Friday the 13th

Well, it is still Friday the 13t, and so far no catastrophes have fallen on my head.  I am still at the office, moving from one area to another, which could take quite a while as there is a huge accumulation of stuff that must follow me until I can determine if it stays or goes.  It is truly appalling the amount and description of crap that seems to cling to and follow me where I roam.

Also there is a fair amount of hardware here that belongs to me, not to my employer, and I need to make sure I get it all.

And no, I am not superstitious - being superstitious brings bad luck, don't you know.

Looking through my email this morning, I am amazed at the amount of funny stuff comes from folks that I have known for over 50 years. I am sorry to note that I know more dead folks from 50 years back han live folks, so I guess I should feel blest, as I haven't joined them yet as far as I know - or if I have, they went to a different place than I did....

Christmas is 12 days away.  Every year I promise myself to do all the shopping I need to do in July - and every year it gets down to the last ten days and I get nuts.  Maybe next year....

Gotta get busy with Amazon - I don't like malls or crowds and the way shoppers behave any more I would almost expect to be shot (or at least shot at) some of the places I might want to go. My wife says don't spend money on her, but I ignore that some - nothing is free, and whatever I do spend, she's worth it.

I'm still moving things at work - it will take a couple of days to get myself relocated.  Soon I gotta go home; I'm tired and have to come back tomorrow.

Y'all be well, and be careful - it's dangerous outside!

Thanksgiving Day, later

I have a lot for which I am thankful.  Sometimes I need to be reminded.

I am thankful for having reached my present age in relatively decent shape.

I am thankful for my wife of over 45 years, who is a patient and loving lady.

I am thankful for my children, who have found their own way in the world.

I am thankful for my grandkids, who make me proud and make me laugh.

I am thankful for my large extended family of cousins, with whom we have stayed in touch lo these many years, and for all our differences still like being with one another.

I am thankful for my siblings, although we are seldom together, when we are together it seems like just yesterday when we last met and talked.  That having been said, I wish one brother was closer than where he is - but I also know that I don't get to make choices other than my own - and their choices obviously worked well for them.

I am thankful for old friends and for people I have known for many years who still put up with me.

But there's more to it than just what appears above.

I am thankful for my son's having found something that he enjoys, something that he really loves doing, and for success in having fun at work.

I am thankful for mended families - my daughter who is married and has a child who is my grandson.  I am thankful for a son-in-law who has found his way, and together with this daughter have made a family unit that is sound, happy, functional and meaningful. All three of them make me proud and happy to have them as family members.

I am thankful for my other daughter's family - her husband and her two children, who serve to remind me that kids are wonderful, that growing up is not always easy, and that there is no end to surprises that grandkids can supply, nor to joys that come from just watching them grow.

Phyllis and I spent yesterday with the newly mended family, and today that family will join the other daughter's family in a second thanksgiving.  It may be a bit sappy of me to say this, but I dearly love all of them, and I am certain that there are days when I don't deserve them - but it is good to be with them, to see that all of us love one another, and that while imperfect we are all intrinsically good.

Most of all, I am thankful to have lived to see the day that I can say what I said above, and mean every word sincerely and with love in my heart.

God bless us, every one.

Monday Morning at zero dark 30

I should be asleep, but here's what's not happening - sleep.

The week has been productive, mostly - couple of good motorcycle days, and progress on a messy bug. I'm pretty well satisfied with results, and am headed into a week with neither medical nor other sorts of interruptions.  Possible schedule alterations, but not much else.

Today I took off this afternoon to take the a ride.  It was brisk, but not really cold, and I cracked off about 80 miles without stopping except for lights and such.  Great ride, albeit different - I took a route I haven't take on the new bike yet, and it was really a fun run.  I ended up in Pennsylvania (no I did not take my helmet off!) and rode by to salute Susan's blue heron on the way home.  Altogether pleasant except for the fact that the sun was in my eyes.  It might be time to fashion some kind of a visor for this helmet.

This entire weekend was peaceful.  Jessica and both Ronnies were over, and Big Ronnie cleaned out Jessica's car, during which process he found stuff that the previous owner had  lost, and gave Jessica a fit for not having ever cleaned it out.  Doubtless he'd've been giving me a fit had he been cleaning my car, but so far my car retains it's very own personality, unmarred by neat freaks.

