Journal Entries
A bit of an inconvenience (renovations)
Posted Sep 14, 2013
My cat is definitely not happy this week. Each day he gets relocated down stairs to my parents house while the builders are working on my apartment. I'm having my front door removed and replaced properly; my tub/shower surround (which was rotting away) replaced with tile; my toilet replaced with a nice dual flush, modern one and the thin polystyrene ceiling tiles on my 12 foot cathedral ceiling replaced with proper sheetrock. This has meant that I've had to clear as much space as I can from my main living area so they can get to ceiling with the sheetrock lift (unfortunately it only goes up 10' so they'll be manhandling it from there.) I've stuffed all I could into my neglected and already stuffed darkroom (next project is to remove the enlarger and make it a proper closet.) I've also gotten rid of one of my old computer desks. I decided to keep the one that was given to me about 10 years ago that I never actually used with a computer as it doesn't take up nearly as much space as the old corner unit and it makes a good storage space for my various camera bags and various other odds and ends. I still have to sanitize my old desktop 'puter and find some place to donate it... maybe Goodwill. (Goodwill is a good place as long as you don't think of it as a charity.)
OK... so with all that space cleared, I can get a good proper look at how horrid my living room carpet is. I was already well aware of this, but now I can see the patches that are nearly the original color after 35 years. It was cheap carpet to begin with and between it and the even cheaper padding under it, I'm sure it's cost me several thousand dollars in destroyed electronics via the abrasive dust emanating from it all these years. So, now I have decided that I have to completely clear the living room, including my main bookshelf and entertainment center. Once that's done I can lay new laminate flooring in.
I wasn't planning on doing this, but it's something that should have been done long ago and if I don't do it now, it will never get done.
I'll start the flooring right after the builders finish up sometime next week. It'll be a one person project so it will take a while.
I'll just have to get used to living in a bedroom full of boxes for a while. I hope I can get it done in 5 days. It's just 210 sq. ft. Definitely doable.
Maybe ten years from now I'll replace the even cheaper carpet 35 year old carpet in my bedroom.
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Latest reply: Sep 14, 2013
Cycling
Posted Jun 14, 2013
I recently got back into bicycling. I had that in mind when I adopted Nessie. (I probably won't take her cycling much during the summer as it's too hot and I recently discovered that animals like dogs and horses who pant to lose heat, can't pant at more than a light trot and easily get overheated. Nessie has shown signs of this already while it's just in the high 80's and low 90's.)
Anyways, a friend of mine recently got into BMX cycling (in his early 40's) and has got me into riding to the pub and also we went on an organized ride on Galveston Island last month. Tonight I went straight home and got my bike and rode nearly all the way back to work to a nice little wine bar that has excellent beers and now I'm working my way back home. Between here and home is a lake channel bridge that's tall enough to allow sailboat masts to easily pass under. Otherwise it's all flat ground. On my way out (with a slight tail wind) I averaged 11.5 mph topping out at around 13.5 (disregarding the flying I did down the bridge).
My next stop on the way home is my local pub about 20-30 minutes away at night on a busy highway.
I've got lights.
And I love my 'Bent.
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Latest reply: Jun 14, 2013
Frustration
Posted Jan 30, 2013
Two weeks ago, I got fed up with the pitiful wireless connection I'm getting in my apartment. We upgraded from ADSL to a cable modem company last year. We saw some improvement overall, but broadband services in the US are pitifully slow and outrageously overpriced. But regardless of all that, our base d/l speeds increased by roughly 3 times, from <5 mbps to nearly 15 mbps. However, because teh eedjit our new internet provider sent out came while I was at work and Dad didn't really know what needed to be done, our modem and router are still poorly located. Between me and the router is a tin porch roof.
Weekend before last, I called a friend to come over and give me a hand setting up a second router as an access point. We're running an ASUS router directly to the cable modem but we still had our old ADSL modem/router from before sitting in the closet. My buddy spent many hours longer than we both expected before he felt it was done. Unfortunately, the next day when I actually ran network cable upstairs (we just benched tested the two routers downstairs) I found out that while I had a connection to the main router, I had no internet access through it.
Well, a couple of days later I decided that the Netgear ADSL modem/router was probably the problem as its configuration software was confusing and the modem part might be fighting me. So, I went and got another identical ASUS RT-N53 dual band router to replace it. Surely, using the same make and model router would make this simple, right?
