Just because I wanted to be perverse. No more time for blogging this year…
Month: December 2009
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Wow, Just… Wow
Well, my computer started running again today. I couldn’t believe it. When I had finally given up on it the other day, I figured the next time I’d get a chance to see a run prompt was after I’d installed a new motherboard.
There are a number of strange things about this failure. First, all of the segfaults prior to the problem. Second, I must have attempted to reboot about a dozen times without success. It couldn’t even find the various mount points so the times that I got a prompt, I could only peform basic shell commands like ‘ls’ or ‘cd’. Real fancy stuff like ‘cp’ was completely unavailable. There was also the strange CMOS error that occurred one time.
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One of Those Days
Today started out like any other- I got out of bed and had coffee. Woopee. My plan was to finish assembling the drawer I’ve been working on. I was on the last set of half-blind pins. After that, I just had to get the drawer bottom glued up and the grooves for the bottom milled into the drawer sides.
It’s cold up here. The day started at 19 and the temp fell as the day wore on. To make the garage a little more comfortable, I went to get a propane tank filled up so I’d have some heat out there. After I got back, the Wife went grocery shopping and I started in on some other chores.
Remember all that snow we got?
Yeah, it’s all gone now. Actually, it was all gone yesterday- one week after it all fell. Amazing. I’d put up a picture of the picnic table, but really, what’s interesting about an empty picnic table?
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Armoire Status Update
I spent the weekend working on one of the drawers for the armoire. It’s not done yet- I have to mill the pins for the half-blinds to finish up the dovetailing. Followed by cutting the grooves for the drawer bottom, installing the cleat and drawerslide clips, and cutting the two recesses in the drawer back that the drawerslides ride in.
When I actually sit and consider everything that needs to be done to make a drawer for this thing, I realize just how unrealistic my timeframe was for building them. I’d hoped I could build a drawer in a day or so. After roughly 12 hours, I’m still working on the dovetailing. Plus, I’ve got 2 more drawers after this.
Oy.
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Does a Hand Come Out of it?
When we went out to dinner the other night, we had to wait for a table to open and we got one of those little restaurant beepers. The Wife handed it to the boy and told him to let us know when our table was ready.
“What will happen? What does it do?” he asked.
“It will light up and vibrate” the Wife replied.
“What does ‘vibrate’ mean?”
“It’s like a tickle…” the Wife answered.
The boy considered this definition in the context of the beeper for a moment, leading to the following question:
“Does a hand come out of it or something?”
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Merry Christmas 2009
It was over in 15 minutes.
I got up this morning to deal with the fire at the usual time- about quarter to five or so. The kids were still snuggled in their beds. Presumably sugar plums in their heads. Although, since I can’t figure out what’s going on in their the other 364 days, why should I know now?
I got back to bed half-expecting them to wake up- but they didn’t. I drifted off to sleep again and finally awaken around quarter to seven by the kids. They didn’t come to me, however, they went to the Wife and woke her up. It was time to go open presents. I wasn’t quite ready to get up, but I wasn’t given any choice at that point.
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That’s Another Story… Stick
Even though I immensely enjoy the end result and the sense of accomplishment that comes with well executed, hand cut dovetails there are parts of the process that are a drag. In my case, the most tedious part is also arguably the most important part of the whole process: the layout.
When I first started I marked, by hand, the depth line as well as each point of the tails and then draw the line using a ruler. Then I picked up a template which gives me a couple of angles to choose from for the tails. With the template, I only have to make tick marks along the tail-depth line, lineup the template and mark my line. So it reduced the amount of marking by half.
Most recently I received my marking gauge- now marking the depth line is a breeze. Just set it and draw it across all four sides of the board on each end. Between the template and the gauge, my marking time dropped dramatically.
After marking the first side up completely for the tail layout, I realized that I could streamline the process for the remaining boards by using a story stick. I fashioned one up as a ‘T’ so that I had a constant reference for making the marks on the board. I then trasferred the marks from my first completed side to the storystick using my marking knife. From there, it was a simple matter of methodically trasferring the storystick marks to the remaining boards, then using the template to mark the tails.
The other benefit I gained was consistency. By transferring the layout to the storystick, I greatly reduced my opportunity for layout error. I also eliminated a lot of the minor variations that would have otherwise cropped up while re-measuring the layout for each board.
Lastly, I marked up all 6 boards, both ends, in about an hour. As a sanity check I lined up all 6 boards and eyeballed the marks to see how the registered with one another. They all lined up perfectly. Can’t argue with results like that.
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Vacation Begins
The boy’s last day of school was yesterday. The lass’s was today. The Wife’s vacation started yesterday afternoon.
I wonder how long before we’re all wanting vacation to be over?
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Linux Printing Sucks
Unfortunately, there really is no way to state it otherwise. It sucks. Not to be confused with “It doesnt’ work” because it most certainly does. It sucks because the level of effort required to make it work is rather high. For a newbie, printer problems are essentially a right-of-passage. The more experienced one becomes with Linux administration, the more annoying printer problems become.
I’m not sure if it’s because of all the moving parts that are required to make it work or if the design philosophy behind ‘nix systems just sold everyone short in the case of printing. Hell, it could be something else entirely. The fact remains that Microsoft, much as I’m loathe to admit it, does it better.
The only positive thing I can say is, at least with modern distros, it’s lightyears ahead of where it was when I first started dabbling in Linux. Back then I opted not to have a printer. Nowadays, at least I can setup a printer to work on the system. Getting it to work as a print server takes more effort. Much more. But I can do it. Back then, not so much.