Ronnie seems really good - fate is throwing crap at him, and not making his return to the fold easy or pleasant but he is weathering the storm(s) and rolling with it.  I do not envy him some of what must be learned and experienced, but I know he'll be OK eventually.  Jessica is over the moon - the family is finally complete, and Little Ronnie is loving life - his deportment at school is improving as well as his attention to his work.  Looks to me like a win-win for all of us.

Last weekend in Las Vegas I met someone with whom I have been in touch for several years but had never met.  Through various online groups I meet people this way, and it was very good to meet the actual person and family - I had a great time, wish I had had more time, but they were headed into a really busy time in a different state. It is really good to be able to put faces and places together with the names (or 'nyms) with whom I have been in contact over the years.  At least this person stayed alive - another died before we ever had a chance to meet, and it really bothered me at the time.

Someone in Las Vegas asked me when I would retire, and I thought about ti, and decided maybe sometime before I reach 80, which isn't as far a way as I might wish.  Naturally, I am interested in pensions (not that mine will amount to all that much unless I can last more than 10-15 years) but I also really enjoy what I do, and as long as someone is willing to pay me to do things I like, why should I stop doing them?

Seeing all my family members last weekend was really good - while my parents were Pittsburgh kids, many of my relatives have moved to places like Los Angeles, Texas, South Carolina and Florida - and getting together is no longer as frequent or as easy as it once was, and I find that I miss all these folks. We are all getting older, and one day they'll not be there to miss any more (along with myself, who also one day will be gone) so I rather cherish any opportunity to be with them.

One thing about Las Vegas, though - everything is to big and too far apart for old fat guys with sore knees and legs!  I actually lost weight in Las Vegas!

Well, I am hoping for motorcycle weather when I ariise - right now, it's late and if I don't soon get to bed it will be time to arise!

Be well, y'all....

Tuesday Evening

It was a good day at work today - I got some stuff done, some stuff cleaned up, and had a chance to visit with the new boss before leaving.  I also got to test some stuff with my Android phone and tablet, and helpful.  I am looking forward to doing Exciting Things with these tiny devices.

The best part, however, came after the impromptu meeting - I joined a small group at a local saloon for conversation and something to eat.  It is a rather special group - all the folks there speak German of one sort or another, some better than others - but it was a chance to see how much I could remember, and to recall how much fun it could be to sit around a table and just talk about this 'n' that without having to prove anything to anyone.

I had been to one other meeting about nine weeks back - then I broke my leg and developed a hold in my alimentary canal somewhere, and was off the street for a while, so instead of meeting them all again in two weeks it was more like two months - but it was good to see familiar faces and to hear familiar accents - and to meet someone new.

It's an interesting group - the first meeting I attended I was not the oldest; this one I was, and the youngest were probably early 30's or so.  A good time was had by all and a lot of time was spent discussing the biggest train layout in the world, the Miniatur Wonderland in Hamburg, Germany.  They have a web site with video clips of the various parts in operation - and it is worth the time to visit and view the operation.

I guess I don't have a bunch more - it was a good day at work, a pleasant evening among friends, and I'm pretty tired.

Tomorrow brings new opportunities to excel at work and to do Interesting Things for Cops.

Tomorrow I will find out if I am the proud new owner of a Honda PC-800 Pacific Coast motorcycle.  I have wanted one for a while, it is a good commuter, and probably as much as 300 pounds lighter than Big Suzi - and right now, Lighter is a Good Thing.  It should also be a lot cheaper to feed.

If that sale doesn't go, I'm still looking for a BMW Twin....

I have had enough fun for today - y'all have a good evening.

New Rant(s)

I hate working 7 AM to 3 PM.  I hate even worse getting up at 5 AM to be at work at 7 AM.

I think it's prophetic that a democrat did not get Ted Kennedy's seat - not that it was ever his anyhow, although the folks in Massachusetts were probably shielded from that fact.

I think that the Constitution is not subject to alteration except by the means it established, and I surely am tired of the way so-called czars are being appointed to bypass the constitution.  Someone needs to uncerstand what, historically speaking, czars were.

I think Bull Riding is a great sport, although I have no interest whatever in participating.

I think it is a damn shame that courtesy can't be legislated, because if folks would be courteous we'd have a lot fewer dead and damaged people on the highways.

I think it is not the job of the President to dictate to folks what is good for them.

I think that people need to make their own decisions, and take the heat when the decision is wrong - and learn from it.  It's an old axiom that good judgment comes from experience, much of which comes from bad judgment, and that that axion is important to remember.

