Archives December 2008

It was a nice win by the Eagles last night against a hapless Cleveland Browns team.  Like the Giants game, the score could have been much worse.  44-10 could have easily been the final if the Birds didn’t throw two picks in the end zone.  Kevin Kolb came in and promptly threw an interception that was run back for the Browns only touchdown.  To be fair he was hit as he threw but still, any real time game action this kid has seen has not been positive at all.  I keep seeing Bobby Hoying out there.

The Eagles still have a shot at the playoffs but they don’t control their own destiny.  They have to win their two remaining games and get help from other teams losing. 

Yea today is my bday, 41. Keep it quiet.

My normal 300 program has been derailed by the tendonitis in my forearm but today I did a different type of 300.  I did a total of 300 push ups, again a combination of flat on the floor, incline and decline varieties.  Last week I was surprised just how sore my chest was after my push up routine.  It was aching for a few days.  Push ups remain one of the few upper body exercises I can do that don’t tweak my forearm.  I may as well take advantage of it.

On Friday I did half a 300, relegating myself to do the exercises in the routine that again don’t aggravate the injury.  I knocked out 50 push ups, 50 box jumps and 50 floor wipers, in that order.  It didn’t feel too tough to do, easier than expected.

Another dissatisfied IX Webhosting customer found my blog.  To say she is dissatisfied is an understatement.  She is on the all out war path.  Any idea that the problems I had with IX were an isolated thing have been blown out of the water.  Check this out!

Other than pressure washing the pool cage and lanai, I didn’t have a huge weekend agenda.  In fact I had enough time on Saturday to accompany Ali to the pet groomer.  We were baby sitting the neighbors dog so we all piled into the party van and headed out.  Nicki has her nails trimmed regularly.  We used to do it ourselves but had some bad incidents where we cut too far and hurt Nicki.  They only charge 10 bucks or so to do it so it’s worth it.  Zoe’s nails were very long as well so while we were there we had them do hers as well. 

We have been recording a bunch of classic xmas specials off ABC family.  We have been watching them as we go.  I especially like the old style stop animation style specials like Rudolph and The Little Drummer Boy.  It goes hand in hand with our increase in Christmas spirit this year.  I forgot to mention that Ali scored a scented candle that smells just like a real Christmas tree, addressing the biggest problem with an artificial tree, the lack of a fresh tree smell.  I am liking the combination.

So Sunday I set aside to clean the pool cage and lanai.  Doing so is a two part process, first I go around with the shop vac and try to suck up dirt, spider webs and any other loose matter.  I did this part of the job on Saturday actually.  Oh I forgot, I decided to put BOTH Dirt Dogs into duty to help sweep up the pool deck, the old one that has taken two swims in the pool and a brand new one that has never been used yet.  They were both diligently out there sweeping away for quite awhile.  I went out to check on their progress when I witnessed a very unwelcome sight, the brand new Dirt Dog sitting motionless on the bottom of the pool…  SON OF A BITCH. 

Now since I have had this happen twice before I knew this wasn’t necessarily a death sentence for the robot, however it still annoyed me quite a bit.  As I set the robot out to dry I tried to analyze why the brand new Dirt Dog joined the aquatic robot club.  My theory is the brand new tires were a bit slick.  As a result when the robot did the immediate direction reversal when it sensed the pool edge the tires slipped on the concrete and the momentum sent it over the edge.  So assuming Dirt Dog 2 survives it’s bath, I will keep it regulated to safer jobs like cleaning the garage and shed until it’s tires get worn in a bit.

Ok, back to Sunday.  One of the biggest hassles with cleaning the pool cage is reaching the areas of the frame up high directly over the pool.  Even with me standing on a ladder and using every inch of my considerable reach, I have never been able to proper clean certain sections of the frame.  Well I had a new plan to address the problem.  I again utilized the pole saw.  I tied the pressure washer gun to the end of the pole saw and then used some velcro ties to keep the handle locked in the on position.  I then carefully extended the pole and clumsily attempted to clean the frame.  As you can imagine it was sort of difficult to accurately aim the contraption but it was more or less working except for another problem, the wand end.

