Last Updated
Sunday, 22 July, 2001
at
10:35 PM -0500
|
Last Updated |
The weekly Diary of a PC Geek
|
Monday, July 16, 2001
Well, this was going to be profound, witty, and life-changing.
Instead it's late, short, and boring. Oh well.
I spent much of this evening working up a letter to my daughter's daycare. I explain what we went through last Thursday, what happened Friday night, and our concerns going forward about this little thug who thinks he can beat up my daughter. So I'm rather drained.
I did do some thinking today about registering a domain. I thought "gee, how about something really weird - Amish.org!" Nope. It's out there. So is Amish.net. Amish.com is available, but through a reseller, which I don't want to use.
And it looks like this weekend's camping trip will be everything I've dreaded. Potential for thunderstorms, temps in the upper nineties, high, high humidity (dewpoints into the seventies), and a general "hey, come on in, the oven's fine!" Oh well, it could be worse, right?
The weather geek just said if we make it another couple of hours here without rain (not quite a lead-pipe cinch, but close) we will have the distinction of the Dryest July on record. Which goes right back to the dust bowl, too, folks. The last time July started out this dry, we had a monsoon that parked on top of us and dumped eighteen inches of rain in about a week - twelve inches in one night. That storm flooded the lower levels of Southdale Mall, where I later worked for Software, etc.. Weird, eh?
Good Grief. We've been planning this camping trip since March 10th. That long? Sheesh. You'd think I'd be better organized by this time...
Okay - I'm a sucker for anything NASA does that looks "cool" - and this one does. But the location reminded me of many, many bad jokes.
Oh well. G'nite.
Tuesday, July 17, 2001
Well, so far today I've been called a micro-managing Boy Scout and had
my crotch sniffed. 
I knew that would get your attention. Hey, you think you have problems, I was doing my quick-pass first read this morning and hit a few sites, including Al Hawkin's place. Al has, over the ... well, seems like years, but it's only been months that I've had him near the top of the order, given me many, many laughs. But this morning, I thought to myself "hey, there's a picture of Al - it's missing on his new layout..." So I opened the picture in a new window, and continued on with that new window in the background.
Al - you need to post a disclaimer near that pic, man. Aside from the fact that I could end up in deep yogurt with the IT police for viewing a picture with ... well, nudity in it, there's the small matter of the young woman in the picture having a marked resemblance to ... Oh, never mind.
Anyway, back to Micro-management, Boy Scouts, and Crotch Sniffing.
No, they're unrelated. Being the Boy Scout in the family, and the only fellow who's been camping, I'm perhaps working a bit too hard to get things lined up properly come campout time. Did I mention we're going to Kamp Dels? The misspellings helped me miss it in every conceivable fashion on the internet, so I've linked it here so when I go looking for Camp Dells, Kamp Dells, Camp Dels, Kamp Dels, or any other variation, the search engine will get me to the right paragraph. I hope.
Well, anyway. Last night I put in the ice blocks for the cooler, and started through the list of stuff I'll need to pack. I also thawed the chicken (which is marinating, one batch in teriyaki, one batch in Famous Dave's Sweet And Spicy BBQ Sauce). It's in the fridge right now, and will be back in the freezer by nightfall. I thawed the ground beef for orange meatballs (ground beef, salt, pepper, chopped onion, a wee touch of cayenne, all slipped inside a hollowed-out orange), and will make those up tonight (right into the freezer).
Hmmm... My concern for our friend's trailer (they spent last weekend next to a campfire, with smoke blowing into the trailer - I spent a week in a tent like that... No fun) led me to offer them use of two of our box fans for the airing out of the trailer... She thinks they'll have it done shortly. The wife, however, feels I'm micro-managing. Gee, I thought it was a good deed, myself.
Oh, I know. You're just hanging around because of the crotch-sniffing remark, aren't you? Well, yet another co-worker brought his pet in today - unlike the big galoot of a yellow lab of a couple weeks back (who found a new home, apparently on a farm, within three hours of his arrival at the Humane Society), this was a nice, well-mannered young blonde lady... of the Cocker Spaniel persuasion. Zoey, at the age of 10 months, is a real cutie. Someone I wouldn't mind in a house, when we get there...
Speaking of houses, a grudging congratulations to Brian and Marcia Bilbrey... We're a couple months behind you folks (I hope)... But really, congratulations.
