06.12.08
Posted in Life, Hobbies at 6:14 pm by Stoner
I’ve been reading Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park and I have to say, it is an absolutely fascinating read. Even if you don’t give a hoot about encryption or how the Allies won World War II, it has great stories from the people who were there. You learn about their thoughts and feelings when it comes to events like being the first non-Nazis to read the message about the death of Hitler, mere hours after it happened, to deciphering the message that lead to the Allies shooting down Admiral Yamamoto Ishiroku. The stress of the work and the round-the-clock shift-work that went into the effort is amazing. The pressures put on these people, the tolls it took and how they coped with it all is simply astounding.
Permalink
06.05.08
Posted in Life, Family at 9:41 am by Stoner
- Household generator + installation = $6,000
- Propane tank upgrades = $3,000
- Power outage going on 24 hours = ???
- Being the only house in the subdivision with electricity for refrigeration, cooking and hot water = Priceless
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.)
Permalink
02.08.08
Posted in Life at 1:40 pm by Stoner
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers still rock.
Permalink
01.02.08
Posted in Life at 4:13 pm by Stoner
Why do people make a big deal about New Year’s resolutions? The percentage of people who keep their resolutions is absurdly low. You know people won’t keep them. It’s like this, people: if something is that important to you (loosing weight, quit smoking, quit drinking, quit/stop/whatever) then you’ll do it. If you need a once-a-year holiday to get up enough gumption to make a change in your life, then guess what? It isn’t that important to you and you will fail.
Stop fooling yourself. If you want to loose weigh, you will only loose weigh when loosing it becomes important in your life. You’ll quit smoking when stopping becomes important enough to stop.
Permalink
12.14.07
Posted in Technology, Life at 1:32 pm by Stoner
Came across this article about people all up-in-arms over new Blackberries (Crackberries) their department is getting and how it’ll cross the home/work boundary. While some welcome the new devices, others are afraid it’ll lead to longer work days and such. They feel that a regular cell phone is sufficient for contacting people during off hours.
Here’s an idea: disable the features you won’t use or, if you can’t disable them, turn off the sound so that the only sound it’ll make is when the phone rings. Is it really that hard? Do I have to smack you with a 20 pound tuna? What a bunch of whiners. Seriously, go get some cheese.
Permalink
10.24.07
Posted in Technology, Linux, Life at 5:10 pm by Stoner
I’ve been part of the crew interviewing candidates for Linux sys admin positions at the company. I’m surprised and alarmed at the number of applicants that can’t answer Basic Linux 101 questions. Things like
- what is an inode?
- what is a mount point?
- what is the lost+found directory?
These are general *nix questions. They aren’t specific to a particular brand of UNIX or Linux distribution. If you don’t know these very basic things, you shouldn’t be applying for a sys admin job.
Permalink
Posted in Life, Family at 10:22 am by Stoner
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:
- our propane tank was a 45 gallon tank - which would fuel the generator for less than a day
- our electric furnace is rated at 60 amps but the generator’s largest circuit is 40 amps
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:
- upgrade our propane tank to a 200 gallon model
- install another propane fireplace
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.
Permalink
09.17.07
Posted in Life, Family, Hobbies at 12:53 pm by Stoner
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.
Permalink
09.03.07
Posted in Life, Family at 9:25 pm by Stoner
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. 
Permalink
07.13.07
Posted in Technology, Life, MySQL at 12:04 pm by Stoner
Ok…I’ve been crazy busy with job and home stuff. Doesn’t mean I stop thinking about stuff.
- Do we really need another text editor/Personal Information Manager/MP3 player? I monitor Gnomefiles and Portable Freeware RSS feeds and I’m constantly seeing these types of apps being created, promising to be a better than anything out there with whiz-bang features not seen anywhere else. Got news for you, you aint showing us nuttin’ new.
- The First Bank of Delaware needs to DIAF for offering loans at 99.25% interest. That’s right, 99.25%! It’s done through their CashCall marketing arm. Yes. The one offered up by has-been Gary Coleman. They’re preying on people who can’t manage their money.
- MySQL-Proxy is damn cool.
- MySQL-Proxy combined with memcached rocks da bomb!
- Managing hundreds of servers with Microsoft Office documents and Microsoft Sharepoint portal totally sucks nuts. I’d rather slash my wrists with a dull blade, then pour salt in the wounds.
Permalink
« Previous entries