I think it is getting late, so I'm going to bed.

Zero dark thirty

When I was in the Air Force, that was the time we had to get up for certain shifts, and I always hated being up before the sun. For many years I have worked 10 to 6, 11 to 7 or similar hours during the day, giving me plenty of time to wake up in the light, have breakfast with my wife, have some extra coffee, and arrive at work reasonably awake.  It even gave the folks around me time to determine which problems were theirs, so I could start right away on real problems, and not misoperations.

Well, I just changed to work 7 to 3 - and I hate getting up around 5 AM. Maybe I can change it back in a couple of months.  I hope so.

It's cold around here right now - global warming seems to have gone into hibernation.  I thought all along it was crap, and some purloined emails (and the fact that the global temperature has been static for almost ten years) only served to underline that belief.

But it is even too cold to think about starting the motorcycles, let alone riding one of them for more than about three minutes, and it is my personal rule (be kind to engines or some such bull) that I never start one up if I am not going to ride it for at least 20 minutes.  Usually I ride to work when I can, but not when it asks for frostbite before even getting on the highway.  We did have one day the weekend before Christmas that it was really nice, and I rode over to visit our then-pregnant daughter, and really enjoyed the ride - it was cool, but not really cold.

I gotta write some emails - I owe one to a friend in Germany, and a couple more.  Maybe I'll do that tomorrow as soon as I get to work; right now I gotta get some sleep - 0 darh 30 approaches!

Merry Christmas

I know, I am early - but I heard about something this morning.

I have heard of folks giving kidneys to other folks.  Today I learned that I know someone involved in such a case.  Without being too specific, a husband happens to be a match for his wife's brother - tested as a last resort when there were no matches - for whatever reason there's a match.

Surgery should occur before Christmas is actually here.

This is giving of oneself in its purest and most personal form - what Christmas should be all about.

Quite literally, it is the gift of life.

Snowy Saturday Morning

I woke up this morning and looked outside to see the first real snow of the year. I had heard there might be a dusting - but if this is a dusting, I don't want to be around when it snows in earnest! The Weather Bug on my TeeVee says it will go away tomorrow and we'll be back to motorcycle weather on Monday, but I think I'll wait until it arrives before uncovering the big Kwacker.

I hope this is better tomorrow morning, or our parking lot at Church will be a disaster, and there will be more choristers than congregation - but we'll be there anyhow.

I had a laptop from a friend most of the week - it got infected, and was a beast to clean up. I had hoped just to get lucky, put in a new drive and scan the old one and have it clean up, but it was not to be - after a couple of hours with the recovery CD's and scans, I swapped the drives back and it was still not right - something had been altered that Norton could not find, so I ran a repair on it, then spent more time finding my friend's data and putting it where he could find it. He will have stuff to reinstall, but at least I found all his data and pictures. I had intended to take it back to him today, but I think in view of the weather I'll take it to him at church tomorrow since we'll both be there.

Other than that, it was a quiet week - a couple of small chores for The Queen, otherwise major cleanup on the music collection, and some remote server maintenance for other folks occupied my time - and I also found a few e-Books I had not read in many years, so I read them, too - some vintage Heinlein juveniles and such.

Now I have server stuff to do, the downstairs computer to make work, the upstairs nedia center computer to make work, so I guess I ought to get about it.

Have a good Saturday.

Thanksgiving

I know, it's been over for almost a week - but today is the first time there has been time to think about it all that hard.

I've been alive almost 68 years - and I guess, considering the number of dead people I know that I should be most thankful for that, and I am. I'm grateful that I can still work and that there are folks that value what I can do.

I've been married for almost 42 of those years, and can still remember the good old single days, and have to concede that they weren't all that great. My wife is a very patient lady, and puts up with a lot, but she's still here, and together we have three good kids, some grandkids and will have another before too long. I can still be musical under the direction of my wife, and enjoy the experience.

I'm still riding my motorcycle, and proved this past Sunday that I can still pick it up if I need to, not that I wanted to know that....

I'm grateful for our families - for our parents who are long gone, for values they instilled in us, for experiences involved in growing up in a small town, for siblings and cousins aplenty, for summers in the Pittsburgh area with cousins and friends, and for shared experiences with neighborhood friends.