  The wand on the washer has been problematic for awhile.  Instead of using a steady angle spray, it utilizes a small fitting inside the head that shoots out water in a concentrated stream as it rotates around.  I never liked it much since it didn’t have any way to adjust the pressure of the stream.  If you got it too close to something it could rip right through it .  Well the head that spins around has been getting stuck and going around slower than it should.  This was making it ineffective in cleaning.  As I strained to hold the pole and gun in place I had no patience for a shitty performing cleaning head so I decided to go get something else.

I shot out to Home Depot and looked to see what they had available in the replacement pressure wash wand department. I was excited by what I found.  I grabbed a new wand that had quick release couplings and a set of quick release heads that allowed you to shoot a stream anywhere from a leisurely 45 degree spray to a “drill a hole through your leg” ZERO degree laser stream.  I also found a three foot extension from the same manufacturer that would give me much more range with my pressure washer!  I grabbed it all and hurried home, hopeful that my pressure washing duties were about to get much easier.

I assembled the new wand and extension and attached it to my pressure washer.  I now had what looked like a pressure washing lance at my command as it extended nearly 7 feet outward.  I squeezed the trigger and was instantly greeted with feelings of pleasure.  It worked perfectly.  I was able to reach every inch of the pool cage without even stepping foot on a ladder.  It wasn’t exactly easy at times.  In certain situations I was standing on the edge of the pool with my arms fully extended, supporting the 7 foot pressure gun precariously as I blasted sections of the cage that were far away.  It was not an ideal situation to help my tendonitis get any better.  I didn’t care and plowed ahead. 

I was so into cleaning the area that I did something I never did before, I pressure washed the outside of the cage as well.  After spending a couple hours just on the cage section I still had to do the tedious duty of blasting the concrete pool deck.  All in all I spent nearly 5 hours on the project.  It looks great, as great as a 6 year old pool and 3 year old pool cage can look. 

Ali was out with my mom at some Christmas music performance.  I was quite beat after power washing all day and just vegged.  I flipped on the TV and found the Merrill Lynch Shootout on NBC.  I thought it was quite cool to have a tournament hosted  in Naples nationally televised.  I found myself looking in the crowd for familiar faces.  The tournament director is a friend of ours which made it more special.  He’s in my fantasy football league as a matter of fact.

After watching a bit of the Steelers/Ravens game I decided to catch Hellboy 2.  Just like the first one, I found this movie very enjoyable.  I never once had the urge to look at the clock, yawn or say to myself silently “this just got stupid”.  It was a good time from beginning to end with bad guys that are really bad and an unconventional super hero that you can’t help but like.  Good flick, A-.

So I found out over the weekend that not only does my mom read my blog, my mother-in-law does as well.  No more writing about my wild orgies and rampant illegal drug use.

I have had a few technical projects go well lately.  I was able to upgrade my home server without hardly a hiccup.  That server runs Windows Server 2003, is the domain controller, dns server and exchange server for my home network.  I was able to complete the migration to new hardware simply using the NTBACKUP utility.  This is how it’s done in a nutshell.

You load Windows Server on the new hardware. It needs to be the same version of Windows Server as what is on the old box.  You need to make sure you have the same drive letters for your partitions and they have to be at least as big as they are currently on the old hardware.  You need to make sure the WINDOWS directory is named the same on both servers.  IE. some old servers have the windows directory named WINNT. 

Put a copy of the current NIC, video and chipset drivers on the new server, you’ll need them later. Make sure you have all of the pertinent network information off the old box as you will need it after the restore to new hardware.

