The Time Sink

Can you believe it's almost the end of September? I must have caught the time warp at the wrong station or something... Man. ...but so far, the homework thing isn't overwhelming. A Royal Pain perhaps, but not more than we can handle. ...and once soccer is over in a few months, the evenings may even settle down to reasonable <g>!

I did get some work done on the Great Changeout. It wasn't as much as I'd have liked, but the one machine in the kitchen has a Win2k install on it now and is ready for me to start playing with the wireless stuff once again. I still don't know if I'm going to go wireless there and stick the router and such elsewhere or if I'm going to do the old 'nerve center' thing... Either way, there's a bunch of work to do. The good news is that I have another chunk taken out of the library and I'm able to continue the work from the weekend in smaller chunks this week.

I know better... Write at night, not in the mornings. Even dead tired I can get something down, even if it's just a "goodnight". ...but there are nights when I try to fool myself by saying I can just get up early enough to post when it's still quiet. Uh-huh...

Last night, the lure of the pillow was overwhelming. Yeah, I knew I had Things To Do, but I was just flat dead. I'd bladed when I got home from work instead of after dinner, but I don't think that was the cause. ...could be because I haven't been sleeping all that well lately, what with all the happenings; but it could also be allergies and the air quality (yeah, we're still bumping up against 100F daily and the air quality is not the best since we haven't had much wind in a while).

So, I fooled myself into thinking I'd just relax and read for a bit and then I'd do a post. Yeah, that didn't work either; I barely managed to put the cat away before I passed out. The good news? I was at work plenty early today, early enough to do an early morning post. ...just one little problem: no brain power available. Yeah, mornings at work are great for me; I can get all sorts of routine, rote things accomplished. Inventory is a breeze. Routine orders get cranked out. ...but nothing happens that requires cognitive thought. Nothing...

So maybe tonight for that piece on music. ...and that email about rose culture. ..and archiving the blog. ...and adding that blogging resource to the stories page. ...or the photo album.

Well, it started out as just a cleanup process... I was feeling guilty about the mess scattered over and around the kitchen computer hutch; too much stuff got piled on top of it during the weekend library cleaning. ...and I'd tried working on the system while the football game was on Saturday, so there were CDs and paperwork adding to the mess. All in all, not the type of image I want to project for the equipment's new digs.

I mean, right now, I can live with the cables strung across the desk; I can clean that up once I start drilling holes in things. ...but for the moment, exactly where everything goes is still 'under development' <g>. So I started tidying up a bit. ...and ran into a goodie I'd picked up last week: a gizmog that holds a notebook HDD and lets you either plug it into your IDE chain or into a PCMCIA slot. Well, now... Since I want to be able to move data/programs/OS images to those tablets, that sounded like a real good deal. Instant side track...

...only things just didn't work. I threw one of those 2.1g Toshiba drives I have laying around into the carrier and plugged the card into Mainspring, the bastardized Compaq, to see what would happen. Lights lit and the bus recognized a HDD controller, but that was it. Then I recalled that I'd had to pull an abort on the wireless config the other night: lights lit and the monitor program audited away, but nothing else. Hmmm... The common point was that DataChute PCMCIA adapter I put in during that late night session last week. Gee, I wonder if I ever loaded its drivers...

Nope, that was it. Woohoo. Wireless we be in da' kitchen once again. ...and the notebook HDD showed up just fine in Win2k; so I dumped some files on it and wandered over to Brad's tablet. Bingo, bango, Files R' Us in 2.1 gig lots...

...and do I get to return to the new setup and play? Heck no. Ants and homework and soccer stuff and, and, and... Sheesh.

...and I was tired going into Wednesday from starting an 18meg download (the sound drivers for that Compaq box) on dialup and then proceeding to surf through the middle of it <g>. No big problem, other than the time thing. ...and waking up early. ...and knowing if I turned over I'd be way late to work.

Okay, it's one heck of a slow load on dial up. ...and there's a popup. ...and if wants Flash. But you can shine all that if you are just a little too into computers and drink a little too much coffee:

Wow... I walked out of the office yesterday afternoon to find we had cloud cover! I drove home without the AC on for the first time in months (maybe since May). ...and this morning, I woke up to more of the same! Woo and hoo: soccer without sunblock! ...or roasting.

Nah, no rain in the forecasts (stop laughing Brian!), but I'll take cool as a change of pace. From weeks of the near century mark to mid eighties. Nice. I think I'll go blade...

I spent much of last night adding in components to the kitchen setup. ...yeah, prior to tearing it down for a rebuild <g>. So far, things are progressing well; I have full connectivity though the wireless NIC and access point into the main network and out to the net through the dialup. ...and the Windows-based software I use for here and the blog when I'm not on a Linux box is up and running. I do notice some increased latency with the wireless versus the wired (10base) as the software writes to the server, but it's not a show stopper. ...but this section may go wired anyway. ...and if the server is one of the pen-tablets and is located here, it's a true non-issue.

So this post and the blog posts from last night were handled at the new workstation. I have a few more pieces of that part of the puzzle to test, and then I'll start in on the Linux side of things. The main deal right now is to be able to shut down some/most of the day to day operations in the library and move them out here...