I'm grateful for all the ladies that have entered and left my life over the years, even though sometimes things ended badly - each taught me something of value, and I cherish the memories of all of them. I'm particularly grateful to my wife - she has put up with a lot over the years, and has been supportive through good times, bad times and truly horrid times. I am not a perfect person, and she has grown pretty good at overlooking that fact.

I am grateful for having served in the Air Force. My enlistment may have been triggered by a fear of the draft, but the experiences, education, and travel that that four years brought were a large piece of my education and maturing process. I enjoyed what I did in the service and would go again in a heartbeat. I appreciate our troops, support them, and get a wee bit irritable when I hear them denigrated - those who speak ill of the Service as a career and of those who choose to make it a career are fools at best. I recommend to everyone exiting high school that consideration be given to a term of service. I went in at 19, was single and rather aimless, and it gave me experience and purpose - and taught me at least 200 things I never in my life wanted to do again!

My gratitude for family influence gets greater with each year - and as I grow older I am amazed at just how much my father and grandfather knew that mattered - and how much many better educated people knew that didn't matter. My brothers and I each went our own way and survived the experience, learning all the way, and we are still civil to one another. I wish one brother was on the east coast instead of where he is - as we grow older we find it harder to get together on any regular basis, although when we do it seems that conversation picks up where it left off, and the time between meetings disappears.

My father and his brother were two very different people - and I am grateful for having been able to get to know both, even though Uncle Bob was in California, and we were not. I have traveled for work some of the places I have been employed, and family that wandered to California have always welcomed me when I was able to get to their area. Uncle Bob was the person who introduced me to Disneyland, a time I'll never forget, when I had first returned from a prolonged stay in Germany.

The time in Germany was something I'll not soon forget - learning the land, the people, the language, and exploring on my motorcycle. There are people I met there who are still with me, even though I've not seen them since 1966; learning experiences that could not be repeated anywhere else, and lessons about people and places that I carry with me.

All in all, it has been interesting so far, and my gratitude goes out to people without number who have helped me, counseled me, commiserated with me, taught me things, introduced me to exotic foods, different languages, and other ways to look at the bits that make life interesting, and to my various family members, without whom it would have been really dull!

Thanks, all of you - you have helped shape what I am today - take credit for the best parts, and blame the worst parts on my humanity.

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Monday, another damn beautiful day!

It's a great day for a motorcycle ride. Alas, it is also a day during which I am obligated to work, or at least to put my face in the place.

It's also a sad day. I learned this morning that my father's only brother died late yesterday, the last of his generation within our family. He was 90, and a World War II Stalag survivor, and I wish that I had been able to be there when at last he felt like talking about his experiences there. I had hoped to visit him again one more time, but have had no excuse to travel to the west coast in quite some time - and before I could organize a trip, one of the prime reasons for the trip left us.

This has been a hard year for older folks among us. My brother's mother-in-law and my father's brother died within weeks of each other, and with them died some very interesting recordings of personal history.

Uncle Bob was 90 - an age that he never expected to reach, as his health had been impaired since his return from Europe and the war. Upon return, he joined his wife in California, and we were to see each other only seldom throughout the years, although it seemed when we were together that the conversation picked up from yesterday, and that we knew each other well.

We have only one relative left from the generation of our parents - both my wife and I have lost just about everyone from that generation, and we now have no place to go to learn of events from that generation's time except for books (and of course Google....) We have never known, and hopefully our children will never know the adversities which this now nearly departed generation faced over its lifetime - indeed we are not equipped even to imagine some of the hardships that particularly the veterans faced and overcame. We are aware that the world is a better place for their efforts, their bravery, and their unwillingness to settle for second best.

I fear I wax philosophical. At any rate, Uncle Bob has left the earth, and in leaving has left a hole in our lives that cannot be filled. Over time the edges of that hole will get chamfered and be less severe, but the hole itself will remain. Hopefully the next world has the rewards he earned and that he can enjoy them.

Sunday

It is Sunday, and I slept through church, but stayed here at home to do it. There were several things I had that I wanted to do today - but it is 72 degrees out, the sun is shining, it's November and I'm going motorcycling!

Should be a perfect day for it - not too much wind, and few clouds. The only question is, really, where should I go?

I think maybe I'll know when I get there.

Have a truly wonderful day!

Elections

Interesting results not far from us. Things to come?

I just heard about the Fort Hood shooting, and have to wonder how it can be determined that it was not an act of terrorism?

