Magnets

Wiring

2012-01-22T21:43:00.003-05:00

I keep an eye on /r/cableporn, and this isn't enough to post there but I still want to document it.

You can see the fibre to copper media converter suspended by its power cable. The cables are a mess. The patch panel is bent and bolted to a board that is not even securely fastened to the wall.

A little bit of hook and loop tape helped clean this up. This was the best I could do.

Remember, always hook and loop tape, never zip-ties. Zip-ties cinch, are difficult to undo and non-reusable. Electrical tape deteriorates and gets sticky.

Friday night

2012-01-22T21:37:00.001-05:00

Culture, not just science.

Hyper-V Server core

2012-01-21T23:03:00.001-05:00

I found a Poweredge 1950 on eBay for $130. Bells and whistles include:

DRAC
PERC/i5
redundant PSUs
Dual CPUs

It does not come with drives or caddies. Caddies I borrowed from work, drives I had. I installed Hyper-V Server via USB drive by designating it a Virtual Floppy drive in the BIOS (also a good time to verify Intel VT is enabled). Initial config of HyperV server can be done from the console and is pretty straight forward. I verified some of my steps with a Dell Youtube video.

The first issue I had was connecting the Hyper-V Manager from the RSAT tools on my client to to the Hyper-V Server. I received the error: [Hyper-V Manager: Access denied. Unable to establish communication between ‘Hyper-V Server’ and ‘Hyper-V Manager]:

http://blog.mpecsinc.ca/2009/06/hyper-v-error-access-denied-unable-to.html

Settings firewall rules:

C:\>netsh advfirewall firewall set rule group="Windows Management Instrumentatio
n (WMI)" new enable=yes

Open Component Services [dcomcnfg.exe] on client. This allows HyperV server in Workgroup mode to connect to my client and mount an ISO. I think in a domain the trust is already there.

Choose Component Services
Computers
Right Click My Computer

Select COM Security tab
Under Access Permissions, click Edit Limits

Select ANONYMOUS LOGON

Allow Remote Access

Navigating drives in DOS
c:\fsutil fsinfo drives

Downloading Broadcom drivers and BACS

Installing BACS

During installation I was prompted to enable TCP Chimney Offload. An unusual name for a useful technology. Offload some of the processing to the NICs from the CPU.

Dell has a nice procedure for Installing BACS from DOS (for me BACS installed to Program Files\Broadcom\BACS\BACS.exe)

Most of this is just for my own notes. At this point I've built my first 2008R2 VM and about to run dcpromo to build my first domain controller.
I'd rather be working on this than CCNA, maybe I'll feel diferently when I'm working on the next cert.

SOPA / PIPA

2012-01-18T12:59:00.000-05:00

I called:

Rep. Richard Neal [D, MA-2] Phone: 202-225-5601

The person that answered the phone was kind and courteous and said he'd received my calls.

Sen. John Kerry [D, MA] Phone: 202-224-2742

I was put on hold and the person I spoke with was terse and quick, sounding overwhelmed.

Sen. Scott Brown [R, MA] Phone: 202-224-4543

I left a voicemail.

There's a little more blood on my knuckles.

2011-12-09T21:16:00.001-05:00

I've been busy at work and home.

Last Friday I completed a production Lion Server with Profile Manager as a Mobile Device Management server. It pulls users from Active Directory and allows enrolling iOS devices and downloading of configuration files. I will be speaking at NERCOMP in the Spring about the experience and process. After that seminar I will try to publish my guide here for other folks trying to do the same thing.

These are the most boring teaser pictures, I think. The least glamorous display of 10 iPads and the other picture is $20,000 of them. Now when snarky students ask "Is this what my tuition is paying for?" I can say it's for iPads.

Today I passed the CCENT. This is the first step in realizing the CCNA, a certification I started but never finished 10 years ago in Blacksburg. The test was brutal and I'm not proud of my score, but if they want me to wear 25 pieces of flair then they should make the minimum 25 pieces of flair.

I could not have done it without my friend Greg who also earned his CCENT a week ago. In a couple of weeks we'll start the INCD2 books and work toward the CCNA together. This has been a really beautiful chapter of our friendship.

Happy couple

2011-10-22T22:48:00.000-04:00

We found these two running through traffic outside of KTA. They'd been running around for over an hour and no one had done anything. It took a while, but we eventually got them into the car and drove them to the Humane Society. The boy in the back with me and the girl up front.
Both were completely friendly, fed and well loved. Neither had collars or micro chips. They both shed and drooled everywhere. Fortunately they were picked up the same day.

The boy would get very nervous being away from the girl and clearly let her call the shots. I am the same.

Moku Ola

2011-10-22T22:41:00.000-04:00

Coconut island is where I sliced my toe. It was the day before I left. I took Ulu and Ian and they took me jumping. I felt a little old and fat trying to climb to the high platform, but I still did it.

Goodwill

2011-09-27T21:41:00.000-04:00

My life long friend whom is completely dependent on me is now a slight inconvenience. Instead of making other arrangements I'd like to pay someone to murder her..

Emphasis on the wrong syllable

2011-09-21T18:32:00.001-04:00

In New England people use contractions:
Can't, shouldn't, didn't.

This can make it difficult to interpret when any other obstacle is present like an accent, over a radio and muffling. A lot of times my conversations will happen like this:

Me: Did you take care of that thing?
Them: I didn't.
Me: You said you did or did not?
Them: I didn't

They emphasize in the unhelpful part of the word. So I sometimes think they in fact did take care of that thing when they have not.

Also people refuse to learn a phonetic alphabet. Especially in the IT dept you should already know the similar sounding letters and understand the need to be clear. It doesn't even need to be the NATO phonetic alphabet, just something that separates D from C, E, P and T. Once when reading out PPB, I said "Ponies, Ponies, Bravo!" Silly, but I was understood.

Windows Deployment Services

2011-09-12T20:36:00.000-04:00

Here is my response to a colleague when he asked about our imaging procedure:

We use Windows Deployment Services. It's a role in Windows Server. Using the Windows Automated Installation Kit, you create an answer file which allows an unattended install. Our procedure is based on this guide. We also include scripts to install Sophos Antivirus and the Deepfreeze seed. Neither can be included in the base image because each instance needs to be unique for communicating to their respective consoles.

A driver pool is necessary. This is a collection of all relevant drivers from each model of PC you are deploying to.

Features I like:

It is hardware independent which allows us to only maintain a few images for many different hardware types.

Deploying the image automatically joins it to the domain

If you use a Virtual Machine to create the deployment image it's easy to update with any changes in the future.

Features I do not like:

Cannot automatically deploy to a computer lab. There may be a way to do this, but we have not looked into it yet. We have to boot each PC from the network and choose the correct deployment image.

Sometimes a new model of PC will have a new NIC or disk controller whose driver is not included in the boot image. Isolating the correct driver and inserting it into the boot image can be difficult and tedious. As long as you make a backup of the boot image before making any changes you leave yourself a safety net and it's not too bad.

Some hardware requires more than just a driver to work. Finger print readers on Thinkpads have given us this trouble. You either need to include the software suite in the deployment image which goes to all machines, install it manually on each Thinkpad or not install it at all.

I think WDS is an excellent solution for Faculty / Staff PCs and situation where you do not need to update large quantities of PCs at once. For a classroom or lab Ghost or other static image management might work better.

2011-08-23T22:53:00.000-04:00

In middle-school I was into Led Zepplin, high-school was Nine Inch Nails, 'college' I found hip hop. Now I can't stop listening to dubstep. What's next?

I'm also studying for the CCENT and then the CCNA. $25 for two text books and I'm off and reading. A friend is also studying for his, we Skype on Sundays and review our reading. It keeps me honest and motivated. Study buddies are the best.

Jessie has been feeding me salads for lunch and al fresco for dinner. It's amazing.

Last night we canned blueberries with our friend. We made 4 jars and they're beautiful black gold. A coworker was really blown away, when he realized what he was looking at I could see memories flooding his brain as he talked about canning with his grandmother as a child. He looked and me and said "this is an lost art!"

That's my life right now.

Preaching to the soap box.

2011-08-03T21:51:00.001-04:00

So you've been robbed. In this instance let's say your car. In the trunk was your laptop and external drive.

The laptop was pretty new and the external had your backup from your old computer. Assuming you've been on a trip and it's been 7 days since you've been home, what have you lost?

I'll guess:

Your laptop. With all your banking, email, social networking and personal photos from at least the last 7 days. If you're lazy maybe it auto logs in on boot, and if you're really lazy maybe you can connect to your work VPN automatically. Your banking may require a password or username both of which can easily either be guessed or reset using vitae accessible via your email or social network. You've possibly exposed:

your identity
financial information.
your immediate friends and their vitae in your social networks

Your external drive, which is probably the only copy of the data from your last computer. It probably has years of photos and music, not only lost but exposed.

What should you have lost given proper and (significant) initial configuration and (insignificant) routine maintenance before any major trip:

your laptop
your external drive.
7 days worth of photos

What you should have exposed:

nothing.

