The Time Sink

Good morning. That scream you heard around 0730 PDT was Shelley when I told her the Labor Day weekend was beginning in just a few short days...

Yeah, I think it's cruel: we just got back from vacation and haven't even really settled in; school starts today, but it's an 'early release' day. We managed to survive the two parties (Daniel's real birthday will be somewhat anti-climatic). ...and now we have the option of heading off to the coast again!

Me? I think I'd like another cold one on the deck. A quiet cold one. Solo. Then again, there is the chance to see what I learned from the Great Rib Experiment of last weekend...

In other news, if you followed along with the back and forth on Process Management the other week, Frank kicked in some thoughts over the weekend. ...and gives us an idea of what can happen if people are forced to only work from what The Book says. A darned good point: there needs to be a balance between The Only Way and We've Never Run Across That that allow for some flexibility by motivated staff. I say 'motivated' because I prefer the un-motivated crowd to do minimal improvising...

Oooooooooooo... School's back in session. Yes! Last night both boys were down by 2130; I'd already finished the bills while they were doing their reading with Shelley; and I started to see the faintest glimmer of a night life once again! No, not that kind; I stay home. ...and no, not that kind either, just some quiet time before I give it up and pass out for the night.

...and maybe, just maybe, I can get to work on a computer or two?

Nah, not flippin' likely. Labor Day's coming up and the temps are supposed to cool off into the nineties. That's too nice to be stuck inside. ...unless I can get a wireless segment set up before then. Hmmm, maybe.

...and I've definitely been slacking off on you out there. Sheesh, this here's The Time Sink and you've been able to just slip in and out without getting stuck in the special Time Sink Quicksand for a little too long. Enough of that; have a link or two:

Let's say you were wondering whether or not to out-source something. ...like say IT. ...or even lightbulb changing. WT? Frank Hayes over on Computerworld asks "How many IT people does it take to change a light bulb?"

'Course, if there's layoffs, you may not have much of a choice.

You do have a choice on your flavor and style of 404 error messages! Yep, here's the how to guide and some ideas to work from.

Yeah, that will side track one or two of the webmaster types out there...

How's about something for the hardware crowd? Okay: customize your case with Glowire or LED spotlights... Yeah, baby... You can never have too much glitz on a desktop box...

Ummm... You could stick an XFree86 server on your Win32 box if you're so inclined... Dunno, I'll have to ask around about that one.

How about something for the writers out there. ...wanting to know whether or not to use 'everyday' or 'every day'? ...or 'which' or 'who' or 'that'? Well, when I'm up a creek without any ketchup (bad metaphor mix to setup the next bit), I turn to the definitive work on the basics of English usage by Sarah Bunting of tomato nation for my answers.

...and for your Linux fix of the day, here's an article on whether it's better to upgrade or update.

...and too much fun again last night as I was multi-tasking: burning a few CDs for Daniel for his birthday today and working with one of those pen-based units I'm evaluating to see if they have any resale value.

I wandered in to change a CD (burning currently is a strictly Linux affair with Wolf still down); and when I came back, I found that the pen tablet had been commandeered by Bradley:

It seems he decided to teach himself Freecell and was hard at it. ...and learning just like his father: keep pushing buttons and see what happens<g>.

...and it's a late post. Defined as 'one on the same day'; weekends excluded, objects in the mirror may appear...

I had no hope of using Dave's Time Machine to post last night as I was just flat wrung out. Let me explain: I had homework last night. Writing homework... Writing homework as in long-hand, cursive writing homework. Arrrgghhh.

Let me explain further: the politest term you could possibly use for my penmanship would be "calligraphically challenged". Less polite terms are used on a daily basis around my household. I don't use cursive at work; and even there, the block printing I do is subjected to constant commentary.

Life's been this way since elementary school; high school was a hell of papers marked down for penmanship (except for one teacher who managed to keep the spark alive by cutting me some slack: only half a grade automatically lost on each paper). College consisted of three English classes dropped over the first several years since I had no hope of writing an acceptable paper and I couldn't afford a typewriter.