It should be. I spent a week trying to follow three divergent sets of instructions I found online for setting up a second router as an Access Point (AP). I've reset these modems many, many times. I finally gave in, and sent an email to ASUS support. The reply I got back led to another set of instructions specific for a similar ASUS router. The instructions weren't written by a native English speaker, but I think I got the gist. After another half dozen or so attempts to set this up, I realized I needed to ignore the previous three sets of instructions because ASUS apparently has their system set up to automate most of this process and I was probably messing it up. So, I followed the setup wizard but it just gave me a broken English error message indicating to run some utility program but not how or where.
After giving it more thought and more reading today, I decided I might need a firmware update and that the utility it was asking for (device discovery) was on the CD I ignored.
Well, at least I updated the firmware on both modems.
I still don't have an internet connection to the AP though.
I bet I've spent at least 20 hours to get basically nowhere on this.
ASUS Support gave up after their first suggestion (from their decision tree, I'm sure) failed and just gave me a phone number to some local service center. I'd give up, but as I've typed this, I've watched my connection drop and slowly reconnect a dozen times.
This REALLY shouldn't be this difficult.
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Latest reply: Jan 30, 2013
Nessie
Posted Nov 10, 2012
Monday afternoon (4 days ago) I brought a shelter dog home. Once I saw her picture on the interwebs, there was 0% chance of me leaving her there. (I'm on a mobile device now and can't find an easy method of posting pictures of her, but once I do, I'll provide a link below.) She's a beautiful "Texas Heeler". That's a mix of Australian cattle dog, Australian shepherd and ???. If you're familiar with blue heelers, she's just like that but with floppy ears. She was originally adopted by a family with a young daughter when when she was just 4 months old. After just two weeks, the mother saw the daughter wasn't taking care of the dog she wanted so they brought her to the local shelter. 6 and a half months later I bring home an 11 month puppy. She's been in a kennel almost her whole life.
When I first met her, a week ago from Sunday, she was extremely shy. I visited her in the shelter several times the following week and she slowly started becoming friendlier with me, but never really getting comfortable. Since I share property with my parents, the shelter required a "meet and greet" with them and the dog before my adoption could be final. (I had already brought in my elderly dog and their fat chihuahua to meet her and they all got along swimmingly.) The meeting went well enough that I was allowed to take her home.
I took the whole week off to work with her, and I'm very glad I did. She wasn't house trained, but luckily on her first night in my home she peed on the floor and I quickly reacted to it, took her outside to finish, and she's had no serious accidents since. She is still a very shy and frightened dog when she meets new people or hears loud noises, but we'll work on that. So far, she's shown me no undesirable behaviours. The biggest issue we have to work on is that she's a bit agoraphobic. She just paces in circles and figure 8's when we put her outside. Considering that she's been in a kennel nearly her whole life, this isn't unexpected. I wish I could fix this as (so far) easily as I seem to have house trained her, but I know it's going to take some time to build her confidence. Loud noises are her biggest trigger and I started work on that by taking her to my friend's biker bar today for an hour or so. (This was in the afternoon when the biker bar was at its quietest.)
Once I get her fears addressed, I'm looking forward to training her in impressive feats of doggie talent. I'll start with a few frisbee tricks and other agility tasks, but I'm confident we'll find some tricks between the two of us that will be quite serendipitous and amazing.
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Latest reply: Nov 10, 2012
Headache...
Posted Sep 11, 2012
An actual headache. I've had it for 10 days now. Since having that tumor removed and zapped, I really haven't had any headaches that weren't self inflicted 
. Oddly, my 
headaches usually didn't arrive until a day or so after drinking. This one came on a bit early, but it felt the same; a sharp throbbing pain around the back of my eyes and the base of my skull, right around the old scar tissue. It's not constant, mostly it flairs up with exertion like standing quickly or climbing stairs. Pain relievers have so far proven ineffective against this. I'm trying a naproxyn sodium/ibuprofen + pseudophedrin combination this morning hoping it's sinus related, but I'm not very optimistic that it will do anything. There has only been one thing that has alleviated it and it does work well... more . After a night drinking, I'm headache free the next day. 
I do wonder if two beers a night will make it go away.
I'll be letting my brain care specialists know about this later today. I wasn't scheduled for another MRI/visit until 2014 damnit. 
Discuss this Journal entry [64]
Latest reply: Sep 11, 2012
Baron Grim
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