Your laptop should have full disk encryption. This way if it ever gets stolen the only thing that someone can do with it is format the drive and reinstall, exposing no personal data. If they don't know how to do that, well then they have a dead laptop. The external drive is not a backup if it's the only copy. If you carry if with you for any reason it should also be encrypted.

You should have an offsite backup. Carrying the external drive in the same bag with your laptop provides a single point of failure. 2TB drives are selling for $60. Anyone with a laptop can afford a backup solution.

Backup your data at home before the trip. Encrypt the laptop drive. Nothing exposed.

Server upgrade pt 3

2011-07-14T21:55:00.001-04:00

Found more RAM that the server likes. 8gb total.

Turns out the NIC driver for my EP45-DS3R is not friends with 2008R2. After installing that driver update, it hangs on classpnp.sys. I tried renaming it, deleting it and chkdsk but with no success. Chkdsk wouldn't run because the volume was locked? Thanks for helping me sort that one out, MS.
Ninja edit. the NIC driver is not hte only incompatible with R2. The intial 80+ updates apply successfuly, the second round of 5 updates do not. I have'nt been able to roll back, so it's a fresh install each time. Slow going.

Lots of Dell Poweredge server on eBay for reasonable prices, usually missing one piece of the puzzel i need. What I want in a server:
x64 bit CPU
CPU with Virtualization
at least DDR2 RAM.
SAS compatibility so I dont have to purchase SCSI drives. SCSI drives are high performance, low capacity, which is is great for a large number of users with small amounts of data. I have a small number of users and a large amount of data. I want large capacity and low performance (thinking of WD Green drives).

I've seen a Poweredge 2950 for $90 on eBay which lacks the CPU with Virtualization which I can over come with new CPUs but it only support SCSI, so no dice using preexisting drives. My search continues for a reasonably priced Poweredge.

Server upgrade pt 2

2011-07-06T22:33:00.000-04:00

I got all my data backed up to a few external drives to reconfigure the data array.

Installed 2008R2, but when I went to add the HyperV role I get an error saying my CPU doesn't support hardware assisted vitalization. Sadministrator. This is a hard stop for this project. It is not possible to get creative for a work around.

My options are to either not run any VMs, and install everything locally on one server or to buy a new server. The goal of having the VMs was to learn, to have a practice environment not in production. I can't test in a production environment.

Now I'm waiting for a Poweredge on sale. They used to have a entry level servers for $200, so that's what I'm looking for now. I'll run the server and when another machine comes along it'll be a good time to learn server migration.

Right?

Server upgrade pt 1

2011-07-01T23:31:00.000-04:00

Before putting the 6 year old RAID controller into production I had to update the firmware. I downloaded the driver, update tool and firmware. Everything sorted and organized for future upgrades. Updating through CLI is fun, most days it's done through an executable from Dell.

I finally convinced the server to take 2 x 2 GB of ram.

Organized in a spreadsheet how I will backup the data from the 3 x 1TB drives onto spare 750 and 2 x 320GB drives while I rebuild the array.

I think by the time I need to expand storage I will be ready for a new server.

End goal:
OS drive: RAID 1 onboard controller
Data drive: RAID 5 controller card.

HyperV server hosting at least 2 servers: production and test.
Keeping my eye out for a cheap Dell rack mounted server that I can put into a lack rack.

Master

2011-06-30T11:23:00.001-04:00

Wife received her Master's this week (I feel a sense of accomplishment too!). I tried to convince her to stay in bed, have me bring her Bueno Y Sano all week and not leave the house. She said no.

Did you make another appointment for tomorrow or Friday?
Tomorrow is Friday
Oh

Close enough

2011-06-26T01:14:00.000-04:00

My server only likes one stick of ram. A specific one. I've tried five other sticks and it won't POST with them.

The stick in question is a 2GB 6400 DDR2 FATAL1TY brand RAM I got with a year of NOD32 for $10 about 3 years ago.

Samsung, Hynix and Nanya brands, like my motherboard does not. The goal is to get 4GB of RAM to comfortably install a Hyper V server and one or two virtual servers to start learning at home all the things I want to do at work.

Main goal is to provide roaming profiles for our accounts. I want Jessie to log into any machine and have the same experience, this does make it difficult when she stores DVD rips to the desktop, but she probably just needs training.

Other goals include File server, Group Policy, Printer Server, DHCP, DNS and Windows Deployment Services. These are pretty standard things, but I need to understand them thoroughly.

I'm planning on RAID 1 boot drives, 3 x 1TB RAID 5 file server. I have a 640GB for backups, I will need to expand that. Currently I have 2 x 1TB WD Green & 1 x 1 TB WD Black. for the RAID 5 I want matching drives and I'm OK with using Green for the array, I'm don't need a lot of performance. It does seem like a waste to use a Black drive only for backups though. And purchasing 1TB drives now is not very cost effective, but purchasing 3 x 2TB drives is not in my budget.

I wish work would shed a few drives my way.

What I really want is a new server, but that's certainly not in my budget. A nice little Poweredge would do me just fine.

Baccalaureate day three

2011-06-24T17:16:00.000-04:00

Folded two worm bins into one
Work. Built new machine with 12GB of RAM
Girls generation? Not sure what to think.
New TF2 patch, downloaded 1.5 hrs, played .5 hrs
Archer with Merlot and Honey B til pau

Baccalaureate day two

2011-06-23T00:51:00.001-04:00

Woke up, a little hungover.
Walked dog, returned home to realize my zipper had been down
dentist cleaning
Walk through of potential house. (am I embedding myself in New England?)
bought bagels from Bagel Shop
Work.
Get asked to work the next two Fridays (my days off)
Pull worms from under porch, they've been getting wet all day and now they reek but I can't identify of what
Submit Technology Proposal to charter school
Finish Louie

Baccalaureate day one

2011-06-21T22:44:00.000-04:00

Wife finished final day of field work last Friday. Friend came to visit for the weekend. Monday they left. Tuesday alone. It consisted of:

Morning walk with dog
While getting attacked by bugs, say goodbye to crossing guard; her final day.
no breakfast but not hungry? 2 cups of coffee.
get to work 15 minutes late but no one notices
come home to walk dog and pick up present*
dinner with co workers at Olive Garden.
give *bucket of dirt to friend
purchase 2 growlers of BBC
Give gentleman $2
Walk dog around store
Laundry
Play TF2
This inspiring blogpost

Nice one, Disney.

2011-06-07T22:52:00.000-04:00

I had a dream. I was in a cave, dying, and it was my last opportunity to sum up my experience. I had one last chance to describe everything on the wall.

I wrote:

Seal Team Six©

This week in New England.

2011-06-04T13:40:00.000-04:00

I had trouble sleeping all week, I couldn't get to sleep and I'd wake up early. Today, Saturday, I slept for 10 hours and it was awesome.

My sauer-kraut finished this week. It's really salty. I try to have some every day. It's been a long time since I've fermented anything, and I'm glad it was a success.

We had dinner with some friends last night in their garden. We ordered sushi take-away and ate with gentle music, home made mojitos, and good friends. It was a fantastic night.

I've been in New England for about 1.5 yrs now. I'm finally settling into a community. I found hackerspace to do projects, I have a few great friends, I'm successful at work. We don't like the apartment we're in but that's a fairly easy change.

Jessie is about to graduate and I don't know what that will mean for where we will be. She's really enjoying her time at the VA in Northampton and would love to be hired full time but they may not be hiring additional OT's right now.

The future, as always, remains uncertain.

Also, there was a tornado this week. It touched down in Springfield about 1 mile from our house. Everything in its path was devastated. Everything outside of it's path got a little wet. It's such a stark difference, there's almost no middle ground. Some areas were without power for a day or two but that was about it. I recorded a few clips of the rain with my fancy iDevice

Hackerspace

2011-05-31T23:06:00.000-04:00

I finally made it to a hackerspace tonight. An old factory, repurposed as artists spaces, it provides the perfect atmosphere for a workshop. After meeting a few electrical and mechanical engineers and a lady building an LED guitar I thought to myself: "I only know computers :("
When I told the leader, he said he did not know about computers and boy would they love some help with all the computers! Hooray!
I spent my first project on a hacking out a DDWRT firmware on a WRT54GS v7. It's always a little dicey hacking someone else's gear on the first day. It was a success though and I was able to get ht right firmware on it. The goal was to use it as a WiFi bridge with a neighbor's wifi, to and then create a more stable signal in our workshop.

I followed all the directions to make it a WiFi bridge, but could not find success. They seemed happy enough to see different firmware on it. I'll try again next week.

I untangled a mess of wires and coiled up accessories neatly (thanks mom) while they showed me all the fancy things they toys they'd built, Van de Graaff generator, egg bot, and an LED lighted guitar using an Arduino.

It will be a good space to bring my infinity mirror.

iPhoning it in

2011-05-25T21:12:00.000-04:00

My dad gave me his 3gs. I told him he should not ship me the SIM and he should wipe it completely for security purposes. He kept the SIM but did not wipe it. While walking to the car after picking it up, I wiped it, wanting a clean slate to have my adventures.