Then on on the old box you stop any services that are not absolutely essential and run a full backup.  After that completes you jump on the new box, make a copy of the boot.ini file, stop any non-essential services and do a full restore making sure to choose the “overwrite all files” option.  After the restore completes and before you restart the box, copy the back up of the boot.ini to boot.ini.  Otherwise your machine could possibly not start.

After that, cross your fingers the new server will restart and let you log in.  More than likely your nic and video will not work.  Simply update the drivers with the copies you put there before the restore. (you did do that, right?)  After a couple reboots and reassigning your network information you should be back in business. 

This procedure worked great for me except for one problem with a particular software package that used the CPU ID for activation.  Moving to new hardware broke the activation.  I sent in a request via email to get my key updated.  This stuff was sort of crucial because it was used to pull down my email from my ISP into Exchange.  Well after not hearing anything for a day I got annoyed and decided to do something I never did before, call Australia where the author lived.

It was an odd thing talking to someone on the other side of the planet.  There is a second or so delay before the other person hears you so need to pause between statements.  I explained to him that I sent him an email earlier about the activation and was wondering what I needed to do to get it done.  He apologized for the delay and said someone should take care of it that afternoon, Australia time. (it was 8pm EST when I called) 

I wake up today, expecting to see the activation code in my mail.  Not there….. damn aussies.  I threw up an eval version of some other software to handle the mail grabbing duties until the author decides to get around to sending me the key.

My other tech win was at work.  We had an old, old, old pc here with old multi-modem and fax boards in it.  It is used for people to call in and check tax information.  Used is a strong word since hardly anyone uses it at this point, it’s all done on the internet.  Well anyway the pc died a few weeks ago.  We contacted the vendor about possibly repairing the unit since there were still a handful of old farts that complained they couldn’t access the system via phone.  They quoted us a RIDICULOUS $4000 to fix/replace the system.  What a joke.  We said thanks but no thanks.

Well I suggested to my boss that I may be able to find a used pc with the same specs on ebay.  It was worth a shot.  Well I actually found one.  Total price with shipping was $64.  I migrated the boards and hard drive across to it today and viola, back in business, a tidy $3936 savings.

This is the time of year that companies hold their xmas parties.  Over the years I have worked for several employers and their idea of celebration of the holidays varied greatly.  When I worked at the grocery store as a meat cutter there was no party, instead they presented you with a frozen turkey.  It was pretty lame but what the hell, I only made $6 and change per hour, what could I expect.

When I was at the Hyundai dealership selling cars I don’t recall any particular Christmas celebration or gift given to the employees.  It was such a dog eat dog business with massive turnover I guess they figured it was a waste of time to exhibit good will towards the employees.

The Holiday Christmas Party for me was defined by my first few years at Entre Computers.  It was in a word, fantastic.  The owners would shut down the office around noon and we would head over to O’Kelley’s which they rented out exclusively for us.  It was a drunken, wild, fun celebration.  The tables would just have mugs of beer stuffed on them for anyone to grab.  We had these crazy death match games of John Elway Football and air hockey as well as endless games of pool.  It was just so much damn fun.

We were lucky enough to enjoy those parties for two or three years before ownership and business changes ended the O’Kelley’s run.  The xmas parties went downhill severely from there on out.  It went from ordering a few pizzas and beer that was consumed at the office to receiving a piece of shit fruitcake and a firm handshake once we were taken over by GE.  It was depressing.

Since moving to Florida the xmas celebration is simply the employees filing up to a conference room where they load their plates up with fattening  food and go back to eat at their desks, woohoo.  There has never really been any appreciable social interaction between employees down here.  It’s something I REALLY miss from my early Entre days.

The weekend outlook, pressure washing the lanai.  Can hardly wait.

No this makes no sense but this is what I remember.

