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Last Updated : Sunday, 24 November, 2002 at 5:00 PM -0600
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| Daynotes On a Budget Hosted By... Last Updated : Sunday, 24 November, 2002 at 5:00 PM -0600 |
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Monday, November 18, 2002 |
8:20 AM : Priceless...
Net Worth: Billions
Industry Position: Leading
Posture: Couldn't Stand Straight Unless It Would Raise Stock Price $30/share.
Priceless, indeed. What a schlub.
Oh, No, Here It Comes...
About every ten years or so I get absolutely clobbered by the flu. Every couple of years it stops by to peek in the windows and bother me a bit, but never really has me down and out.
I was laid low by it about four years ago - and hopefully that immunized me for a few years. I'm one of those fortunates for whom the flu "shot" serves as a magnet for not only the most virulent of the bugs that it's supposed to prevent, but also for the version that's not supposed to be prevalent that year. I've had three flu shots as near as I can figure. And those were the three WORST years for my flu. So, thanks, no thanks.
I had the creaky-achey feeling yesterday, but it went away. Of course, I drank plenty of fluids, got about 6 hours sleep (interrupted a lot with a new pillow break-in period, a small boy in my bed, and the ever-popular distractions like cats purring on my head and that nasty one, Dawn... No, not Gilligan's friend, the one that happens in the East (unless you're from Australia - everything's upside down there... 
). This morning, however, the headache is back, along with loss of energy, heavy limbs, and a generally lethargic feeling leaving me to desire only to lay on the couch with the four remotes nearby (TV, Cable, VCR, and DVD) and exercise a thumb or two.
Since that does not pay the piper, I've got to get moving.
3:45 PM : Weird Search Results
Phil Hough (who now has a webcam for his fishtank - I think he should call it "Phil's Phish Cam") has people hitting his site for cigar issues. I seem to be the popular guy for IOMDisk.Sys issues. Oh well. I'm sure Phil's cigar issues aren't as bad as former President Bill Clinton's, and, frankly, Phil's much younger AND single, so what he wants to do with a cigar and an intern is probably well within reason, but I digress...
For some reason, this site is fairly popular in the search engines for the poor unfortunates who seek to remedy a problem with their Iomega Zip drives - as some time back (about a year ago now) I was struggling with the IOMDISK.SYS problem on my Dell Laptop at work. For the record, I was using Windows 2000 on a Dell Laptop which also had audio issues (no audio working, just the beep). I was also using the laptop as a development and benchmarking system.
The resolution I adopted was a bit unusual for me - I gave up. Since Zip Disk use on that machine wasn't required, I gave up on it, and switched instead to using the Zip Drive on a Win98 machine. The Win2000 machine, once cleaned of the Iomega infestation, ran just fine. And that was the critical part - I was able to copy files from that box over to a server, access the server with the Win98 box, and copy down to Zip. Sure, a couple of extra steps, but when Iomega publishes Crap Software, and you need stuff on a Zip disk, that's the only route I came up with that worked and left me with a stable machine.
If you've a similar problem, and came here looking for the solution to your IOMDisk.Sys blues, here's my best suggestion. Reboot, if you can, into safe mode (Press F8 during the initial black-screen boot sequence, and select Safe Mode from the menu that comes up). Then, do the Start, Control Panels, Add/Remove software, and yank out the Iomega software. Completely. Reboot. If you boot fine, you should be clean and have nothing to worry about.
If not, I'd suggest running Regedt32 to go in and remove any mention of IOMEGA or IOMDISK.SYS under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE registry tree. Look under the hardware limbs, mostly. It's a pain, but it's also rather interesting, in a sick and geeky sort of way. As always, though, be sure to export the registry BEFORE YOU MAKE A CHANGE so you can re-import if you do something stupid like delete the entire HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE tree...
Anyway, that's what I'd do...