And before anyone thinks I'm insulting Hawaii by picking on Barking Sands from yesterday, let me explain... During ... well, uh ... ummm ... Oh, heck with it. We used to blame "barking (fill in the blank)" for loud, rude, inappropriate ... Oh heck. FARTS. There, I said it. At one point I happened to see a local blues band in Bunkers some years ago. The Minnesota Barking Ducks (might have been the Mighty Minnesota Barking Ducks, I dunno - it, or I, was a bit fuzzy there) had at least one logo with a duck being followed by a cloud. "Barking Sands" seemed to be a good excuse, though I don't know that I'd want to vacation there if in fact they were ... And that doesn't begin to address the British slang "Barking" as in "Lunatic".
Oh well. It made sense to me (which is what all the psychopaths end up saying eventually... "I'm the normal one, it's the rest of you that are a bit off!").
Speaking of psychopaths, if you've got a Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) that you're responsible for the care and feeding of, hie thee off forthwith to this URL for education of the problem, and then this one to get and apply the patch. As of this afternoon, it looked like there were over 8100 infected servers. It's not a joke, folks. It's bloody scary.
I understand about 10% of what typically goes through my inbox from the Bugtraq incident and security mailing lists, but between that, the fake Microsoft Security warning Tom reported earlier, and a few really scary things you can do to Windows 2000, I'm really getting twitchy around these computers. Probably means it's time for bed. G'nite...
Wednesday, July 18, 2001
Busy day. As are most, I guess.
Let's see. First off, seems some nutball went through the Kershner's brand new fence. Seems to me to be an effective argument for concrete walls with cedar veneer. The point of the fence is to provide privacy and peace of mind, is it not? Why not concrete? Steel-reinforced, etc. That way drivers who can't control their vehicles won't be a threat to me...
Further on down the road, we've got all sorts of fun news. Our FBI seems to be able to keep tabs on all of the criminal element, but they're a bit lacking in tracking those inanimate objects like computers and guns. Hmmm... Reminds me of an episode (one of the few I've seen) of the Nash Bridges show. Don Johnson (Nash) walks up and looks at a wall with a very large, perfectly circular hole in it. He's also been told that there's a cache of missing weaponry, some of it military, wandering the local streets. Don looks at the hole in the wall and says "call forensics. And tell them to bring the big tweezers."
On the one hand, I'm sure there's a lot of equipment that the FBI keeps track of. On the other hand, come on, boneheads - classified materials? Machine Guns? You folks REALLY need some help in the brain/organization department, don't you. Let's start with something simple like barcodes and supermarket scanners. Put them at the door of every FBI office. Connect them to centralized databases. Each agent waves his ID, which has a barcode, when he comes in. If he brings any equipment (such as a federally-acquired side arm, etc.) into the building, it's also scanned. When he leaves, anything that goes out (including his side arm) gets scanned as well.
Be a big pain in the butt, you say? Treat them like children, you complain? Well, damnit, they lost MY machine guns and laptops - I paid for 'em, they're mine. The FBI's just using them for the time being. Sheesh.
All right. Let's see if we can't find something a little more fun.
Humph. Looks like Minneapolis has joined the big leagues. Yup. City councilman solicits bribe from store owner, promises to work on his behalf. The only good news in this story is that it didn't go on for months and months. And that the councilman resigned rather than continue to act like an idiot.
That's not too good. Let's see what else we can find...
Now That's kinda cool. Interplanetary internet. It would be cool, that is, if we could actually be "interplanetary" instead of "planetary with some pieces of equipment flung off willy-nilly into space".
Oh, all right. I give. Nothing else is working, and it's just sitting there in my inbox, quivering, like Jello. Yet another installment of "fun with spam".