Wiping it means it needs to be activated. Hoping to bypass this I jailbroke it using Greenpois0n. Easy enough to do but that didn't activate it. So I had to create an iTunes account, install iTunes and connect the device. iTunes now wants a SIM. I ordered an AT&T from eBay for $3, then iTunes shot me this note:

It needs to be a SIM from Movistar. Thanks a lot, Apple, for imposing this restriction. Why not unlock previous generation phones?

I've tried uploading a firmware I found on the Pirate Bay using Redsn0w but with no success, I'm not even sure it took and there doesn't seem to be a way to gather any of this information while it's unactivated.

What I find most frustrating is the lack of clear information and terminology. What is a baseband and how does it relate to firmware? Cydia, Jailbreaking, unlocking, hackivating, tethered? All of these by themselves, I understand. But combined with no centralized structure, a lack of correct spelling, a commitment to acronyms and when the names of the apps are called greenpois0n, Redsn0w, ultrasn0w and Pwnage Tool it's just difficult to tell where I stand.

Honey B

2011-05-21T20:41:00.000-04:00

A couple of months ago he had a swollen spot on his ear. The vet said the capilaries had burst from him shaking his head and blood was pooling between the two layers of cartilege. They drained the blood and buttoned up his ear to keep pressure while it heald, so if it continued to bleed it would be forced out of the ear instead of accumulating. He looked like this for about 2 weeks. He's all better now.

I sat on the front porch with him today and read, he seemed content enough to sniff the air and regard each passerby. When I was finished he looked a little wanting, so we walked down to a field where he can run without a leash. Almost no one uses this space despite being across the street from an apartment complex.

An aside here, this space is a field according to Google's satellite imagery, but the Street View shows a complex there, which is just wild to see.

As soon as he is off leash he sprints off, smelling and dancing and running and is as happy as can be. He's an excellent sprinter and found his way to the other side of the field where I could see him snort something and then roll. I yelled for him to stop and he started runnig back to me, caught another scent and rolled in something else. I caved and stopped yelling at him and he found a third place to roll. He was as happy as a pig in poop.

When we got home I gave him a bath put his face still smells bad.

Commercial success

2011-05-16T21:03:00.000-04:00

A: did you see that commercial it was awesome
B: I have a DVR, so I skipp commercials
C: I don't have a TV

A: Well it was on the radio too.
B: I have XM, I don't have any commericals
C: My radio is broken.

Every now and then I catch a spot of TV, daytime programming, commercials and all. Often 25% is commercials. If you watch commercials on a cable channel, then they get you coming and going.

Cabin Air Filter

2011-04-30T22:03:00.000-04:00

Cabin air filter change involved removing the glove box, unsnapping the old one and inserting the new. One of hte easier jobs to do. The photo illustrates the difference, but in normal daylight the old filter did not look too bad.

A soft tipped philip's head driver can prevent scratches on the screw heads, that's all you need. I purchased my filter from eBay Motors for about $10. You can probably use an HVAC filter if you want a more DIY solutoin.

Come on, bro.

2011-04-30T21:19:00.000-04:00

A director level position has just opened up. The person holding this position quit with about 9 days notice. The week before finals. To take a consulting position. With a week's vacation before starting.
Our employer paid for his training. He used our network to test in a production environment.

Now it's easy for me to judge because I worked with him. He said he had better things to do than have dinner with his coworkers. He usually trained us about 80% of the way, enough to feel responsible, enough to be dangerous, but not enough to troubleshoot, be proactive or to create reliable systems. The off hours guys received no direct training.

When I started, there was almost zero documentation. What little notes we had was split between our ticketing systems' knowledge base and Google Docs. Usually one person in the dept knew each system. So, if the IT staff was out that day there was no support for that system. Very few things evolved through team work and there was no cross training.

I've documented every tech responsibility I have in a Google Doc. Sometimes my notes aren't %100 clear, but most of them are really great. They're shared with everyone in the team. Not everyone is expected to perform everything, but if the sysadmin is out then at least we have something to go on, plus the off hours guys have somewhere to start. They may not have big picture perspective but they have an idea of the procedure.

You're welcome, work.

Battery care

2011-04-23T23:02:00.000-04:00

We got a new battery on our trip down south last December. The installer did not apply any insulating dielectric grease, so I bought some from Amazon and a battery terminal brush from Sears.

I cleaned the contacts and the leads with the brush and blew away the shavings. Then using a cotton-tipped aplicator I applied a liberal amount of dielectric grease to the terminals. The internet gave me some direction:

At the high points they touch, and at the low points there are gaps. Dielectric grease will get smooshed in to the gaps, keeping out moisture and electrolytes.

I applied way too much, but no matter.

Subaru's battery compartment comes with an insulator, so I did not install any additional cold weather gear.

It's been a long time

2011-04-23T14:39:00.002-04:00

If you play Portal, near the end while walking around the Aperture Laboratories offices you can see a slide show presentation. I recreated it and have made it available. Some of the items are funny or non existent in Google Docs so I recommend downloading it if you're really interested.

Dollar$ and SENSE

Edit: Fixed sharing permissions. Everyone can see it now.

Network upgrade pt 2

2011-03-31T17:37:00.000-04:00

My brother gave me a C2 Q8200 cpu around Thanksgiving. I'm interested in pushing more services onto my server box and thought that CPU would be a fine upgrade to handle the extra load.

While trying to get the 640AAKS drive added to the storage pool I had to restart the server. After the reboot the heatsink fan had trouble starting up.

So, ~~after~~ before backing up my data I decided to go ahead with the CPU, heatsink and fan upgrade. Of course it would not boot after the upgrade, it would freeze during the POST. I had two RAM stick installed. Thankfully they were the same speed, but were unfortunately different brands and CAS speeds. Removing one of them allowed the machine to boot.

Data is backing up now. 425GB of data, leaves about 150GB for growth.

Network upgrade pt 1

2011-03-31T15:53:00.000-04:00

My desktop was running on a 640aaks. It has been fine. The drive was supposed to compare to raptor drives and it provided enough space to keep lots of stuff on the desktop. Having access to a matching pair of Velociraptor drives I decided to take a stab at RAID 0 with them and pull some extra performance out of my desktop.

Performance about doubled. Totally worth it. It does introduce another layer of complexity and another point of failure, now if either of the two drives fail then I lose the array but my home server is still providing nightly backups so I'm not really worried about that.

I lose a significant capacity of local storage, but as I'm trying to pull all my data on the server I think this will not hurt me too much. I was able migrate all of Wife's account using Migwiz, which was great; the transition was pretty easy for her. Migwiz does not transfer apps or app settings such as her Chrome profile, but I was able to manually copy that over.

The old 640aaks is now my WHS backup drive which has the capacity to hold all the backups. As today is World Backup Day, that is exactly what I will be doing to my WHS.

I am the adult I want to become

2011-03-17T23:33:00.000-04:00

When you're a hammer, every problem is a nail.
Clearly.
You draw from your knowledge and experience to find a solution.

I guess the idea is that you strive to be not only a hammer.
I recently learned sinnets, and thus I've put them into every dangling cord I come across at work. I coiled the power cord for the demo Xoom at work. The head of the dept, once he over came his shock of a seemingly tangled power cord, said: "he has too much time on his hands" and shook his head wistfully. I was a little embarrassed at first. Now I think he should be; you want to surround yourself with people that know other things than you, you want your staff to be diverse. This means we're not all hammers and not every problem becomes a nail.

Thing a Day pau

2011-02-28T20:34:00.001-05:00

All photos (and many more) are available in .NEF format. I started this project with 12 ideas on my calendar. I managed a few new ones during the first two weeks but every day afterwards I was struggling to come up with someone. I highly recommend a couple of weeks to plan, or at least define the scope of what you want to do. For me blogging and photography were the project. I generated a lot of content and of that I am proud of.

Making fudge was a first for me and I talked to my brother about it which led me to an epiphany of a desert my mom made years ago but never taught me how to make. Making lebne is a family tradition that I am able to continue.

All of the food projects were great because I got a direct return on them. Wife really enjoyed the fudge and so it'll become a frequent occurrence.

Changing the differential oil was something I'd been waiting to do since before Xmas. Combined with an oil change the car runs like it's brand new. I really enjoy working on my car because it's the most dangerous thing I expose myself to, and keeping it running well lowers the risk.

This was a really fun project. It forced me to blog and photograph almost every day. I discovered new settings on my camera. I cleaned a lot of stuff. I changed my routine and created a new one.

I'm glad this is over.

Photoset

2011-02-28T20:19:00.000-05:00

We have a copy of the C&H Tenth Anniversary Book that we've been reading the last few weeks. I really identify with Hobbes more than Calvin, who strikes me as spoiled and kind of a jerk. Hobbes makes the most sense to me, as someone who's always down for whatever and is pretty forgiving.
Bill Waterson is the real hero of the comic, never merchandising or selling the rights. How great. I'm sure he was often offered a lot of money to sell out and he managed not to.

This is great Sunday morning activity with someone you love. You have an activity, you create something beautiful and create a shared memory.

Removing wallpaper pt 2

2011-02-26T21:42:00.000-05:00

Being useful

My fancy services were called in again for additional application. This time we cleaned up the remaining areas, thin strips between the door and the wall. Then we used a strange detergent to remove any adhesive, wallpaper and dirt, followed by a rinse with warm water. Finally, we emptied all of the cabinets in preparation for their replacement.