All this done by a shrink no less, apparently because of horror stories his family told him, or some such utter rubbish. Ought to send the SOB to Gitmo....

I'm angry. I'm also angry that he'll probably be found to be schizophrenic or somesuch and will never serve a day in durance vile.

I'd better go to bed, before I get really pissed! It was really miserable riding home this evening - I hate it when Daylight Savings goes away, and it is dark when I go out on that roof, find my motorcycle and start it up to go home. I feel so much more tired when it is already dark at go-home time. Tonight was cold, and between rain showers - I didn't get wet, but the streets were snotty and so were the commuters....

G'nite, y'all. Tomorrow will be better.

Wednesday's Ramblings

Furlough day today - A special day, granted by the Police Department and the City of Baltimore, during which I get to stay home and not get paid - which is not necessarily wrong, but is something I would prefer to have a way to arrange from time to time, but can only arrange when decreed by a higher authority.

The city can direct that I take a day off without pay - but there is no easy way for me to take a day off without pay without incurring raised eyebrows and questioning looks. And sometimes I'd like just to take a day off, even if it meant not getting paid for that day, just to save vacation and sick leave for times when I really was relaxing or sick.

Today I had Grandfather Duty - drop off and pick up a grandson from private school, as nobody else was available to do this, the school is close to home, and I had a furlough day I had to use. I didn't get much else done because of timing, but I did arrange for transport for said grandson with alacrity and timeliness.

It's not that I don't need money - the stuff gets away from me faster than I can believe - but once in a while I'd like to choose not to earn on a given day. I'd like to retire, but with the best of will I can't see it happening before 2012 or so and maybe not then if I can keep on being productive. I like what I do, and am not ready yet to hang it up - I'd just like to take a motorcycle or mental health day once in a while, unpaid and not open my future employment to question.

So today was a furlough day, and I stayed home, and got some stuff done on the server; made some space, created some ISO images to mount instead of burning to optical media, things like that - and clean up some space, standardize some MP3 tags - I guess I got a lot done.

But what I didn't get done that I ought to have done instead includes dragging some cat5 up into the living room because wireless is not fast enough for my media center PC, replace VISTA on this machine with XP because at least drivers for XP are available and reliable, and loading the VISTA that used to be on this machine onto the IBM IntelliStation that is waiting downstairs for the last half year for me to get around to getting it turned on and working.

I should also have gone outside and pumped up the suspension in my Honda so it won't fall over in the carport, and checked the tire pressure on the Kawasaki and the Volvo. Maybe I should take another furlough day tomorrow and do those things, since it won't be long before it is just too cold for me to want to go outside and do things like this.

I'm missing choir tonight for my once-a-month Ramblers meeting. I get there all the time in the summer, but in the winter it is tough because it comes on Wednesday, along with choir rehearsal. I married the choir director, she has expectations....

So it's time for the first Bones fix of the evening, then it is off to Ramblers, then back for more Bones. Then sleep then work.

Just another day, I guess.

I forgot why I started this; getting old, I guess, so I'd better wrap it up.

Y'all have a good evening.

I'm back, and profoundly irritated

Well, it has really been a long time. I've been thinking I had stuff to say, but forgot just where I put the area I had set aside in which to say things - and since I had already lost other blogs, resolved not to start another, but to wait until I found this one, which I did today.

In the coming weeks I expect I'll have a lot to say, not all of it very nice. Some things are giving me a huge case of the redass, and I'm gonna have to talk about it. But not today.

I've been having fun with my home network and with Windows Home Server. I know I don't often have anything to say about Windoze that isn't at least profane, but this product is really pretty nifty, relatively easy to use, and is doing Good Things wherever it is installed.

I've also become more security-oriented, and have resorted to VPN connections for everything outside my own servers.

But right now, I'm headed for bed.

It's been a while

Sorry, I've been out of sorts for a bit. I ran out of Prozac, and decided that I'm just too damn mean when depressed to write anything useful. When I was no longer out, it got busy, and then my lovely wife and I took a road trip last week down to South Carolina (Charleston to be exact) to attend a reunion of members of my old military unit. Since the unit existed for around 30 years, there was no certainty that anyone would be there with whom I had served, but we went anyhow, just to see, and to meet folks with whom I had been in touch on various duty-specific forums for the past several years.