|
> WOMEN'S HEALTH NEWSLETTER What, like the name "John" wasn't a tipoff that I'm male? What about THIS? Oh, stop it and put away the microscope, you joker. > Living Your Life To The Fullest OHO! So only women can live lives to their fullest - the rest of you bastards can get stuffed. Oops... > Do You Take Your Sexual Health Seriously? Right. You've got my full attention. > Millions of ordinary women around the world are experiencing natural, Yes? > power-filled, Are we talking California again? > orbit-ringing What orbit? LEO? Geosync? Moon? > orgasms My word, natural, AND power-filled, AND orbit-ringing? Wow. I feel inadequate. > and their ranks are leaping forward with growth. Now, how do they both leap and ... well, I guess they're extraordinarily gifted to experience such an event as noted above and still be able to leap in rank. Goodness. What talent. You used to only be able to see that sort of thing in certain seedier inner city neighborhoods, and Amsterdam, of course. > Sadly, 46% of women are still failing. Oh, sure. Blame the woman. Like they need more guilt. > They fail their partner, too. Show me a man who calls sex a failure, and I'll show you ... oh, never mind. Too many bad jokes start like that. Including this one. > Some say its their age. Of course, it could be their punctuation. > Others give other reasons or just fake it. I thought the pervading idea was "fake it until you make it"? > Still others, however, are discovering the new secret I knew it! I knew that somewhere, I smelled a sales pitch! > that gives back what they deserve- Deserve? Says who? > -full, powerful, glorious orgasms What is this? An ad for a power plant, a new perfume, or a ... well, I'm not quite sure what. > on a regular basis. Hell, I'd be happy with SEX on a regular basis, thank you very much. > What is the difference? I thought you were the expert. You tell me. > What about you? Uh, what about you? Or is this degenerating into a "you show me yours-I'll show you mine" thing? > The pressure of unsatisfied performance is reaching epidemic proportions. Goodness. An epidemic of unsatisfied women. Let me get my tights, mask, and cape, and ... Oh, stop laughing. At least they used the word proportions where I didn't expect it. > A new, natural and completely safe product is restoring sexual orgasm. Okay, but why just the sexual orgasm? What about the others? Or is this one of those "nudge nudge wink wink" bits? You remember the end, don't you? For that matter, how many other types of orgasm are there? What am I missing? Automotive? Computational? Inverted? HELP! I'm so confused! > "I have not had a feeling like this for fifteen years. I love it! Well, me ever, but whatever works, I guess... > My husband is the happiest I have seen him in years," says June, 37. And ... no, I'd better not. > Viagraź has marched into the lives of men- Marched? MARCHED? Not likely. Not in mine. Other than Bob Dole's commercials. >-seven million last year alone. Oh, dear. That's a lot of horny men. And a significant number of frightened livestock. > Now you also have the chance to receive a gift- Uh, wouldn't that be ... oh, never mind. >-a light, pleasant creme Lovely. Sex to food in two sentences. Now I'm horny AND hungry. Great. Just Great. > designed especially for your female body. Well, no WONDER it doesn't work on me. > Orgasm through intercourse is happily yours once again Gee, that's a bit presumptious, isn't it? Assuming I'd ever had it, I mean... > as soon as your sample arrives Sure. That's what they said at the doctor's office. > in your unmarked little package. Believe me, if it were marked, I'd want to know about it. > The discovery is saving marriages and resurrecting that old feeling of romance. Romance? ROMANCE? Even I, galoot extraordinaire, know there's a substantial difference between lust and romance. Sheesh. > What is it like to enjoy maximum closeness and intimacy with your partner? Assuming they're human. And not physically attached to you... > Do aging and other issues have to take that away from you? No, but the if the shepherd down the road ever catches me, he probably will... > Is that all you deserve? What, getting caught? > No! I didn't think so... Let's hope sheep never learn to talk. > Interestingly enough, Like this hasn't already been interesting enough. > half of those who make the small investment Gee, the doctor called it a "specimen". > to try this product are men Reminds me of a line from television the other night. Character goes on a cheap cruise, finds out he's on a gay cruise - all guys. "Were there any women on board the ship?" "I thought so for a little while, before being proved terribly, horribly, frighteningly wrong." > who treat their female partner Oh, sure. Blame the man again if he can't "treat" adequately. > to the joy that has been a man's already. Right. I feel so cheap. And used. But I'll get over it. > To find out more, please click on the following link. Right. Click and ... Oh, stop giggling. And wash your hands. > Thank you for your kindness and the opportunity to serve you. At least they didn't say "... and the opportunity to SERVICE you." |
Well, that's enough of that. Time for bed. G'nite.
Thursday, July 19, 2001
All right. We're packing, loading, and getting ready to leave tomorrow early afternoon for Kamp Dels. We've got a lot to load, pack, and shuffle around, so there's likely not going to be posts from here to Sunday. Sorry.
