The Time Sink

How not to come back from a day or two off, "Lessons from the Linux School of Hard Knocks..." Yep, I did it again! Once more, I came up with a way to hose a system in a unique fashion.

Before we left Friday, I was shutting down the systems. When I got to Tux, I hit 'logout' from the Gnome foot on the GUI and just punched the second option without realizing I was in Gnome and not KDE... Oops. That's wasn't the 'shutdown' option; it was the 'halt' option. Oh, goody; now I have a halted machine and I can't get to anything to do anything because it's halted. Great...

Well, we had to leave. ...and the scrolldent was working. So I closed out each open window and just powered down the machine. Heck, I was looking to reinstall an entire OS when I came back anyway. Not!

...and when we returned and I powered Tux back up, he had a fit: major file system trauma. ...and not fixable on boot. Great. Wait. How about a call to GuruLand? Sure; Brian knows everything! ...and he was very, very nice about me interrupting his dinner with company (Sorry, Brian!). ...and he was most amazed at my ability to hose a machine <g>! ...but before he returned to his guests, he showed me how to hammer at the file system with fsck (with the proper parameters!) and guess what? After two rounds, I was able to email him and tell him I was back up in my usual configuration.

Ah, Tuesday. ...and the DMV <g>. Actually, that's down to a decent routine, but one that still has several weeks to run. I'm betting we'll finish changing out the fleet just in time to move into our new offices... Yeah, things are coming down to the wire on many projects. You may have noticed the lack of posts on the blog during the day; that's because I'm not getting the break times I used to have. ...and even here, the posts are down. Just bear with me and things will pick up again.

Speaking of picking up, we're not headed to the coast for the Fourth for the first time in a decade (or longer!). Nope, we're staying home and planning how to spend our summer vacations. One likely will be to the coast; but the other will likely be deferred, at least for me, as we try to clear space for Brad here at home. At least that's the plan right now. We do have another day trip planned in a week or so; but for now, we're homebodies.

102F in bladeland yesterday evening... I didn't catch on until I came back from my run and checked the outdoor thermometer! Hmmm... I may need to start planning to go out after dinner.

Well, a few things were handled yesterday. ...and more are on tap for today. So I'd best get to it.

I think I may have figured out why my back has been bugging me all day... The darned thing actually may be staying in alignment!

Well, I'll treat that as the working hypothesis for the next day or so and we'll see what happens. Yeah, yeah: WT??? I've been changing out my skating route a bit, seein's how I'm getting out more often with school out (and the job stress up). ...and I'm trying to do the blading equivalent of adding more weight/resistance in while maintaining the same number of reps. One way to do that is to go for more uphill sections of the run. Yeah, I know it should all balance out, the ups and downs, that is (unless your family name is Escher <g>), but I can move off the gentle upslopes to move agressive ones.

So that's what I've done. ...and it's been showing up as increased work on my abs. ...and I can push a little harder on the way back in if I feel like it. ...and my lower back and abs may be starting to keep that part of my back that likes to slip out of place where it belongs. At least it seems that way.

Okay, that week is now out of the way. Thank goodness! Now it's on to Grand Plans and Projects. This weekend Shelley and I are going to start looking at the various possibilities for moving Brad into the computer room. Oh, yeah, tons of fun...

Well, what have we learned today? Let's see... There's stuff in storage that can come out and be gone. ...and more stuff that will never be gone <g>. From the first box I checked:

Heh. The rest of that box was Heinlein and VanVogt. Nope, no need to check that one further. ...but one had manuals to the Heathkits; that one is probably dumpster candidate. ...and those two dressers that have been in storage for ten years or better, unless we can use one here when we open up this room.

...and there's a new game plan: the dining area has been opened up as a option (Compromise: the essence of marriage). The 'kid's table' left when the carpet thing started back in April and it hasn't been missed (well, other than the Elmer's incident on Shelley's $$$ kitchen table); that frees up one corner that could hold a desk. ...and a server. ...and maybe a workstation. Options to be explored!

I did manage to come up with a rough plan for the boy's rooms, but I need to get that down in Visio so I can look at some of those options. It does seem like we can get both captain's beds in here; I'm just not sure if there is even one alternative alignment! ...and then there's that dresser.

Tomorrow will be more measuring and perhaps even some boxing. ...but more important is figuring out how to maintain connectivity through all this: the network hub is in here. I may move the entire place to wireless if I can't find another option. No matter tonight; I'm brain dead and headed off to bed.

Whew. I think it's going to be a hot one today. It was already in the 80's when I went out to blade and 90 when I got back in around 1030. Could be a day for continuous cooling in the pool <g>.

...but that's after breakfast. Man, I thought about trying to make some new friends while I was out: about five minutes into the run, I went through a neighborhood where someone was having bacon and eggs (the real kind) and hotcakes and coffee. I mean the air was dense enough to carry the aromas for each of the menu items from wherever they were cooking. I'm thinking they were cooking outdoors for all those molecules to be able to travel that well. I wish I could have figured out which syrup they were using...

Then a mile or so later, someone had just put a fresh batch of mesquite in their barbecue! I could still smell the meat, but the fresh smoke as the charcoal came up to temp reminded me I haven't fired up the beast yet this year. Maybe next weekend...

But all that exercise and all those scents on the air has made me hungry! ...and things are about ready out in the kitchen, so I'd best get to it. Have a great Sunday!