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Tuesday, November 19, 2002 |
Ugh
It hit about 2:30 yesterday afternoon, with a fair amount of warning. The "uck". I went to bed after the usual run-around last night, hitting the pillow right at 5:30 pm. Watched the national news, then the local, all guaranteed to increase nightmares a thousandfold, then went to sleep. Stayed out cold until about 10:00, when I got up. I'd been dreaming of cheesy bread. Thick, firm bread, with loads of cheese on it, melted, in an oven. So I got up, sliced to pieces of bread, buttered it, put cheese on it, put it in the oven for 7 minutes at 400 degrees, and it hit the spot. Went BACK to bed about 11:30, and slept until 6:30 this morning. Whereupon I got up, nearly fell over, and wanted to - badly.
Since I can't, I didn't. Dearly wanted to, but didn't. Got deliveries made, people appropriately stashed, came home, and wobbled towards my bed. Then the trenchers outside started up. They're pulling some new cable underground on the other side of my fence. Wonderful machines. Very narrow trench, about four feet deep judging by the trencher blade, and very clean. They've run it the entire length of my block, which, near as I can tell, requires about nine passes of these fairly heavy machines. They're not noisy - I could barely hear them in my bedroom, which is on the other side of the house (a whole bedroom, wow, between us), but I could feel the vibrations, even through the waterbed. And into my head. Ouch.
Now Jack's home, and I'm going to survive the afternoon, and maybe even the evening, before I fall over. I hope.
How Nice
Great. I feel like crap, and there you have the Reprobates - er, Republicans - passing the damned homeland scam^H^H^H^H Security Bill (and campaign payback legislation). How nice. And James Coburn's dead. I shoulda stayed in bed.
Well, DUH!
I guess I could have figured it out. 2001 is slow, pedestrian, and dull-witted compared to Star Wars Episode II. That is, if you're six.
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Wednesday, November 20, 2002 |
Disturbing
This morning's e-mail brings a whole boatload of crapcakes. Aside from the nearly 70 Spam which suddenly got past the outer shields, some rather ugly news came through. Seems Sister #2, previously comfortably esconced in a two-and-a-half-year project at one firm as a contractor/QA Analyst, isn't going to be joining them after all - she's done there in Early December, and fully expects to be laid off by the contracting house before Christmas. The same message includes a note that Sister #4, she of the paralyzed stomach, is again suffering mightily from it, and was taken to the hospital last night, and may be transferred via ambulance (not because of health risks, but because they do not want her to drive) to the Mayo clinic for her appointments there early next week.
Not a fun morning so far. Let's hope the day improves.
Oh, Brudder
This saga started about two weeks ago. I opened the Catholic Spirit, our diocesan newspaper, and noted that there were four letters to the Editor for the week, all under the heading "Wellstone Notice Draws Comment". I reviewed three of the letters, and they were all single-issue complaints about Wellstone's stance on Abortion. I saw red. Well, I saw bright screaming crimson flames of red, but yeah, red.
So I fired off a missive.
From: John Dominik [mailto:John_Dominik@hotmail.com] |
Of course, you all know what happened after that. I received a nice e-mail from a nice young lady (I'm assuming young, I dunno if I'm right or not) who vented towards me about people assuming that they had an axe to grind. Admittedly, as the diocesan voice, there are some issues which they're forced to approach from a specific angle; but for the most part, there is no censorship. In selecting the letters, she could find few, if any, pro-Wellstone. Most were single-issue approaches to his work.
I replied, thanking her for the instruction, and commiserated with her - given my background (St. Johns, in the midst of a rather conservative Catholic population, was a real eye-opener), I told her I was indeed ambivalent about the agenda of the Catholic church, and really all religion, being hijacked by the "conservative" agenda, little of which is truly in the spirit of the Catholic Church as I knew it.
Who knows. It could turn into a frighteningly constricted professional writing gig, but there ya go.
Riding A Bike
There are a lot of things that you can say are "like riding a bike". For many, the analogy is apt. For some, however, it's frustratingly off.
Database Development, for me, is one of those things.
I'm no DBA/Tuning Wizard. I've got some ideas about how data should look/work/behave, and occasionally those prejudices (for that is what they are) run counter to the "proper" or "correct" way of doing things.