And, to add to that, my ISP sends out a notice this evening - problems with a melted OC-192 in that Baltimore Train fire have wiped out one of their two T-3 trunks (good thing the other one's from another provider and runs to the other coast - you see why I use these guys?), and the Code Red IIS worm is eating it's way through their DSL customers, causing problems with the Cisco 675s and 678s they use. Isn't this fun? If half of these numbskulls had applied the patches when they were first released, when the first reports of problems were made, we wouldn't have something like 12,000 infected servers out there attempting to infect eachother. The best part of the worm? During the last part of the month (starting tomorrow), they start DDoSing www.whitehouse.gov... Doesn't matter what political stripe you are, that's just plain dumb. Sorry, kids, but when you DDoS someone who's got not only nuclear weapons controlled from a bag at his side, but also several thousand law enforcement people who have all of the really fun guns and other toys and can make you disappear for a rather long time, possibly forever, that's just not smart. Cute, yes, intellectually impressive, perhaps, but smart? No.
To top it all off, we're finally, finally getting rain. Guess when they're saying we'll get most of it? Yup, Saturday night. And today's been really hot and really ugly - mid-day rains cooled it a little bit, but added to the humidity - just what you want when the dewpoints are already in the seventies... Think Miami Beach instead of Burnsville. And they're saying dewpoints in the EIGHTIES this weekend. Just shoot me. Ozone and pollution warnings tomorrow in the metro - good thing we're going an hour south...
Oh well. In a few months I'll be whining about three feet of snow and ten below. I'd be happy to split the difference - highs in the fifties, lows in the forties. I'd be fine. Anyway, since I'm going to be gone tomorrow, I'd like to tell you a little story.
Tomorrow's kind of a special day for me. I'm sure it's special for a lot of people, but I can't help but think of it in intensely personal terms - that was the only way I could at the age of five. Thirty-two years ago, I was one of four kids in my parent's three-bedroom house. We had a black and white television on a little kidney-shaped table in the corner of the living room. The living room was hot, because it was July, and we didn't have an air conditioner. No one in my neighborhood did, in fact, which isn't to surprising, considering the fact that they were pretty "new fangled" back then.
It was a fun, hot summer, as I recall. The last before I started my stint as a school child. Didn't get too far out of the yard, as they were still building houses in the neighborhood, and a quarter-acre or so is still huge to a five-year-old. Especially one with cows right out back.
I remember having gone to bed earlier, about 8 pm, as normal, and my mother came and got me up, out of bed. It must have been nine or nine-thirty at night. Well after my bedtime as an active little boy of five. Much like my own son is today.
My mother awakened me, and I stumbled out to the living room with my green blanket, my flattened teddy bear (I spent many nights sleeping on top of him, much as my children do today - yes, he's been re-"skinned" and is as good as I remember him - still flat, though), and my newest bedtime toy - an unpainted model of Ed White III in his suit, going EVA during his Gemini mission. The Gemini ship and umbilical were gone; I still had the Late Mr. White, his maneuvering "jet-gun", and helmet with visor that flipped up and down.
I sat, blearily, in the corner of the bright living room, breathing the air thick with pipe and cigarette smoke, humidity, and the smells of summer, and watched as, a quarter of a million miles away, a man stepped out of a little tinfoil coffin that looked like nothing so much as a flying bedframe, and backed down the ladder. I knew that he was carrying more equipment on his back than my little red plastic car out in the yard weighed, and when that had flipped over on me the day before, I was hard-put to get it off me.
I remember watching the grainy pictures, listening to Walter Cronkhite's voice as he described what was taking place. I remember watching as this man, one of two that were out there, backed his way down the ladder, onto this trash-can-lid-sized pad, and finally, carefully, set his foot onto the surface of another celestial body.
It's been thirty-two years. My father stopped smoking in 1981, after his heart attack. My mother stopped smoking last year after a cancer scare. But to this day, I can still see the scene clearly in my mind's eye. I remember looking up to a table-top television - a table that, if it still exists today, would come to, at best, my knee. I remember the off-white and avocado case of the television. I remember Cronkhite taking his glasses off and wiping his face in bemused delight.
I don't remember the faces of my parents that night. I don't think I took my eyes off the television the entire time they were on the surface. The next morning, I awoke in my bed. I don't remember getting back to bed. I only remember those words...
One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.
Yippie Skippie it's...Friday!, July 20, 2001
See Sunday
Saturday, July 21, 2001
See Sunday
Sunday, July 22, 2001
Hello there. Remember me? Yeah, settle in, here we go.
I'll give you the running narrative before I give you the overall impressions. More interesting that way.