Then, during one of my many returns to college (I'm currently on the forty year plan), the VIC-20 came on the market. ...and soon after, a plug-in-cartridge word processor for it. Whoohoo! ...and a prof how would accept dot-matrix printing (with no true descenders) in lieu of hen scratches.

...and to get back to the main story of last evening, I was tasked with helping that member of the family who is making the daily case for Lamark over Darwin: Daniel. It seemed he needed help with his writing and particularly his penmanship. Oh, my; talk about the blind leading the blind. Suffice to say we made it through...

It's Fridaaaaayyy!!! ...and I'm counting down the hours until the three-day weekend!

We have no plans to travel (well, Shelley will put a few hundred miles on the van for 'errands' out and away from the kids and me<g>); no one is coming over for breakfast, lunch or dinner (as of 2200 08/30/01); there doesn't appear to be a book report due Tuesday; and I have a PCMCIA NIC available for a test run with one of the pen tablets...

Yeah. Actually, I have a plan pretty much laid out for a full Red Hat 7.1 install onto a conventional HDD in one of the pen tablets as a proof of concept. I'd like to see if I can pull an install from the PCMCIA-linked CDROM; if not, I'll have to go for a network install. Considering I've done neither of those projects, life could get interesting.

If I can manage an install, the next trick is to go for the NIC, a wireless NIC and a modem hung off the serial port. Then a firewall... Then SSH... Then learn how to strip things down enough to fit onto one of the solid-state HDDs...

Nah, no work at all last night. Apologies for those checking in on the weekend projects: I guess I created a monster by letting Bradley know Freecell was installed on the tablet; after dinner that's all he wanted to do. Well, play until he got stuck, and then watch as I tried to bail the swamp<g>. Thing is, he's learning; his portion of each session got longer and longer while leaving me with either an easy run or no hope at all. ...and after Bradley checked out for the night, Daniel took his turn.

...and I did exchange some information yesterday with Matt and John about PCMCIA installs. ...paying forward is always worth the time. Hmmm... Some serious possibilities for utilizing older equipment...

Speaking of which, the meme continues: It seems I set off one or two stored memory sequences for people with my comments about the VIC-20. ...and Dan Seto kicked in (in his usual timely fashion) with his link to the Human Clock served up on a Radio Shack Model 100 running Apache! That just rocks. ...especially as I have my M-100, tape drive, FDD and a few other goodies sitting a few feet away from me.

The best laid plans... Well, they were good ones. Pity they didn't survive contact with the weekend. Heh.

Shelley bailed out someone's swamp out the other day by watching their kids. ...only it turned out the kids were sick. Not so good. Shelley started feeling bad Friday evening and wasn't able to do any shopping at all Saturday (hey, some people use all sorts of scales to measure their days; I think Shelley's days should be on some sort of 'shopping cart' scale... I may have to work up a few pieces of clip art for her<g>). So Saturday was a one cart day for Herself: able to read the ad, but unable to even plan an attack on the stores....

...and somehow, I ended up with five kids in the pool at one point. Now, my parenting skills aren't that great; and my tolerance for juveniles not of my bloodline is borderline at best; so, we're still not even sure how that happened. However, I survived and they survived; and I'll settle for an "all's well that ends well".

...and how about today? Well, that's two good night's sleep in a row for me; church was a blast (the worship guy wrote a tune that just rocks); and Shelley's up to about a two cart day: she's read the ads and has a plan; however, stamina is lacking. Still, I asked her whether she wanted all those ribs I bought on Friday cooked up for dinner before the Oregon State game this evening. ...or for tomorrow when she was feeling better. She killed two birds with her answer: she doesn't have to cook tonight and she may be able to enjoy some six-hour ribs... We'll see.

...but it's back to weekend plan 1-A at this point: ribs on the beast and a football game this evening.

Speaking of plans... It's sounds as though JHR pulled a grand one off on Friday. Congrats! ...and this time I'll try to remember to mention how the ribs came out (since I'm trying a new cooking style with them).