Fudge

2011-02-26T21:34:00.000-05:00

I came across a Rage comic the other day which was actually a recipe for making fudge. So I did. I don't like that alcohol is a staple ingredient in vanilla extract so I found some that is alcohol free and I couldn't tell the difference. I'm not sure about the benefits of organic sweetened condensed milk but I'll take it anyway. I forgot nuts, nuts! I considered granola but did not want to get too fancy on my first time out on the fudge train.

Folder redirection

2011-02-24T23:02:00.000-05:00

The battle continues about how to manage data on my network. I recently had to format my HTPC and I used that as an opportunity to enable folder redirection for Wife's desktop and docs. One goal was to allow Wife's data to be centralized, when she's on the netbook she'll have the same stuff as on the desktop. I think Roaming Profiles might be a better choice.
Every night SyncCenter has errors, usually regarding .tmp files and it's pretty annoying. Otherwise it works alright. These errors might be related to how WHS duplicates data. I'm not sure and I don't know how to find out. I enabled redirection on my account on my desktop and it also had with errors, I save stuff and it doesn't match what's on the server for some reason. This is stupid, there should be a straight forward solution for this

Pic unrelated. It's where I work, Deepwood. you can see where every generation built an addtion. I work in the basement, with no windows or heat.

Camera stabilizer

2011-02-23T20:36:00.000-05:00

There's a pretty straight forward tutorial on how and why to make this. Despite being an Eagle Scout, he still doesn't understand the value of a good coil before putting in his pocket.

A coworker moonlights at a hardware store and she picked up the parts for <$2. I assembled it after coffee break and before lunch. Ideally the parts would be brass for aesthetics and because it doesn't rust.

A bird heard I had a beard.

2011-02-21T19:27:00.000-05:00

Perhaps that last note was a little violent, here's how I actually marked the tumble into the new decade.

Operation: Dinner Out

2011-02-21T19:26:00.001-05:00

My IT dept has been struggling with team building and social activities since I started.
We've had Silly Hat Day, NDCHGaRC, pizza party for a birthday, on Friday we celebrated my birthday. Everybody gave me very thoughtful gifts and I ate way too much meat.

A note about turning 30:

Having shed the yoke of youth, I am now poised to own the future. I have the path for victory in front of me, and like the Romans, whatever I cannot dominate I will destroy.

Rain X

2011-02-21T19:26:00.000-05:00

Sunday I applied Rain X to the windows and side view mirrors of the Forester. I highly recommend it. It took me 30-45 minutes to wash & dry the windows and then apply and buff the Rain X.

I found these little bootsies at the thrift store. They don't smell like rain.

Worms eat my garbage

2011-02-18T21:20:00.000-05:00

Vermiculture allows active and aggressive composting and most importantly in a small space.
I think about 50% of my waste is organic and goes to the worms. We generate so much organic waste that I can't generate enough shred to compensate. Last fall I subsidized with leaves and pine needles. I just enlisted a friend's help and am now receiving his shredded paper. It makes all the difference. I have two bins now and I think I could handle a third.

There is a 3:1 ratio of paper shred to organic waste this helps keep the moisture level down as that makes it stinky. Bins need ventilation holes to breathe; we drilled a connect-the-dots picture of a giraffe wearing a sombrero. This spring I will harvest the castings and give my aunt the richest soil around for her garden. She grows garlic which she gifts to us, we eat it and the shells will go back into the bin.

There is a nice lady in my office. We were talking about trash and said she generates very little, only 2 bags / week. Wife and I empty one bag about every 3 weeks and that's generally more because of smell than filling to capacity. A good recycling program and vermiculture allows us to generate 1/6 of the waste that a single person does. I think that's pretty great.

Worms are pretty great. They don't complain, they dance, they eat my trash.

Dinner

2011-02-16T21:51:00.000-05:00

Overhead kitchen halogen

I made a simple, but delicious dinner tonight. I marinaded a salmon steak in a sweet & sour and shoyu. I baked for 10 minutes on 250F then broiled for 5. I also included rice made with shrimp broth and chopped up lettuce.

"Long" exposure in the kitchen

Making Yogurt

2011-02-16T21:44:00.000-05:00

Yogurt making is easy:

Warm milk
add starter
let sit for 12 hours
????
profit!

Wearing a hat

tl;dr - I have a lebneh starter from my aunt. I warm 1/2 gal. of whole milk in a pan until I can't keep my pinky in the milk for more than 10 seconds. Then I add the starter, cover it with a blue cloth and let it sit on my stove. My stove has gas pilot lights that keep the temp a little warmer than the rest of the house. I leave it for about 12 hours and then strain it using a reusable coffee filter my grandmother picked up in Sweden. A lot of whey is produced which I often try to find other uses for, usually mixing a little bit with my eggs in the morning.

Snow Cones

2011-02-14T22:14:00.000-05:00

New England Snow Cones:

Snow
Maple Syrup

I'm saving these for a friend in NC. She'll be back in about a month. Maybe it'll still be snow.

Snow walk

2011-02-14T22:04:00.000-05:00

Sunday night I walked in the snow and ice barefoot. Just for the experience. I've always been warm blooded and loved to frolic in the cold weather but since moving to New England I've been very cold. I just wanted to see if I could.

Removing wallpaper

2011-02-13T18:32:00.000-05:00

My Aunt's kitchen is being redone. I went with some friend and we spent the afternoon scraping it away. She has an old house in New England, the walls are plaster and haven't been touched since she moved in over 10 years ago.
We brought scrapers, vinegar and professoinal stuff called DIF Wallpaper Remover. The vinegar was much more effective than the DIF. We scored the paper using a special tool, then sprayed on vinegar and let it sit for about 15 minutes. The vinegar wasn't perfect but it did a decent job of dissolving the adhesive.

Shoe maintenance

2011-02-11T22:41:00.000-05:00

I tossed my slippers in the rubbish bin in the airport as I left Hilo. Work only asked that I have foot wear, I wore sandals. Mainland work asks that I look professional despite crawling under desks and around filthy wiring cabinets.

Wife forced me to purchase these shoes last summer, I resisted but she found some nice shoes. I wanted something that I could be very comfortable in. A lot of dress shoes lack functionality and I hate them.

I wiped off the dirt with a wet cloth, then rubbed in Lexol that I got from my leather guy. This will keep them strong like bull for a while longer.

Shrimp broth

2011-02-10T23:05:00.000-05:00

When we eat shrimp I save the shells. When we eat fish with bones, I save the bones too. When I have enough I:

add them to a pot
add water
boil for 10 hrs.

Today I made it in the crock pot, I put it on low before I left for work, when I came home I added water and put it on high. When we were sick of the smell I put it in a pot on the stove and boiled it on high for 20 minutes.

It smells a little unpleasant, but I get shrimp gold as you can see. It's a little weird saving chitin for months in the freezer but also a little macabre in a fun-house kind of way. I hope the shrimp appreciate that I am getting as much nutrition from them as possible and wasting as little as possible. I sub the broth for 25-50% of the water in recipes. It definitely gives rice a nice flavor and some variety because I still am having trouble making nice coconut rice.

Getting rid of clutter

2011-02-10T18:40:00.001-05:00

Just over a year ago when I was leaving HI, I was packing all my possessions and I got rid of everything I could.

Aside from clothes my largest group of personal things were computer gear. I reduced two large boxes down to two smaller flat rate boxes and sent them off.

I kept obscure cables that I rarely used but were so difficult to find that I felt value in holding on to them. I kept everything I thought I'd find a use for. Here I am a year later and I've taken another stab at those parts. I kept the obscurest of the obscure: the USB male A to male A and the USB to proprietary connector for an old phone. I got rid of the useless: compact flash with 128mb storage and WiFi.

I'm now down to one small flat rate box. Some things were difficult to get rid of, but if I haven't used it in over a year then it's becoming more a burden than buying it again if I ever need it will be.

I also organized my Dremel bits into one container, put all my tools into the general tool boxes even if they were generally used for tech.

When I opened my tool box I realized I had way too many tools. My tool box had a funny smell to it; I've smelled it in other toolboxes before and now I know what it is: mold. A few of my screw drivers had mold all over the handles. No thank you. They're gone.

Everything is organized and I'm getting rid of enough to feel accomplished.

Before

During

After

Wrote a letter

2011-02-09T08:12:00.002-05:00

To someone else this time! No photo. Does this mean it's a failure? Only we can decide

Cast iron griddle

2011-02-07T21:46:00.000-05:00

I seasoned these cast iron pans recently.

I cook breakfast every morning in the little skillet, quesadillas on the flat pan, and spaghetti sauce in the large skillet. The griddle was intimidating. It sits on two stove eyes, it's the heaviest of all my pieces, I'd never cooked on it before.

I put both eyes on super low and let it sit for about 10 minutes to make sure everything was warmed up evenly. Then I put on the carrots and tofu and cooked until the carrots softened and the tofu firmed. I put the fish on its own side at the same time adding onions and the frozen broccoli to the veggie side.

The griddle has a rough texture which is noisy against the spatchula, otherwise it worked well; nothing stuck to the pan it was pretty great. A bed of rice with furikake, slamin salmon Alaskin sockeye and mixed veggies. You're welcome, Wife.