As you three regulars know, we went to Kamp Dels. We took Highway 13 down to Waterville, which is a little (1800 people) town in a chain between Mankato and Faribault. Kamp Dels is right on the shores of Lake Sakatah. Which is across the road from Lake Tetonka. Yes, despite sounding like dialog from Dances With Wolves, it's a nice area.
The brief overview? Friday dinner was pizza from "The Barn" plus fruit and other stuff, and meatballs later. Dewpoints over eighty, temps over ninety, and no break in the weather. Our friends pulled in just after 8:30 or so, and got their site pulled together.
Saturday morning we had breakfast, which was only slightly marred with the rather disasterous "flaming bacon" episode. Ran into town and picked up a fan for the "just in case it still sucks tonight" weather, and headed back to the camp site. We next went to the pool, which was open until the storm blew in - they closed it and we went to the barn to check a few things, including the progress of the band of showers coming in. Mid-morning, we had a nice little storm which blew right over, and it rained for about 20 minutes. One 40 mph gust, one 30 mph gust, and that was about it. Lunch was hot dogs and brats (which were originally packed as snacks), and then we cleaned up - and applied some aloe with lidocane to my leg, as I'd managed to get a first-degree sunburn cooking hotdogs and brats. Bonehead. Saturday afternoon we spent back at the waterpark. Saturday dinner turned out well and was only slightly marred by the potatoes taking a very long time to cook, and getting finished in the microwave. Well, that, and about 30 seconds after I finished eating and I remembered Bob Walder's "gee, that could be a good food poisoning scenario" comment - straight over to the bathroom. After dinner, back to the pool, which closed at 9 pm. We then went to the showers, where the absolute disaster of the weekend awaited - I've been in larger phone booths, and it would have helped if Jack and I didn't have to share the thing. And he'd remembered his underwear. And I'd remembered my towel, and to pack shampoo and soap. Saturday night I went into bed and crashed right out.
Sunday morning, well, that was ... real fun. I awoke to a funny-gray sky about 5:30, and immediately high-tailed it to the bathrooms to get the cleanup out of the way. By the time I made it there and back (maybe 100 feet), it was almost 6:30, and the sky was getting darker. I plunked the loose stuff into the car, and woke Ann who got Rhiannon into our tent (Jack had, as usual, come into our tent in the middle of the night). Shortly after that little shuffle, we got hit with what appears to have been a severe thunderstorm - wind, several gusts of which were more than the previous day, a half-dozen of which nearly picked the rain fly off the tent and sent it sailing (I used the additional shock cords to tie it down on the west side, since that was where the storm came from). Fortunately, though I'd neglected to bring a rain poncho (a budgetary consideration, not a preparedness issue, I assure you), our friends had extras, so I stood in the rain for perhaps a half hour holding the tent down while the storm blew over. After that, we cooked breakfast in the rain (no wind, just a nice, soaking rain) and ate under the trailer awning (next time, a dining fly for us, too...), then, after it cleared, the ladies took the kids to the water park, and we men cleaned up the sites. Got the tents down when everyone got back, got things packed up, got back home, and got four loads of laundry done.
Long version's going to have to wait until tomorrow, or next week. After we get a house, I'm working on herself - I'm talking her into a larger, SUV-type vehicle. Following that, a camper trailer. Eventually, a real camper-trailer. However, again, I reinterate - don't buy cheap equipment if you're gonna do it more than once.
Overall impressions? Check her out - she had more time at the console than I did tonight, so that should tell you something. What, I dunno.
Oh - one other thing of note - remember when choosing a campground to look for a waterpark AND a lack of horses and/or other farm-like animals. They attract black biting flies. Who will gladly change menus to your ankles when they run out of horse flesh. Some of the opportunistic little bastards figured out that there were a lot more people ankles than horse ankles, and they had at it. Between them, the gnats, and the mosquitoes, I think I now know why my ankles look swollen - when most of the blood that goes down there doesn't come back, you gotta compensate somehow... I think I was a quart or two low by the time I got home tonight. Fortunately, aside from the significantly more bare portion of my leg where the hair burned off, I'll be fine.
Oh yeah - and pictures will be forthcoming. The deluge Saturday morning happened to somehow fetch up the camera under a bunch of other things left out in the rain. We're drying it slowly. We'll see what comes out. G'nite.
Copyright © 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 John
P. Dominik. All rights reserved. No reproduction without express
written permission.
Opinions expressed herein are my own, and my fault. For further information, check out my
other home page.