But what I've learned over the years is that it's not the "proper" or "correct" thing that you need to do, but what the client wants. If the industry standard is blue on white, and the client wants purple on yellow, then, well, you do purple on yellow. Period. End of discussion.
Conveniently, in this particular case, I'm the client for a database I'm building. Which is nice. I get to pick the pieces-parts I want, and how they work, and how they'll cooperate with the whole.
I won't bore you with the entire structure of the system; it's designed to keep track of four key pieces of information - contacts, the companies they work for (and I would bill to), what projects are under way, and the work done. Each uses a subset of information from the other - for example, the contact might have a unique phone number, different from the company's main number, but the billing address might be the same. And I might meet that contact at another site where the work needs to be done. So it's inter-related, but at the same time, it's independent.
So tonight, I was designing the "data entry interface". I'm a simple guy, really. I want to have a button bar at the top of the layout with new, save, and exit buttons, along with record navigation - first, previous, next, last. Nothing fancy. If I need to go back and forth in a database, I can do that.
The annoying part is creating it all from scratch - once created, I usually end up copying (no point in re-inventing the wheel, after all) from one database to another. Maybe a color change, but it's a straight-forward thing - group, change the colors, ungroup. Regroup in the original groups, and yer uncle's name is Robert.
The frustrating part is finding the tools again. That's all.
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Thursday, November 21, 2002 |
My Day?
Call from a client - problems with sending a message turned into a major problem - they may be compromised.
Said Client had been sworn to that they had a firewall. Which does not explain at all how I was able to telnet to the server.
Call from ADT Security. Friend of ours (took three times to listen to the message before I was able to understand the name) had a burgler alarm go off at her home. No answer at her cell phone or home phone.
Call from my mother. Sister #4 has been transferred to Mayo, and they'd like to know if I could cheer her up. Sure.
Call from friend with ADT Security. Seems Townhouse management decided to check her heater, and neglected to tell her. Oops.
Eldest Child had an ear-doctor appointment. Almost four years after the ear tubes were installed, they've come out. NO MORE EARPLUGS FOR THE POOL!!!
Final assessment from a security professional whom I trust on my client's box (Thanks Matt) - odds are that he's been hacked, poorly, and perhaps severely.
Need I go on? Oy, what a day.
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Friday, November 22, 2002 |
Put simply, same song, second verse. Did I mention that hackers should be abused? Preferably with materials that have a Rockwell "C" hardness rating?
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Saturday, November 23, 2002 |
Busy, busy, busy - see tomorrow...
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Sunday, November 24, 2002 |
Same Song, Third Verse?
Nah. Yesterday was the "one scheduled thing" day until early Thursday. Then it became "a couple of things", and then turned into the "do it all now" day.
First, a recap of Friday's activities would be incomplete if I failed to mention our visit at my sister's - the family get-together for birthdays, etc., where my sister, her husband, their "daughter" Goblin (half basset hound, half English Springer Spaniel, with a bark like a bloodhound on the scent, and silver-gray and black in coloring - a very, very pretty dog) hosted us to dinner and presents. Jack got a Bob The Builder Art and Activity kit - crayons disguised as tools (pipe wrench and hammer), and all of it on a tool belt - cute - plus clothes. My daughter, the clothes horse, acquired, what else, clothes and a craft projects kit. I even got a present - my sister and her husband (the other one, not the one that hosted us) got me an "automotive tool set". 131 pieces, some of them cable ties, some of them fuses and electrical connections - but most of it's a good solid socket set and a screwdriver with 24 interchangable bits. Ah, toys... Those that come in handy, though, so keep reading...
Anyway, that was Friday night, then we came home and crashed. Hard. So hard that I forgot to refrigerate the leftover chili-cheese dip, and Ann forgot to turn off the alarm clock. A true Simpsonian "Doh!" (Homer, not O.J.) there.
So, on to Saturday. Other than the alarm clock from hell (5:30 am on a Saturday isn't a pleasant time to awake. Period), it couldn't have started better, though - after a late start and a dash out the door, we got to Rhiannon's basketball game - where, late in the fourth period, my daughter had a two-shot free-throw. She made the first basket. Missed the second.