Cooking noms

Completed noms

Differential Oil

2011-02-06T23:20:00.000-05:00

I have 2006 Subaru Forester X. It has 47.5k miles. It has AWD with two differentials. Today I changed the rear differential oil and the front differential oil / manual transmission oil.

Magnets holding on to shards

The rear oil is a pretty simple process, you can access the differential case without using ramps. Make sure the car is level and the parking break is engaged. It uses a 13mm socket which is .512". Most ratchets are .5". You probably don't need to purchase the 13mm socket.Tools needed:

5" ratchet.
oil pan
differential oil. My Subaru takes about .8 of a quart.

Begin with warm oil. To change the oil, remove the top (fill) plug to relieve pressure, then remove the bottom (drain) plug. Let it drain. Examine the drain plug, it has a magnet on it that catches pieces of the differential gears. If you see large chunks then you may need to have it checked out by a pro, though changing the oil might be the preventative maintenance needed. Clean the plug and, once it is drained, screw it back in. Pour the new oil into the fill hole on the top.

This can be tricky because there is not a lot of vertical room in which to pour down. Some quarts have a mechanism to squeeze it out, others don't. It is full when the oil starts to spill out of the top fill plug, now screw in the top plug. Tighten both the top and bottom plug as tight as you can.

The front differential oil is shared with the manual transmission. If you have an automatic transmission it will have its own oil and you should not mix them. Tools you'll need:

.5" ratchet.
T70 Torx bit
oil pan
differential oil. My Subaru takes about 3.8 quarts
tube and funnel
clean cloth to wipe the dip stick

The front drain plug does not use the same 13mm socket, it uses a T70 Torx bit. I found mine at Advance, most auto shoppes carry them, it was $6. To drain, unscrew the T70 bit. This case has about 4 quarts of oil so be prepared for such a large amount of fluid. Be sure to check the plug for shards again and clean off the plug before replacing it. Once it is drained, screw it back in.

The fill plug is on the top side of the same case, accessed through the hood. It is in the center of the engine compartment all the way back against the firewall. It is a bit tricky to find it, but it has a yellow handle and is pretty deep in the back. I have a very poor picture here, with the firewall to the left.

I recommend a tube and funnel, make sure the tube is all the way in the fill hole to so you won't spill any, differential oil is stinky. Fill it up, when you've emptied 3 quarts, begin fill slowly and stop to check the dip stick frequently. Differentials do not like being too full or too empty.

My thoughts on which kind of differential fluid: do not use a fluid marked for Limited Slip or LS. The additives in LS oil does not work well with the synchronizers in the Subaru manual transmissions. Many Subaru fora recommend a mix of Motul 300 and Redline oils. I don't like the idea of mixing oils as they will separate over night and they'll have to remix every time you start driving the car. YMMV but I feel find putting just the high end Motul in. Motul is difficult to find locally, I ordered mine from Annapolis Subaru, a vendor on SubaruForester.org. I got a slight discount. The range of prices for the dealership to change differential fluid is between $200 and $300. If I'm already doing this work myself then I can justify spending more on high end fluid. Especially for such a vital part of my car.

This maintenance greatly improves shifting. Shifting is smooth an much easier to get in to gear. Motul is rated for low temperatures so I'm hoping to glean that benefit on the -9F mornings here in Mass.

Doing my own car maintenance is very satisfying. It saves some money but I mostly enjoy having a deeper understanding of my car and how cars work in general.

Outlet insulators

2011-02-05T18:50:00.000-05:00

Insulation is my favorite!
Generally:

you only have to do it once
it's always on
it's good for heat and cold

This pack I think came from my dad, I put it to use.I made sure to apply them to all the exterior walls first. This house is pretty old and drafty, this may help but I doubt I'll notice it in temperature nor in the heating bill.
It was a fun project and I got to work with my hands.

Writing a letter

2011-02-04T18:31:00.001-05:00

I wrote a letter to my aunt and uncle.
I had a root canal today, so today's TaD has to be simple. This is my cat, Merlot:

Merlot

She desperately wants to eat but her dinner isn't until for another 1.5 hrs. She also woke me up early this morning and I'm upset with her about that so I don't feel bad putting this unflattering picture of her on Internet.

Season the cast iron

2011-02-03T22:35:00.000-05:00

This took about 45 minutes.

The larger rimmed skillet is the first cast iron that I bought, about a year ago from Target with a gift card left over from our wedding. I had been looking for some at the thrift stores but realized I'd never find a pan season for my vegetarian. There's nothing romantic about Target but it was cheap. The smaller rimmed skillet is a gift from my aunt for my vegetarian who has hard time lifting the larger heavy pan.

The other two are from a friend. For these I used the salt and oil method to clean them up again. I heated all the pans individually and rubbed them down with olive oil, heated them up even higher and coated them again. Then fancy photography.

Clean the fridge

2011-02-02T15:45:00.000-05:00

I had a snow day from work today so I decided to take on a task a little more involved: cleaning the fridge.
It's not very interesting to write about and less to photograph. There were lots of things that expired about 3 weeks ago. I think they all were purchased around the time I cleaned at the end of last summer. That means I'm on a twice a year clean the fridge schedule which seems fair to me.

Oil tools

2011-02-01T19:53:00.000-05:00

Like many, I have a tool box of mixed and matched tools assembled slowly over time and from various sources; a tool box from dad, wrenches from friends, pliers from family, and some of the wife's tools all combined into our well stocked toolbox.

Last summer I found some 3 in 1 oil in my mother-in-law's garage not being used. I put it to use on our tools. First I scrubbed everything down with steel wool, then oiled the hinges and worked it in to make sure everything opens and closes easily. I cleaned off all the grime and lastly left a thin cover of oil over all the exposed metal parts.

A little bit of elbow grease went a long way to restoring these tools and preserving them for my future. I think a strong collection of tools can not only be useful in life but also an important gift to my kids.

I can live easily without tools, I did for years. I didn't notice what needed fixing or if I did just didn't fix it. Having the tools means I now put them to work. As soon as I begin fixing I get into the habit of it and start fixing everything I can. I carry a Leather person on me at work now and I suffer when I leave it at home.

Before

After

Thing-a-day day one is a success. I was let go early from work early today, so I was able to flush out day one well and start off with success.

Saturday adventure

2011-01-29T15:32:00.005-05:00

This week I got paid and felt rich, I wanted to spend money! I reigned myself in and examined what I really wanted, to buy something, and what I didn't, to buy something new & spend all my money. There is a place that satisfies these needs: The Thrift Store.

I frequent my neighborhood store a couple of times a month, so for this occasion I wanted to expand. I decided on a Tour de Thrift de Springfield. I Googled Thrift Store and noted 4 shoppes in my area. Turns out that Google lumps in the corporate headquarters of the Good Will and the Adult Care Service Center of the Salvation Army as thrift stores, so my neighborhood shop is the only one in my area.

I found matching dog bowls for my HB. An elongated photo frame for Thing-A-Day week and Jessie picked up a pair of nice mugs from Japan and some OT stuff for her kids.

Decade man please listen.

2011-01-28T23:16:00.000-05:00

20's guy

Doesn't know how to do laundry

Eats spaghetti-Os,

Once a month he gets a check from his mom, but the other three and a half weeks it's like "c'mon man, this isn't what I expected out our freiendhsip." all of his jokes are quotes form Family guy.

30's guy wear's a shirt and tie to work,

Realizes you have to make your own life happen

Talks about W2 and health insurance. Does his dishes and cleans his house. Calls his family on the weekend. Has gone through all the lessons 20's guy has done. He's done being a frat guy fucking off and is ready to be an adult.

40's guy

Doesn't necessarily know what he wants to be when he grows up but that's ok, he's figured out how to take deep breathes, and appreciate what you have. Being content with what you have.

I learned everything I really needed to know and am now ready to rule and destroy.

Plurali

2011-01-24T21:07:00.002-05:00

Fish
Deer
Sheep
Bison
Swine
Mongoose
Thunder
Aircraft
Swine
Moose

The plural of mouse, the rodent, is mice. The plural of mouse, the computer hardware is mouses.

Alms,
amends
doldrums
ides
pliers
scissors
shorts
trousers

New England

2011-01-22T12:51:00.005-05:00

If you want to talk to your friends please do so on a sidewalk and not in the middle of the street.
When you run a red light, don't turn your head away from me pretending like you didn't know; you've already run a red light and created a dangerous situation, now watch where you are going.
After a snow storm there are large snow drifts on each corner and the normally small lanes are bottle necked further. If the maintenance crews have not plowed the sidewalks, this means that perhaps it isn't a good day to go running, or maybe a different path is the best choice, running in traffic isn't.
Please stop cutting every single corner.
Turn signals and blind spots, your car has them.
Right of way exists to prevent accidents.
Wait your turn, if you can't cross 2 lanes of traffic please don't block all traffic until a spot opens up. Your wait has now evolved into 10 people waiting for you.
Your dog poops! Picking up after it is part of the responsibility of caring for a dog.
Look both ways before crossing the street.
Springfield is not your trashcan.