I was with Ali in the Camry.  There was some sort of warning light on the dash so I pulled over at a garage.  I popped the hood and was looking around.  As I was peering around a mechanic from the garage comes out and asks what was wrong.  I told him about the warning light.  In a few seconds he exclaims “Ah, there is the problem…”  He pulls out what appears to be the oil dipstick but it was in a hole in the power steering pump.  “Your dipstick was in the wrong place…”  Well after he pulled the dipstick out of the power steering pump, the unit started pouring out fluid.  I made no effort to stop the flow, instead I was trying to figure out why I would have put the oil dipstick into the power steering pump.

Fast forward.  I find myself somewhere else, by myself.  I am hungry and decide that I need to catch a fish to eat.  I am standing in front of a tiny, muddy little puddle of water, so small that it looked like it would dry up in a day.  Well for some reason I imagined there would be plenty of fish in there.  So I was walking around a pickup truck that was parked there, looking for a piece of fishing line and something I could use for a hook.  I planned on tying the fishing line to my Iphone and use the phone as a fishing rod. Yes, my Iphone.

As I am looking on the ground for fishing line I stop when I see something in my peripheral vision.  I look up and spot a big deer maybe 20 feet away.  It was a male buck with a big set of antlers.  It was staring at me in a rather menacing way.  I took a step back and as soon as I did, the buck sensed my fear and started to charge me.  I ran around the truck in a circle as the angry deer chased me.  I realized the deer was catching up so I decided to stop and face the charging buck.  As the deer approached he lowered his head to get his antlers in proper position to impale me.  Just before he got to me I put my foot out to intercept the antlers.  The deer ran into my foot and was stunned for a second but was regrouping to charge again.  All of a sudden I jump on the back of a deer and apply a rear naked choke, UFC style, until the animal passes out.  I get up, shaking from my fight with the insane animal and walk away quickly, abandoning any ideas of Iphone fishing.

That’s it.

It’s been nice to have a void in the political talk after the emotional presidential campaign.  I have been following Obama’s cabinet picks and from all indications he is doing a stellar job of putting good people around him.

However I was disgusted today to see what has been going on in Obama’s home state.  Evidently the governor has been actively “selling” the senate seat that Obama has vacated.  Reading the description of his actions is unbelievable and disgusting.

He was seeking a “substantial” salary for himself at a nonprofit foundation or union affiliated organization, a spot on a corporate board for his wife, promises of campaign cash, as well as a cabinet post or ambassadorship in exchange for his Senate choice, an FBI affidavit said…

Evidently he also threatened individuals/businesses that were not willing to meet his demands.  The guy appears to be a total dirt ball.  If convicted he will surely be heading to the slammer for quite awhile.  Since the evidence was obtained via wiretaps on his phones there is very little chance he won’t be convicted.  So many politicians are just evil, corrupt, perverse individuals it amazes me how these types of people consistently get elected. The really sad thing is this guy replaced a governor that is now also residing in jail on a federal corruption charge. 

There is a holiday woot off today.

Here is a sweet deal on a base model Roomba.

I have been talking to my buddy from work who also had tendinitis in both forearms a couple years ago.  He said he got over it by getting physical therapy where the region was massaged and treated with ultrasound.  Well I decided to skip going to and paying for PT by snagging my own ultrasound thingy.  It didn’t cost that much and I paid for it out of the funds from selling my Roomba 535.   I figure it was worth a shot and I have enough aches and pains that I can use it on various body parts.

Yes I sold my Roomba 535.  When these came out in August of 2007, I HAD to have one.  I actually returned a Roomba for Pets model in order to get this.

The 500 series of Roombas had all of these great features on paper like object detectors in the bumper so the unit slows down when approaching obstacles, anti-tangle technology so it wouldn’t get stuck on rugs and cords, modular construction that makes replacement of parts much easier and a vacuum that supposedly was much stronger than the 400 series.  There were a bunch of other improvements as well that made me feel like I just had to get it asap.

