going to splurge and buy a whole-house generator. Lowe’s and Home Depot sell the exact same thing (though under a different name - go figure) for around $2,000. They run on propane, which is a bonus because we already have propane service. I’m no longer going to go to bed when it’s less than 50 degrees inside!
Busy weekend, it was. On Saturday, after getting called at 05:30 by our C3 org (they monitor the “big board” in the NOC and call in help when needed) I decided to stay up, brew a pot of coffee and read a bit of Dune. After Denise got showered and dressed, we went to Pancake Day in Winchester and ate breakfast with the whole damn town. Seriously, the line to get in stretched a quarter mile. It moved along at a steady pace and soon we were sitting down to short stacks and sausage links. It was pretty good, all things considered.
After filling up, we drove to the Home Depot and bought some knobs for the kitchen cabinets - 22 of ‘em. We also picked up a few odds and ends and headed over Circuit City. We picked up a Netgear 2.4 GHz Wireless-G PCI card and a new Sony Handicam to replace our ailing digital camera (it will no longer focus without zooming first - very annoying.) Spent a cool grand for all that (oof!)
After mounting all the knobs to the drawers, I headed to the basement and tore it up completely. Took out the Dell running Windows XP Home, moved the desk into a different corner and put my Gateway running Gentoo on it. Rerouted all the power and network wires and made a big mess in the process. Fun. I installed the Netgear wireless card in the Dell and put that upstairs in the “yellow” room. Now Denise doesn’t have to pester me about wanting to use the computer to play Neverwinter Nights 2.
On Sunday, the C3 woke me up at 05:45 to take care of a problem. Again, I stayed up and brewed a pot of coffee. I set in the recliner and read some more of Dune. Well, that recliner is so comfy, I just nodded off until around 10:30. Nice. So I got up and showered and headed out the door.
I met my buddy Looee at the gun show at Dulles Expo center. Saw a lot of cool stuff, rifles, pistols, revolvers, knives, swords, sub-machine guns, .50 caliber sniper rifles - you name it, it was there. Almost went in on a pair of 10 year old black powder revolvers (with consecutive serial numbers) with Looee. $200 a piece wasn’t too bad of a price. Instead, I picked up a model 1911-A1 .45 by Springfield Armory. My first pistol. Sweet!
I wanted a model 1911 because when you hear “.45 caliber pistol” - the image that comes to mind is the model 1911, guaranteed. It just looks cool. The weight is nice. It fires a big bullet while making a big bang. The slide is a bit stiff but a few hundred rounds and some good cleaning+oil will take care of that. I soo want to go to the range and start putting holes in some targets but I really need to clean it, remove the excess oil and “get to know your firearm” before slapping a loaded clip in to the magazine.
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