Category: sysadmin

unix-specific (or maybe networking) stuff

Normally, Cy is the one who brings new, exciting things into our life.

Today, instead of going to my in-laws for Easter, and instead of Cy getting his required (and all-too-often-interrupted) Sunday afternoon nap, we went to the finals of the Dell Match Play tournament.

Between 12 and 13
Between 12 and 13

For all that I have given Dell over the years (Cy recently reminded me of a trip to the E.R. while I was working there wherein I couldn’t feel my legs…), from being their first webmaster (remember back when that was a thing in 1994?) to all the jobs since where we’ve purchased exclusively Dell (NetSuite being the singular, notable HP exception), to all our personal laptops (still loving my XPS 13 with infinity display!), today was another example of how we get paid back. (Aside from our cars, our house, and our daughter…)

Nicely wined, nicely dined. My fitbit hit it’s daily goal just as we walked in to the Chalet… then hit double that goal as we trudged back uphill!

Thanks to the in-laws for the faux-uber ride from my office (which you can see just over Cy’s left shoulder) to the game and back, but more importantly, thanks to them for the tupperware of homemade Potato Salad that was waiting for me when I got home!

But more than that – if you’ve actually read this entire diatribe, instead of just clicking “Like” on facebook, please let me know you read the article by copying and pasting the next paragraph/sentence as a comment:

J, you idiot – I bet you didn’t stretch before all that walking.

(Yes, I’m a little sore.)

Sunday is going to be one of the worst days of my life.

I’ve been friends with a couple of guys for 20 years now (since it’s 2016, officially). They’ve been best friends since long before I met them. Tonight, I got a call from one of them, confirming my worst fear – the other one is now officially in hospice, and is sinking fast, leaving behind a wife and young daughter. The phrase “too soon” is an understatement.

Those of you that have known me for any length of time will probably recall a time when there has been a stripping clown. This guy is the reason. Most of my memories of him involve me laughing to the point where inhaling air HURT. He is responsible for my antitheist preference for “I acknowledge your sneeze without further comment” over “Bless you.”

I have a “trophy shelf” in my office. On it are many mementos, such as the doorbell from my Grandma Tonne’s house (one of my earliest memories). On it also are at LEAST 3 items from when he and I worked together, not the least of which is a “mulimedia etch-a-sketch”. (The two others I can think of without going up there are “Catbert” and “Birdbert”…)

For the first time since he got sick, he wants visitors. For that reason alone, I fear that it will not be long before he is taken from us forever. I asked G to join us for the visit – and she, being the kind soul that she has always been, said, and I quote:

I want to go see him anyway. If you told me you were going I would probably ask to come.

My daughter, ladies and gentlemen. Even as my heart is breaking, it swells with pride. I’m trying to brace myself to be brave, and funny, and touching without being maudlin.  In the meantime, I’m going to watch some Marx Brothers films to lamely attempt to cheer myself up.

Bookmarks catchup/cleanup

It’s been much, much too long since I’ve cleaned up my bookmarks “other” folder; A simple dump is all that I can bother with at this size.

Bookmark catchup

So every month or so, I try to dump all the bookmarks I made, especially for things I didn’t have time to comment on at the moment of discovery…

A new personal record.

Over the course of two hours today, I received — and understand that I’m not making a word of this up — over 16,700 nearly identical, completely useless emails. An exact number is not possible to provide, as the rule I created to get rid of them kept finding more tucked away in my inbox for hours afterward.

Mental note that is obvious and axiomatic to my geek- and geek-friendly friends: Microsoft products do not scale as cleanly as open-source products. I’m referring specifically to outlook, here… Yes, when outlook crashed, it was the first time I had smiled in a few hours. It was a knowing smile.

Quite a first day…

IMG_20140106_171502

After a fairly long first day, G called,

IMG_20140106_171513

and insisted on a long-distance hug as I got to look at this view.

Yeah, it was a good day.

Happy new everything…

You know, as much attention as the recreational pot in Colorado story is getting, you would think it was mandatory, and that by this time tomorrow, the only other surviving industry in the state will be pizza delivery.

It’s been much too long since I’ve cleaned out my bookmarks folder: here is the result:

A PDF printing neologism

Wand re-orchestration is complete. The conductor score PDF is designed to be printed on legal-sized paper, but  auto-resizes as needed.  It was going to legal paper, but the tray was marked as letter. Or, as I now call it, barely legal.

Just heard the most delightful line:

You can’t fix stupid, but you can bill for it.

Obviously, the context is IT consulting, not politics. But now that I think about it… How much did Cruz make, and how much did it cost America?