Well here is my real world impression after owning a 535 for a year and a half almost, it sucks.  Let me explain.  First of all if you have any ideas of having your 500 series robot coexist with older 400 series robots, forget it.  The 500 is effectively lobotomized when it comes anywhere near the infrared docking station or virtual walls the older models use.  It seems incredibly sensitive to the IR from these devices and as a result refuses to go anywhere close to them and will instead many times just circle in idiotic, worthless patterns.

The IR in the bumper of the unit sounds like a good idea but in reality in normal use it causes more problems than it’s worth.  The plastic in front of the sensors will get scratched over time with normal use.  These scratches can cause the infrared sensors to think that it is constantly approaching a wall which in turn makes the robot crawl at a snail’s pace.

  Anti-tangle technology would be aptly named shitty cleaning performance technology.  Yea the 535 can run over thick pile rugs and cords and not get stuck as often as a 400 series.  However the reason for this is partly because the brushes sit higher up in the robot and make less contact with the floor.  In my environment this has a very undesirable side effect, it does a poor job of picking up animal hair that is lodged in the carpet.  The difference in hair pick up between my 400 series robots and the 535 was staggering. The 400’s did a much better job.

The 535 also seems to be just plain stupid.  It manages to get itself stuck around the house routinely where as my 400’s will typically complete an entire run and successfully dock without issue.  My 535 has NEVER successfully run through a cleaning cycle and docked itself without my intervention.  When it encounters resistance, instead of intelligently turning the opposite direction and driving away, it will plow ahead, wedging itself under the furniture until it can no longer escape.  It also ignores what would seem to be obvious obstacles.  I can’t tell you how many times it has managed to drive right over the wooden base under my recliner and get itself wedged underneath.

One of the new features on this model was supposedly less of a problem with hair getting wrapped around the ends of the brushes which causes premature failure.  Instead, the 535 was absolutely horrible in this regard.  It has far more problems with hair wrapping around the brush ends than my 400 robots with pet brushes. The spinning side brush design on the 500’s is shit as well.  The arms on the brush break off routinely.

So as you can see, at least for me, the Roomba 535 was an utter failure.  I am glad to see it leave my household.  I’ll stick with the 400 series robots until they are no longer available.

So for the past 3 days I have missed calls from IX web hosting regarding my “comment”.  Finally today I got to speak to a “manager” named Kenny.  I briefly stated my issues.  Kenny told me that they actually discovered that they DID have a security problem with their PHPBB configuration on several servers and they were in the process of fixing it.  I then asked him why their tech support people were so clueless and instead just spit out canned responses that blamed the customer? He said that there were some “communication issues” that are being worked on as well. 

Kenny also enlightened me to the lay out of the organization.  Evidently a portion of their help desk operation is located in UKRAINE. (the servers are in Kentucky)  That explained why the majority of the time the people I deal with have names like Vladimir or Dimitry.  I asked Kenny if I could have his last name so I could use it as a reference if the problem reoccurs. “We don’t give out last names” he says. Um ok, so how am I supposed to identify you?  “Just say you talked to Kenny, they will know who that is”  I continued, asking if everyone at IX had fake names, like the people we deal with at the help desk.  He said their names are real.  I guess since they are in the Ukraine it is safe to give out the names since it is far easier to drive to Kentucky to wring a guys neck than flying to Eastern Europe. 

So our conversation ended, I thanked Kenny for following up with the call and that was that.  I was right, they were wrong.  I will be sure to keep this series of events catalogued for any future communications with their help desk.

Total push ups – 225.  This was a combination of on the floor, decline and incline push ups.  I finished up with 20 minutes on the recumbent bike doing the hill profile at level 10.  I worked up a good sweat.

Warning Ali – DO NOT WATCH THIS. It is an extremely sad video of one dog huddle over the body of another dog that was just hit on the highway by some f’ing asshole that was probably on the cell phone talking about something meaningless. The dog then painstakingly drags it’s fallen comrade to the side of the road to safety. I can’t tell you how sad this made me. Dogs are just awesome.