Cast Iron

2011-01-17T12:41:00.007-05:00

I found some cast iron rusting away on a friend's porch. I asked if I could take it, clean it and return it to her and she accepted. It'll make a nice coming home present for her when she gets back from field work in NC. I cleaned a lot of the rust off with steel wool but I think it was mostly unnecessary, because scouring with salt and oil really did the lion's share of the work.

It needs a little more work around the handles which I am only noticing now in the photos, so maybe cooking on it can be a project for TaD.

Thing a Day

2011-01-17T12:31:00.003-05:00

February is Thing a Day month. Kind of similar to NaNoWriMo, NaBloPmo and the photo-a-day projects others have done. I'm going to try and participate in TaD but only at home, I'm not registering at the site. Then I'm going to blog about each project and maybe even a photo! Then I'm going to go back to school, punch god and eat the sun.

all in a month.

I have 4 or 5 ideas written down and am suddenly struck with the fear that I won't find enough ideas. Also I found out about TaD after I'd rescued this cast iron, it would've been a good choice.

The name and the grade are the same!

2010-12-11T21:50:00.006-05:00

I passed my A+, It was a certification that I didn't really need, work wasn't asking for it, I don't think it's ever closed any doors for me. A couple of months ago I got my NSC Defensive Driving Cert but otherwise I haven't added to my resume much in a while.

CompTIA will change their certification policy from lifetime to renewable every three years starting in 2011 so it made sense to get certified before that happened.

I've been studying intermittently since the spring but seriously since Thanksgiving. I had an A+

For Dummies book which was really thick, used a confusing font and was the wrong choice for me as it was written for a dummy, or someone starting from scratch with no experience. I have experience and don't want to be patronized with little jokes. I should have gotten a more advanced book.

The most advantageous resource was a Pearson practice exam. Despite its flaws pictured here, several of the questions were word for word with the actual exam and it was a great resource.

Jessie quizzed me on port numbers, 802.11x standards and the laser printing process and I crushed the exam.

GAFYD pau

2010-12-03T22:36:00.007-05:00

Big changes for GAFYD accounts, they're moving to be more like regular Google accounts. Bazuzi.com.com was eligible for the early adopter program and we enlisted. Most of the services I mentioned last time are available now.

Tonight I finally finished sorting all my mail, ~2,500 emails are labeled and archived. I transfered my Voice number (804.3Bazuzi) and my Youtube channel now corresponds. I'm still waiting for Buzz and a few other minor services but for the most part everything is working.

Now to amplify the Bazuzi.com offerings to the family. I'm debating a wiki for recipes, a page for my wedding and a few of the family interviews. Anyone else done something like this?

NDCHGaRC

2010-11-18T20:51:00.003-05:00

I don't want to offend anyone, I still want to celebrate a holiday. I've never organized a Secret Santa before, this is what I created and sent out to play Russian Roulette with my good standing at work.

We would like to invite you to participate in a non denominational clandestine holiday gifting and receiving ceremony modeled after a Secret Santa event.

If you would like to participate, please let me know by Friday, November 19th. Friday afternoon we will place the names of everyone who is participating into a fancy hat and each person will select the name of the person who they will buy for.

Please keep all gifts under $10. Gifts can be chosen with the theme of Technology in mind.

By the sword we seek peace

2010-11-08T21:41:00.004-05:00

The first time they took some quarters and two granola bars and I didn't get angry because they were clearly hungry and didn't break anything.
The second time they set the alarm off and I was a little annoyed to have to wake up in the middle of the night.
This is the third time someone has broken into the car. Sunday morning brought this little gem and Springfield's ugly war boot crushed our Hawaiian petal.

They took my car's manual, a hair brush and a neck tie, then dumped them 50' away under a street lamp. You can see the rock in the first picture, it took down my rear-view mirror and the windshield-wiper lever. The wipers are now stuck on high.

The cops didn't even get out of their car when filing the report and were more interested in talking to me about Hawai'i than the incident. I had been giving New England the benefit of the doubt. No more.

Now you get nothing.

Neck Ties.

2010-11-02T08:06:00.001-04:00

On one extreme they're useless, on the other they try and murder me.

Don't try and bend over to look at something because it'll be there blocking your view saying NO WAY, ME FIRST.

Need to lean forward to pull in your chair to eat? GUESS WHAT, I'M IN YOUR PIZZA

Want to protect IP at work and shred some paper? WATCH OUT, BRO, IMMA MERC YOU.

Massholes

2010-07-08T23:19:00.000-04:00

Walking Honey Bear for the last time before bed tonight, we were waiting at the intersection. There's a No Turn On Red sign and a lit pedestrian walk sign when it's our turn to cross. Both of these were ignored as a lady in an SUV almost ran us over. Fine, I was expecting it and wasn't surprised as I kept HB out of danger.

What I did not expect was what the young man waiting on the other side of the intersection yelled from his window while waiting at the red light:

"Your dog sucks cock!"

I don't even... What? Immediately I went on defense and I got angry and frustrated and wanted to sling up a middle finger or yell a retort, but what would I say, I was too confused. We completed the final block home trying to figure it out.

Entering the house I gave HB a little biscuit and called Wife. She gave me HB's perspective:

oh boy! Some guys yelled from a car. I peed.
I got a treat!

Super interesting

2010-06-21T10:35:00.000-04:00

I was in this lady's office working on her computer, she had a metal water bottle that was painted with some pretty flowers. I complemented her on it.
She said "omg thanks! I drink like a whole one a day!"
In my head I thought "I drank four of those already and it's just about 11am"
Then she went on to tell me how great it is to drink so much water.

The other day I was talking with my coworkers, we were comparing the strangest food we've ever eaten
Him: Squid
Her: Octopus
Other him: Squid
Me: Fermented whale blubber

I won that round.

Making the Amish look like Menonites.

2010-06-01T21:03:00.001-04:00

Once a year the Baskin farm shears their alpacas. They invite everyone they know to shear all 15 in one day. They hire out a professional shearer; a soft spoken man named Vic who has worked with them from the beginning. He was thorough, knowledgeable, tolerant of mistakes and quick with encouragement when we got it right and a joke to relieve the tension when we didn't.

The rest of us filled out the crew holding legs, the head, administering shots and weighing them in before and after their haircuts.

I spent the day prior helping clean the space and prep. Day-of about 20 people showed up and saw the whole thing through. To complete the event, I drank a bear with every break and a snus in the afternoon and after the job was done.

Aside from Vic we all went unpaid; a real community coming together and a genuine slice of culture and o'hana. I got to see my good friend, his wife and their son. I drank their beer, ate their food and took their poison ivy.

This is what I think about in my spare time.

2010-06-01T20:40:00.000-04:00

I installed WSUS on my WHS. It was the most useful service to run myself. I couldn't find a reason to run DHCP, DNS (for fuxing with wife's internet experience?) and I only run MSE which can't be centrally managed.

Maybe this summer I can get my hands on a Dell Pro x64 installer and bring my HTPC up to speed. After that one plan is to upgrade the WHS to Vail and run a Domain Controller in a VM, join my 3 client machines and then be able to manage them a little bit better.

I think the storage of the My Docs and Desktop will be moved to the server into the user dir and accssed through a mapped drive. This will centralize storage for everyone on my network without having to worry about it.

I'm just a prisoner, in the same prison as you

2010-06-01T20:37:00.000-04:00

After 4 months of looking I finally found work, successfully navigating two interviews and quickly falling into the routine of a new job. It's a private all girls school and they love their tech. Digital smart boards, thin clients this summer, a wonderfully disorganized server room with about 10 x PowerEdge 1950.

It's nice to have a paycheck again. I have awesome Accidental Death and Dismemberment insurance, you better believe if I lose an arm and a leg I'll get an arm and leg.

Archer, I barely know her

2010-05-15T19:37:00.000-04:00

What stands for your culture? Today after an almost two year dry spell we went arching. A charming indoor range about forty five minutes' drive. They put a new nock on my string using the right equipment, fixed an arrow tip and sold me a finger guard. We shot for about thirty minutes until our arms got tired and fingers started to become raw.

We patronized a local small business, I connected with the kid behind the counter and pursued a hobby.

Chameleon

2010-05-14T23:06:00.000-04:00

Wife has a Largan Chameleon digital camera from about 8 or 9 years ago. Most of the indicator words next to buttons have worn off. It has a female USB A port, meaning it needs a male to male USB A cable. With no zoom or any manual settings of any kind it takes the most unusual photos. It was a gift from Wife's grandfather and I'm pretty sure it came free when he bought a machine for work. It went everywhere because of its size, but also because it had no monetary value, here you can see it braving the rain in Saint Kitts.

This camera is famous for being difficult to install with hard to find drivers. There are no Win 7 drivers. It barely detects when plugged in to the computer. Thanks to XP mode in Win 7 Ultimate I was able to fire up an XP machine and install the camera and grab what's left of the 51 pictures! Unfortunately they're in pretty rough shape and they're all in variations of this masterpiece.

Cheers for XP mode at least.

Diabolical sound coming through your speaker.