This basket was significant because it put her team's score at 21. Yes, not only into double digits, but in the lead, as well. The other team had 20. A few minutes later, when the game ended, Rhiannon's lone free-throw turned out to be the game-winner. That's right - not only did they break their previous high-scoring mark of four, they did it in a big, big way. And under a tougher referee, too - called them for double-dribble, stop-n-start (don't know what the technical term is), traveling, and reaching in. Previous games had been subject to only the double-dribble, stop-n-start, and occasionally traveling. And no free throws at all.
So it was pretty spectacular. They're now 1-4, which is better than 0-5.
Then, of course, we moved on to my second alternate gig - "I'll do anything for a buck" Dominik strikes again. Well, sorta. A friend of Ann's needed some door work done. Her front door is in dire straits, and her back door is ... well, let's just say that any idiot who inspected the house before the sale ought to have the "Beland Idiot Palative Cure" method applied...
The front door job will likely run her between $5,000 and $20,000, depending on if you include a whole new roof (plus rafters). We're just not going to handle that one. The back door, on the other hand, is more our speed.
My portion of the job consists of me building a simple platform stand (five feet wide by three feet long), and obtaining but not attaching legs - then assembling the whole thing outside the back door my friend Todd will remove and replace (frame, door jamb, sill, and all).
Following that, a quick stop for breakfast (no, none of us could be bothered to get up early enough for food - for crying out loud - food is plentiful. Sleep, not so much) turned into an adventure of the ... well, worst kind. We left Ann's friend's house, and once on the freeway, Jack says "Uh, Mom, do you still have my tool belt." Of course not. Back around the horn to the house again, where the tool belt was obtained. Back to the corner, where we got gas, and decided that we could pick between "Embers" or "Taste Of Thailand". So I figured the kids would vote Embers. They ended up picking the Chinese-variant. So, we walked in, and the restaurant was packed to the gills. An old lady came up, looked at one of the serving boys, and said something I didn't understand. He reeled like he'd been hit, and said "I'm sorry, we're closed for a private party" so the eight of us (well, there were others waiting) left. Decided Chinese-style food was definitely wanted, and so we headed south.
To speed the story along, we got lunch, then went around the corner to Kohls - a department-type store. Picked up a pair of pants for Jack (in exchange for the pants he received the night before that reached from the floor to his hair line) and four pairs of pants (two jeans, two dress pants) for Ann, plus a shirt, plus some backpacks from the kids (at 80% off the markdown price), and then we headed out. I think we came home after that (the brain is fading), and I did the outside lights.
That pretty much shot yesterday through the gills. Today, we hit church (Rhiannon had to sing), and then came home for breakfast. Following that, we headed out to hit three quick stops - Target for three things, Snyders for another, and the grocery store for about a dozen items required for this week's fooding.
Big, big, BIG mistake - we went over to the new "SuperTarget" in Apple Valley. I'm telling you, these people are insane. Target now has a Starbucks in it, as well as sushi. Don't know about you, but the fact that we're some 1000+ miles from the nearest ocean is not leading me to trust "Minnesota Sushi".
But we did find a couple of good deals. A fifteen pound turkey for 58¢ a pound is one of the better ones. Of course, we also found plenty of other things to rejoice about - like the fine folks at Reeses who've come up with trees, which replaced pumpkins, which were the Halloween replacement for Easter's Reeses Peanut Butter eggs... So yeah, we stocked up. Other than that, we got about half our grocery run finished there, then over to the grocery store to deal with the other half. We have, remaining on the list, plain pork sausage, butter, and extra bread for stuffing. That's all that's left - we got the ham, all the other stuff, and we're ready to go for Thanksgiving.
Off to peruse the want ads and see if someone wants me. If not, we'll stick with the consulting gig. This week? A new e-mail server, securing an old server, and working on a domain transfer. And that's just one client. I still have to build a back porch.
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P. Dominik. All rights reserved. No reproduction without express
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