Much to my surprise, my wife asked if we would be driving or flying and indicated a desire to travel by car. Since she normally doesn't travel well, I was more than ready to drive even though I already had plane tickets (discovering afterwards just how damn hard it is to get rid of them and get back money.) She got to thinking about travel hassles, and the fact that I hate to fly any more, and decided to try a road trip - and it was a really good trip for both of us.

We broke the trip around Emporia, Virginia, staying in a Hampton Inn at a ridiculously cheap price for first-class lodging. When we woke up and had breakfast, it was a relatively easy day to get us into Charleston - it took time, but traffic was light, the scenery good and the weather pleasant. We let Gertie Garmin guide us, and let the cruise control keep the cops away, and just relaxed, stopping when it pleased one or the other of us.

Gertie Garmin is what we called the GPS that I purchased for her some time back. This was the first trip with that sort of device, and I have to say it was a great addition to the stuff we already were taking with us. The 760 model allowed all our cell phones to be bluetoothed to its hands-free facility, the alternate routes worked and were decent - all in all I cannot imaging going farther than ten minutes without at least having it turned on with traffic alerts enabled.

I did meet one guy I knew at the reunion, and met others with whom I had chatted, but whom I had never met - and lots of war stories got told. It was great! I was particularly pleased to see the one guy I already knew, as I had heard that he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer several years back, and since I know the cure rate on that to be abysmal fully expected to hear that he was not with us any more - and was both surprised and pleased to hear from him that he'd be there. I was doubly surprised to see him when I got there using an artificial larynx - after beating the esophageal cancer he ended up with it in his throat, and lost his thyroid and larynx to it - but a more ready-to-go guy I have not known. He's 71, has had all this, and is more lively than ever! I had never met his wife before, but knew she had to be something else, and was not disappointed - although I was surprised to note that her German accent had been replaced with a Buffalo, New York accent!

My wife was surprised at how well she seemed to fit - there were some folks younger than us, but not many, and lots older, although they were uniformly old in years but not in spirit.

I was in what the Air Force called Security Service - it was an intelligence operation that had had its personnel described as a tightly knit group of loosely wrapped people - which, on reflection, I found to be fitting and proper.

We played tourist, took a mule-drawn carriage trip around old Charleston, which I expected to be a deadly bore and my wife expected would get her motion-sensitive gut - and we loved it - the guide was great, the city beautiful, the info plentiful, the pace slow and relaxed - just a great way to spend part of an afternoon. I have to admit that without Gertie Garmin I'd've never found the mule stables. We also did an excursion boat harbor tour, and while she went, she wasn't as relaxed because of the motion of a boat upon the water, and afterwards reaffirmed her wish never to go on a cruise - even to the point or telling me I could try to get an old flame to join me and leave her at home. I of course declined....

We took two days to come back, the second day stopping by my brother's place in Lorton, Virginia, and then stopping off to visit our baby and her baby and husband, finally getting home pretty late and really tired - but it was probably the best week for us in years.

Those who have served ought to do a reunion once in a while - particularly in these times when the military is held in such low esteem - it can reaffirm that the time was not wasted, that the duty did matter, and that the folks with whom one served were indeed crazy, but dedicated, caring, and good friends all around.

We'll be going to others as they are scheduled.

That's all I have for today - y'all be well....

On aging

One of my least favorite things is the topic of this rant - getting old.

It is something I am doing, albeit just about toally without any grace.

This week, I turned 67. The next day, my wife and I marked the end of our 41st year of marriage. Frankly, I have no explanation for how either of these milestones was reached. I guess I'm just lucky. Somehow I have survived all these years, and my long-suffering wife has found it neither useful nor necessary to kill me.

I am still working full-time - retirement is a happy thought, but it is not going to happen, at least not this year. For one thing, I don't know quite what I would do with myself, and for another the cost of retirement is a definite modification in the direction of moderation of lifestyle - and I am not quite ready to become moderate - I still like to do things that cost money, and my retirement income will be perhaps 30% of my current income - not impossible, but definitely sparse. I must have thought I'd never get old - I definitely did not do much of a job of planning for it. And no, I have no advice for those who've not yet entered their dotage on forestalling my discoveries. As is the case with so many other events in my life, I recognize where I have arrived, but have no idea whatever how I got here.

So I'll work a few more years, put away money, draw my social security because I can and bank as much of it as possible, and when I've been married 50 years, maybe we can both retire and enjoy what years remain in some retirement community like the one into which my parents retired lo these many years ago.