2010-05-13T22:34:00.000-04:00

It's an almost daily occurrence. I'm sitting at a red light aiming to go straight, the light turns green and the driver on the other side of the intersection turning left jets out, ignoring right-of-way, in front of me like it's cool. This annoys me when I'm by myself because I really like my car. When Wife is in the car it makes me furious, they're now putting my family at risk. What are my options? Usually just a long sounding of the horn.

I am impotent.

Motivation

2010-04-10T23:23:00.000-04:00

There are lots things to help procrastinate, computer gaming, Internet, welfare, wealthy parents, low standards, solitude. It's often difficult to find motivation to get better, to budget your time and take everything in moderation. Solid parenting & family, strong culture and a strong dream can help give you a handle on how to work for greater longterm gain instead of a smaller immediate gratification payoff but there are lots of things fighting against that.

School is becoming more and more a daycare holding pattern than a place for learning. College is works sheets, not fostering innovation.

For many Fight Club was a big inspiration. If it takes a meme to motivate you, that's fine too. Sometimes having a clear picture of what you want for your future. Maybe a partner can be your muse.

We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret

I think what really matters is that you find something that motivates you. I don't really care if it's a book, movie, money, boys & girls or meme. As long as it gets you to do something it's worthwhile.

One person's trash is another person's garbage

2010-04-04T10:07:00.000-04:00

The last few months have seen us pretty poor money wise while I look for work. However we live adjacent to an apartment building which is the last in a line of four apartment buildings. So many people live in such a small parcel of land, it's awesome. People here like to throw away things that are perfectly good. They don't have a use for them so they place it neatly in the dumpster, problem solved! Right?

This much population density and this attitude toward stuff means free stuff for me:

1 x coffee table holding my server, printer and misc
2 x trash cans, one in use, one in basement
1 x deck chair on the... porch
1 x silverware organizer
2 x small stands / foot stool. used to elevate our LCDs
5 x milk crates doing everything a milk crate does best
1 x foot locker with children's toys. Locker is in excellent condition too. Most of the toys were passed to my aunt who works with kids with disabilities.
1 x metal bowl, probably a base for a Xmas tree, now holding a plant

It's pretty awesome. Some stuff I put on Freecycle but because we can't afford stuff for ourselves right now I end up using most of what I find. Either way, it stays out of the dump and sometimes it finds an awesome home.

Today I found a hibachi grill, a tiny little guy sitting on the top in th dumpster. It was a little dirty but that's it. I spent the afternoon cleaning it and am now looking forward to grilling food this summer.

Hell

2010-03-26T10:34:00.000-04:00

Right here in front of me and in my kitchen.
I reached for a lid, but couldn't find one. Turns out, that was the time to sort through this mess, right as dinner was ready to serve. I pruned about 1/3 from the pile. I had containers with no lids, lids with no containers. Ridiculous.

I'm all for reusing containers but when I buy the yogurt on sale it means I get different brands and different brands think it's awesome to have differently shaped containers.

In other hell news, an apartment dweller on the right parked in front of the renters on the left. When they left this morning they knocked over a trash can into the drive way and didn't stop to pick it up. GG Mass.

Finally

2010-02-25T12:11:00.001-05:00

I made lebne for the first time this week!

Heat milk until you can keep your finger in it for 10 seconds.
Add it to bowl with starter.
Cover.
Leave over night.
Strain.
Isolate a small portion as next starter.
Nom

The land of hate and honey

2010-02-24T18:35:00.000-05:00

I moved to MA a little over a month ago and have serious culture shock. The neighbors above us are passive aggressive not making any effort to introduce themselves and in fact making an effort to avoid any interaction. One of them ran to his car when he saw me pull in and pulled away quickly before I got out of my car. None of them take out the trash, the only responsibility that we might share. After taking the trash out Thursday night for Friday pickup we left to Richmond for the weekend, on Monday we returned to find all the containers still sitting on the curb: 4 days later. They make no effort.

Tonight the person driving behind me honked because they felt I wasn't turning soon enough, despite the slushy rain and snow and the consistent traffic. They didn't have their lights on and I was the one not holding up my end of the social contract.

They're nice in person. When they get in their cars they turn in to monsters

The good parts:

I'm living near my aunt. A relationship who's time for a close proximity has come.
The price of cheese is zero (on a long enough scale)
The Italian food is outstanding. I never thought spaghetti could be outstanding
My cat
people say 'wicked'

Migrating from Gmail to GAFYD

2010-02-20T10:59:00.000-05:00

I started moved from using Gmail to Google Apps For Your Domain. Here are a few resources if you decided to make the move yourself.

Migrating mail:

https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=21288

You lose labels if you do it through the web. If you use Outlook it should be flawless, but you need Education(must be a school) or Premiere edition ($50/user/year)

I'm sorting through my thousands of emails relabeling everythign now, using the keyboard shortcuts for the first time and it makes pretty quick work of it.

An excellent resource for migrating from Gmail to Google Apps by someone who's done it. The background is a poor choice and hurts my eyes. http://base6.com/2009/06/15/migrating-from-gmail-to-google-apps/

Contacts, you can export them and import them easily; keeping groups as well.

Calendars can be also exported and imported.

Here is the show stopper for me: the missing features. Last night I was looking for some missing features and came across a thread in Google's Help forum about Buzz in GApps:

Beyond Buzz and Voice, the list is long: Reader, YouTube linking, Google Profiles, Analytics, Latitude, Wave, iGoogle even Google Groups into which you and I are posting right now... these are all services that only work with a Google Account, and don't work (or are mostly broken) with Google Apps accounts.

The poster talks about how Gmail is a free service and gets all the new features and integration and paying Premier members of GApps have to fight for them. This is ultimately what swayed me. As far as I can tell the only advantage for me was signing in and seeing Bazuzi instead of Google in the top left, which, with the new Bazuzi logo from Jan, is pretty cool. I'd then have to wait for all the other features to trickle in. Migrating all those things, and getting friends and family to start following me at a different address along with competing with my gmail address for unique addresses and accounts(already claimed my Google Profile with Gmail) was going to be frustrating and fragment my audience.

I'm sad I won't be using the family domain to log in, but that's it. I still give out my email address as MyFirstName@MyLastName.com and that's pretty cool.

Gmail as default email client

2010-02-18T18:59:00.000-05:00

I'm using W7. This will probably work on Vista as well. Thanks to Kevin for helping me figure this out using Buzz (which turns out to be a little more productive than Wave (which I thought Wave was designed for)). Buzz allows many of our friends to read our conversation but I thought others might want to see it also.

My netbook already launched GMail when I click on mailto links but my desktop did not.Somewhere along the line I'd set the netbook to do this, but I couldn't figure out how.

Google suggests using Notifier but if you're using Chrome perhaps you're already using an extension for that. Notifier isn't a resource hog, but I don't need over redundancy.

This MS Help site: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Change-the-default-e-mail-program
Tells you to go here:
Control Panel\Programs\Default Programs\Set Default Programs
To designate default actions for programs and file types.
There you can set Google Apps defaults, including MAILTO links on the web. You still need Google Apps installed, but that gives offline email which is something I want and already use.
While you're at is, why not install Google Pack (which includes GApps) and let it handle package management for you? You can ignore the Spyware Dr w/ AV and install Security Essentials which is free and runs on XP and above Windows clients.

These doggies are big

2010-02-09T17:49:00.000-05:00

We took HB to a farm last week. He's been making do with fairly short walks around the neighborhood; competing for space with cars, houses and other doggies. We have an awesome friend who's family farm is close by and she let us come up for the afternoon.
HB was a little nervous at first having never seen horses before.

He quickly made friends and after introductions they all got along famously.

He had so much fun exploring and running around that he didn't want to leave. He ran for 3 or 4 hours, playing in the snow, playing with their dog; Bodi; and exploring the fields. I'm really glad we got a chance for him to run. He doesn't enjoy computers like I do, so actually doing something was pretty great.

Doggiesaur

2010-02-09T17:34:00.000-05:00

Now that I'm on the mainland I get the pleasure of living with our animals again. I walk HoneyBear 3 or 4 times a day and he sits at my feet under the desk all day watching me fill out applications.

We left him with his nana this weekend where he gets spoiled in all different ways. He was a rescue and had a horrible life before we found him. We're all pretty lucky.

Here you can see him suffering

My long lost cat, Merlot. I've had her since Xmas 1999. So she just turned 10! She loves to torture HB and then cry about how little food she gets. She is incredibly loving now that HB is gone.

A Nation of Readers

2010-01-26T13:09:00.004-05:00

That's how my dad once described the British. They read everyday: a book, a newspaper.

My parents were both heavy readers (one of them British!), my brother was too(also British). My grandmother, who's native tongue is Arabic and learned French in school and who didn't learn English until she moved to the US as adult still reads a Danielle Steele book everyday.

I am not a strong reader.

Over the holidays I saw that most of my adult family are everyday readers, some read more than they watch TV!

My wife loves reading, she reads for fun; fiction & non-fiction and is grumpy when she can't. This past summer I got excited over World War Z and read it as fast as I could, it took me 4 days. My wife had never seen me that excited over a book. Kevin finished it in a night.

How did I become such an undedicated reader? It looks like I have always been surrounded by them, encouraged, shown that it was cool, etc.