Alright, whine done. Back to the CUPS, hplip, ppd salt mines.
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The Boy and His Dogs
One of the most pleasant surprises of the Fall and the Winter this year has been the boy’s attitude towards playing outside. For the past four-and-a-half years, we’ve had to strong arm him to get him outside. If the Wife or myself didn’t go out with him, he would invent and try every excuse his little mind could muster so that he wouldn’t have to go outside.
Then, about mid-Fall, something funny happened. Around dusk he started asking if he could go outside. Then, he would grab a flashlight, grab the dogs and trudge out to the backyard and … play. Running with the dogs, playing with the flashlights, whatever games he could come up with.
Even with the meager first snowfall, he was outside in a flash to play in it. He took the dogs with him as well and would kick the ball around for them as well as throw snowballs. With the latest storm, he’s been going out a couple of times a day, always taking the dogs with him. I watched for a few minutes this morning. He was out there with a shovel throwing as much snow as he could into the air with it. The dogs were jumping into the mini-maelstrom trying to … well, do whatever it is they’re trying to do.
I can’t really say that it’s rewarding because I’m not entirely sure if or how we might have affected his decision. I can say that I’m happy for him. He’s found something here that he looks forward to.
As do the dogs.
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The Blizzard of 2009
Well, technically it wasn’t a blizzard for us. There wasn’t enough sustained wind where we are; however, there was plenty of snow:
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A Contrast in … Something
Last night the Wife and I saw the Boston Pops with the Swingle Singers. I was really struck by how crisp and “true” the Pops sounded. If I closed my eyes, I could have sworn I was listening to one of their recordings. Assuming that the recordings are done such that they are the best rendition the Pops, or any artist for that matter, can muster then their ability to sound like that live speaks highly to their mastery of their craft.
This morning we went to see the lass and her pre-k class’s little Christmas performance. As it relates to parenting, I would certainly consider it a right of passage. I manned the video recorder so I couldn’t see the immediate reaction when the performance started; but I would venture a guess that everyone visibly jumped. It was nothing less than an assault on the senses. I’m sure the applause at the end was as much in relief as it was in reward. Any parents happening to read this who haven’t had this experience, consider yourself warned.
After it was over, I said to the Wife: “Well, I can state without hesitation that they are NOT the Swingle Singers.”
It’s fair to say that we saw the two extremes of musical performance in a period of 12 hours.
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Little Things
This time of year is fun for a multitude or reasons. A personal one for me is derived from the Wife’s irrational hatred of all things facial hair. To say that she prefers a clean-shaven look would be an understatement of understatement. I’m not even sure she’d let Sam Elliot get away with his mustachioed face.
So, as has become typical for this time of year, I grew out the beard. Heck, it’s cold outside! Unfortunately for me, let’s just say that my beard is on the thin side. It also has an astonishing amount of gray (I blame the kids- they make me lose the hair on top and turn what’s left gray. Grrrr.) A couple of days ago, I got sick of the stratchiness on the cheeks, so I shaved it…
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Pizza Dough II
This pizza dough recipe is my favorite for a couple of reasons. I’m always amazed that the dough comes together. There is so much water compared to the flour that when the mixing begins, the whole thing is a soupy mess. But it works every time.
Oh, it tastes really good too. This particular dough is excellent for “white pizza”- the kind without any sauce.
The ingredients:
- 3 1/4 cups of white flour- The flour has to be a high-gluten variety. A
organic brand will do. Otherwise, add some vital-wheat gluten to the recipe.
It won’t work otherwise. - 1 3/4 cups of water(tepid to warm)
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt (this can be reduced to 1 1/2 if you prefer)
- 1 teaspoon yeast- If using a very active brand like SAF then reduce to 1/2
teaspoon.
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Armoire Assembly
I’d been meaning to write this up for a couple of weeks but a number of things have conspired to keep me from it. I finally assembled the portion of the armoire that I’ve been working on lo these many months. If curious, there’s a picture of it after the jump. Go ahead, I can wait…
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Pizza Dough
Actually, this particular recipe is good not only as pizza dough, but it also works well as dough for stromboli or calzone. In fact I used it for calzone the other night for the Wife and her knitting friends. She went there with 2 VERY large calzones. She came home with 1 piece.
The ingredients:
- 3 cups white flour
- 1 1/4 cups water
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter(chilled)
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoons yeast
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Adventures in Debugging
Naturally, after claiming I could upload images embedded in a post using blogtool, I tried to use it this morning to publish the post with the pictures of the yard and it puked. One of the errors was minor and easily fixable. The bigger problem was a cryptic message related to the XMLRPC API function metaWeblog.newMediaObject. The error message read “junk in document element:…”
The casualty of the morning was the boy’s snowman. He gave the snowman a carrot for a nose. Unfortunately for the snowman, dog #1’s favorite snack is carrots.
I’ve now brought blogtool along far enough that I thought it would be worth taking stock of it so that I can figure out where next to go with it.
Blogtool is a command line blog client. It has no gui. Having been writing to the blog for a couple of months now, I can say that the whole GUI thing is overblown when it comes to posting. At least in my case. The vast majority of my posts are text, every now and again I’ll throw some pictures into the post. Either way, I came to feel that the GUI was not strictly necessary for client purposes. I felt a simple text file with some blog settings info in it would suffice. Having used what I have running, I’d say I was correct.