Life is, however, pretty good so I have no complaints. Have a fine day, y'all.

Home Server Doings

Y'all are probably bored with this, but I'm close to done with it. Arnold the Windows Home Server is once again alive - I have learned a few more things that I didn't know (funny how that seems to come up - something gets screwed up, and I learn something that I didn't know before, usually after breaking something I thought I knew all about.)

Now, I have four out of the five big drives that I thought were dead back alive, but the RAID adapter that was supposed to run the new SATA drives and get me the fault-tolerant storage array that I wanted so that when the next drive croaks, nothing gets lost - that's what RAID arrays are all about) apparently is toast, so I have to go and get another one.

So right now, Arnold is alive with old drives, and I am learning how to make him useful (which may take the rest of my life) and get the music database repopulated and reloaded, and get the media streaming stuff working throughout the house again. I will use one of the old drives to liven up the robot to get the music collection reestablished, and when I get a new SAT RAID adapter and get the RAID array working, I'll make it part of the storage pool, and gradually retire / relocate the old drives into less critical locations - or at least put them to uses that aren't likely to have a bad effect on the overall network.

One of the reasons I write this stuff is to help me be sure I know whatthehell I'm about to do. Sometimes I find I do, sometimes I don't - but the writing always helps.

On another topic, I was off today - I ended up working Saturday here at home, and Sunday night got called in until the wee hours of this morning, getting home again around 4:30 AM. It isn't as easy as it was when I was younger, but it is a part of what I do, to be prepared to take the off-time to correct. I spent some time today looking in and rechecking what I had done, but it was all good.

I think now it is time I went to bed - the morning comes so early, and I have to get one grandson to school before I can take myself to work. I thought that by the time I hit 60 life would be calm and boring, but I reckoned without the help of my children, who have conspired to keep life ...interesting... for Phyllis and myself. Both sets of parents are gone, so we find ourselves in the position of venerated elder authority and foolish parents whom you can't take out without being embarrassed - sometimes both at the same time. It'll keep us young and/or nuts.

I'm going to bed. Next rants will probably be less about hardware, and more about Things of the Heart. Be well, y'all.

I should have gone to bed earlier.

Last night, that is - I stayed up nearly all night working on Arnold, and discovered this morning that while I was asleep he lost his mind. Motherboard will not allow a boot. Maybe it is time to just break down and buy a damn server and be done with it.

I hate it when things go wrong repeatedly. I thought I had it all ready, and then I tried to add in the RAID array and everything turned to poo. I did not even watch the Super Bowl for sleeping this afternoon, not that it would have made a difference in whatever the outcome would have been. I think maybe tonight I'll swap in the last motherboard and see if it turns to crap again, or if this time it actually does something useful. My patience is waning, and I need to get this server built and working to go forward with the streaming entertainment for the house.

Technology is wonderful stuff, but it has made life rather more complicated than it used to be. Before cell phones there was such a thing as privacy, and quiet time. I'm old enough to remember the time before television - radio was something that required a lot of thought and imagination - but it was actually pretty good, and my imagination was at least as good as that of many screenwriters in the early days of TeeVee. Then there were the obligatory trips on Saturday to the movies, the weekly serial (Sky King, Tarzan, RocketMan and others) that always ended in a cliffhanger to suck you into coming back the next weekend. Several of us from the neighborhood, aged 5 to 8, would get on a bus each Saturday, armed with the price of admission, bus fare, and a soda, and go to the matinee to get our weekly fix. We went by ourselves, rode a bus for 20 minutes, went to the theater alone and returned alone, and nobody ever worried about us because it was safe for kids our age to do those things.

Times must have changed a lot.

What has this got to do with Arnold, the recalcitrant server? Damfino - I think I'm rambling.

Now, it's time to go downstairs and have at Arnold some more, and see whether he gets turned on or turned into a target for my pistol....

Be well, y'all

ARNOLD Lives!!!

It's 4:45 in the morning. I must get up in 5 hours. I did not go to bed when I thought I might, instead I mauled Arnold a bit more, and he is alive.

The RAID array is not even being seen, but the server is alive and working, and even letting me introduce it to my laptop! Will wonders never cease?

Now all I gotta do is get the data off the old server's drives, then get the RAID array working, then make it available, then take out the old server drives and reserve them, and then, well, probably go to work, dammit!

Weekends should be longer.