I just finished reading His Dark Materials. It's a trilogy, they made a movie of The Golden Compass. It's like 900 pages and it took me 6 months to read. That's two months per book, about four times longer than most people. I'm trying very hard to become a strong reader, it's a habit I want my children to have and they're more likely to learn pick it up if they see me doing it.

I try to be my best.

Closed

2010-01-25T22:45:00.003-05:00

4 weeks removed from the islands. It was warm, it was beautiful and natural. My friends that I miss dearly. I ate food that made sense and came from the backyard. I leave behind slow Internet, expensive food and a wonderful job.

I took away a great deal more than I left. I never knew life could be so great.

Much mahalos.

Closure part 3

2009-12-18T13:12:00.002-05:00

Last night marks the end of my food club. Mostly older ladies who have been thrilled to have a younger male presence were squirmy that I'm leaving. Some were sad, others looked lonely and lost. I couldn't find the right time to use my secret word but I got lots of teary eyed hugs and even a hand squeeze.

Definitely something that's changed my life since I started going in August. I have two excellent friends that made it an important part of our weekly routine. It changed my perspective on a lot of things and I'm sad I won't be going with them anymore.

Local kine grinds

2009-12-16T14:11:00.003-05:00

8 days to go. The goal now is to pack everything and ship. Also to fill up on local food that won't be available en Mass. Musubi from 7-11, saimin, mauna pua, bentos and especially fresh fruit are all being consumed at an unalarming rate. I purchased some food to cover the few meals I'll eat at home but for the most part it's going to be getting what I can while I can.

My new favorite breakfast involves yogurt. Last week it was cereal and yogurt like I had in Sweden. This week it's vanilla yogurt with pineapple & bananas from the farmer's market. Pretty awesome.

I have a few food items to bring to the east coast with me but they'll be gone within a few days or weeks as I share and give them away.

I WANT CHOWDA has been in my lexicon for months now and soon I'll get to use it in earnest. What other delicacies await me in the frigid NE? I'll let you know.

For now, what food do you eat thats specific to where you're from? What do you miss when you are away?

Closure part 2

2009-12-15T03:11:00.007-05:00

An ordeal has finally ended. 20 months ago I had my wisdom teeth removed. During that procedure the adjacent tooth's root was broken.

To CYA my surgeon paid for:

A root canal which could not recover the tooth
I then had another extraction
A bone graft of someone else's bone shards and
Another bone graft of someone else's bone shards
An implant
An uncovering
A failed molding during which the implant was pushed up into my sinus
A surgery to remove the implant impacted in my sinus.

When the implant made it to my sinus I couldn't form a seal in my mouth. I couldn't use a straw. Breathing vibrated the nerve in the open canal and was very uncomfortable.

The new surgeon that removed the titanium implant said that the prosthetic tooth is not even necessary because of how much the teeth overlap, so the entire procedure could've been avoided.

My dentist is awesome though and when I went by today to show them the titanium implant I asked for copies of my X-Rays. They didn't know how to export them from the computer so they let me do it. They also gave me chocolate covered short bread cookies. I brought them tangerines.

Closure part 1

2009-12-05T02:11:00.008-05:00

I leave HI in 3 weeks. Today serves as a good milestone for the beginning of the end. To help cope with leaving I'll write some cheerful notes about the communities I'll be leaving.

Tonight marks my last 2600 meeting in Hilo. This is a meeting I started over a year ago with a rocky beginning and a successful legacy.

It began with me, lobst4r and Kitten Viscous sitting around talking about data storage. Tonight had 6 of us chatting up a storm. A member from our church comes, a former engineer, it was like play time for him. He brought bricked Linksys routers and he was so excited that everyone was excited about them. When his wife came to get him I said "thanks for letting Jim come out to play!"

I have some awesome friends in this group and it has always been a pleasure to talk with people interested in the same things but with a different approach and perspective. No one else gets excited about neodymium magnets like they do.

There's a 2600 meeting about 1/2 hr from where I'll be in MA, I just hope they're as awesome as the group I'm leaving.

I'm glad the group will continue to meet after I leave.

Priorities

2009-12-02T22:48:00.006-05:00

Someone special came to visit for Thanksgiving. It was exactly perfect. Difficult and busy but splendid and refreshing; it was needed. But now, after a week away, I'm back to work and it's taking a little getting used to. Getting the time off was easy, boss didn't even want a reason.
I took a break to go home and put on socks and shoes to cover up my pedicured toesies from the mocking eyes of middle schoolers.

My work friend asked how I enjoyed my vacation. I scoffed, that was no vacay! It was work, it was driving, it was expensive. My primary purpose was to take care of my girl and everything else was secondary. It's something I'd forgotten; to be so preoccupied with someone else.

Rental

2009-12-02T14:04:00.002-05:00

We shipped our Suby Fozy yesterday and rented a car to make it to Kona. I returned it this morning. The price with Kama'aina discount came to a cool $40. Add the price of my forgetfulness in filling up the tank and that bottom line bottoms out to a ferocious $107.

The upside is that instead of taking a taxi home for an additional $15 I ran into a friend from church and scored a ride with her. One of the many ways in which Hilo shines.

Google contact

2009-11-11T01:41:00.004-05:00

I've been collecting contact methods from Google.

I got a:

a phone call from them when signing up for Google Apps for Your Domain
postcard for registering a business on Google Maps
text message for signing up for Voice
They even mailed me stickers

Pretty soon we'll go on a date.

Headphone cable

2009-11-10T04:58:00.003-05:00

I have a fancy chair thanks to Vincent, it's seriously comfortable but the arm rests like to wrap my headphone cable around itself. It's so frustrating because it likes to tangle itself around the arm rests, wheels and base of the chair. For a while I was clipping the cable to my shirt and that helped a little bit but I don't always wear a shirt (cat sound!) at the computer. Today I had an epiphany and used a small hook to manage the problem. The majority of the cable sits on the other side of the hook creating enough weight to keep the cable retracted on that side instead of pooling around the chair.

'Ohana

2009-11-08T04:14:00.007-05:00

Big Island Ohana Cafe. Owned by a father and mother, run by daughter and son. I never knew their names or their nationality. They had vintage signs on the wall and still offered banana splits and malt milk shakes. They were cash only.

When I moved here I ate there a couple three times a week, usually getting bacon cheeseburgers, fries and a drink for me and my boss. The store changed owners and my shift moved to the evening when BIOC was closed so I stopped eating there.

We started going to church and would eat lunch at 'Ohana Cafe every Sunday. Over the summer my hana'i nephew paddled every Saturday morning and we took him there for lunch afterwards.

We went often enough that they let me order off menu. I usually got fish over fried rice with eggs over medium. It was fantastic. Jessie got the same thing every time, which with their accent, was pronounced "Frenche Toast."

They closed 2 weeks ago.

Update:

BigIslandVideoNews.com has video of the corner being torn down. It may have been ugly but I don't see 15 new parking spaces being better than the 'Ohana Cafe.

Tsunami drill

2009-11-03T03:27:00.006-05:00

Every month they sound the Tsanmi warning alarms as a test. This month they organized a complete Tsunami drill.

I was unprepared, I didn't bring water or really know what to do. So I set out to keep the kids in line as we made our dry run from the school to the edge of the airport where we waited in the sun for 20 minutes for them to open the gates. We walked with 700 kids across the tarmac of Hilo airport to then sit for 2 hours waiting for a bus ride home.

The kids did not take it seriously, they were rude and didn't follow directions and were plagued with selfish behavior as previously mentioned. In the event of a real Tsunami they might focus a little more because it's serious, but they'd also be under prepared and there would be a lot more chaos around them.

Tsunamis are a very real thing here. There have been serous ones within memory for some members of the community and the kids' families, so it's not like an abstract idea. I wish I knew how to convey the serious nature of this threat and the benefit of being prepared and focused.

The reality is that if a Tsunami hit where we are most vulnerable most of that area would not survive, there isn't enough time or organization to get everyone out.

The price of island life.

Every Day Carry

2009-10-31T04:26:00.004-04:00

I was a Scout once. At the time I didn't understand the need to always be prepared because everything was always provided for me. As an adult I have the pleasure of providing for myself and I like to come prepared. A recent post on Reddit motivated me to make a list of my EDC items.

Every day carry means I always have a Leatherperson Micra & Maglite Solitaire on the key chain. This solves the majority of problems I run into.

In my backpack I carry:

a makeup bag full of screw drivers
ace wrap, adhesive medical strips and Neosporin
Leatherperson Core
notepad
3 pens, 1 sharpie
Aspire One
snacks
Swiss army knife
water bottle
4GB USB drive

In my car I have:

full 1st aid kit
change of clothes
swim suit and snorkel gear
Maglite Mini LED
D40x

There're lots of resources for Every Day Carry items on EDCForums and EDCItems

Some people enjoy the serendipity of life and just roll with whatever happens and don't like faking control by carrying all this gear with them. I had a discussion once about whether the burden of always carrying everything was too high. In my mind it's not, I enjoy being prepared and I enjoy solving problems. To me the world is a playground, a workshop, and while it's not broken; I certainly enjoy fixing it.

What do you carry everyday?