Happy Sunday, y'all - it looks like the motherboard is good, and will hold the load.

Home server rant continues

Alfred is dead. I killed him. I enjoyed it - the SOB just would not behave. Old motherboards sometimes make life hard, and this one just wouldn't continue beyond ten minutes after bootup.

I reused the case, so Arnold looks like Alfred, but isn't - there's an AMD dual processor motherboard in there, and Home Server is rebuilding as I write. After that, it looks like I scrambled the SATA connectors to my RAID cage, so I can look forward to around 30 hours of RAID array formatting during which time nothing will get done. After that it should be clear sailing and I can start rebuilding my music and video databases for the home network.

If, on the other hand it is still unstable I shall call RAID a bad job and go to conventional storage. I don't want to do that because it is so hard to recover a loss in a terabyte or so of music and such. Some days you eat the bear, other days you're his lunch.

So now it is waiting time. I guess I'll know more in the morning before I head for church.

But I did take a break this afternoon and call an old friend on the phone - one I've not seen since around 1972, but whom I have known since the late 50's. He's a bit older than I am at 75, but our lives have touched several times over the years, both here in the US and during the time I was in Germany, as he was a teacher in a military dependant's school while I was serving in the Air Force and we spent many pleasant weekends wandering around Germany, sampling wines, and generally being single and carefree. I don't recall if we returned at the same time, but he went home to Minnesota and I ended up here in Maryland. We got together in 1972 when I drew a trip of a couple of months to Minneapolis for schooling, but after a few weeks I decided I should bring my wife out, so visiting got somewhat curtailed.

But we've stayed in touch all these years, sharing memories and other friends, and it is a little hard to think of him as being 75 yet I know that he is every bit of that age, just as I am every bit of almost 67 - but those numbers seem unreal to me. I promised myself never to grow up or to get stodgy and set in my ways and I think I've been moderately successful at that - but my knees hurt, my shoulders creak like an old maple tree, and I can sleep wherever I happen to be. But I still love to motorcycle (although I no longer love it enough to go out when it is below about 50 degrees - and I used to ride all year round regardless of temperature) and to go and see things I haven't seen yet.

I just looked at the bottom of my screen and it is now February. It just kinda sneaked up on me. I hate it when that happens! But after February comes March, and by mid-March the weather is getting good for riding once again, and I can count on more and more motorcycle days.

Tomorrow I have to get going on our taxes - it is my least favorite yearly task, and when I can retire I get to do less. Near as I can tell, retirement will come sometime around the age of 74 for me - but maybe not then. I have the rare good fortune to like what I do, and as long as someone will pay me to do it, I might just as well. We still have one of our kids with us, and a grandchild, so the responsibilities will not decrease until she marries and leaves, or maybe just leaves.

Somehow life did not go the way I thought it would when I was young and still knew everything. The path is still changing, and it is anyone's guess where I will end up (although some of the more fundy-oriented folks I know are sure that they know) or when.

It's funny where life goes. I was born here in Baltimore, then moved to Hatboro. From Hatboro I went into the service and went to Texas, Syracuse, Texas and Germany. I stayed an extra year in Germany; I don't recall just why although I have been told a German girl might have had some influence, and when I returned my family was back in Baltimore, so I came here and despite grand ideas of taking a company move or something like that I have been at this address for 36 years. I do a number of things that were too far-out for even science fiction when I was in high school, trying to imagine what I would be when I grew up.

So, what have all these years given to me as revelations?

1. Hatboro was a pretty good place.
2. Going to college to please someone else is a waste of time.
3. Military service, properly managed can be educational and even fun.
4. No matter how hard I tried, Germany made beer faster than I could drink it.
5. Speed limits are a revenue-producing tool, not a safety enhancement.
6. Getting married is easy; staying married is hard.
7. Riding a motorcycle will teach you lots about paying attention and being gentle.
8. An hour at the pistol range will clear your head better than a week at the ocean.
9. My children will do what they deem fit. They do not have to make my failures good.
   
10. When your state is altered, your competence to determine your competence Goes Away.
11. Music is wonderful, and cannot be explained - you get it, or you don't.
12. Living in a foreign land, learning the language, is more valuable than books
13. Foreign languages are different - and you must never translate an idiom.
14. I think I'm rambling. Again.

Now I have to go downstairs and look in on Arnold, then get some sleep. Tomorrow is already here, and I must be musical in just a few hours.