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Sunday, November 29th, 2009
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11:43 pm - In Which The Overlord Finally Finishes his Descent Book.
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I just finished NaNo today. For the uninitiated, that's writing a 50,000 word novel in a single month. I started a bit late and despite work and other commitments, managed to finish an unholy mashup of alternate-history WW2, primitive pre-Vulcan-contact Star Trek, and Descent, yes the computer game.
It's completely internally consistant, follows all laws of physics with only one handwave on materials, and still encompasses all the constraints and weirdness of the Descent games. Which, I would like to point out, give you about 7 paragraphs of text before sending you into a series of mines to shoot shit.
It took 25,000 words before I got to that point of the briefing, and none of it's very dull, and ends as they're about to go into the first mine to shoot shit. I feel like I ought to win a procrastination prize. I also rewrote my resume from scratch in a sort of even more ballsy move that just lists the impressive things I've been entrusted to do first, then the companies I've done it for, then the clients, and little more but references. All while knocked down with a head cold.
Anybody who wants to read this misbegotten lump of fiction, hit me up. At best it's maybe like Tom Clancy meets Douglas Adams. At worst it's more like Raymond Chandler meets E.E. "Doc" Smith. I haven't gotten the chance to go back and edit it yet, so there are patches in slightly different styles, but overall I think it stands up OK.
I tried this once before, a few years ago, but haven't been able to re-read much of it. I may do a go-back editing pass and see what I can work in.
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| Thursday, November 19th, 2009
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3:49 pm
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I'm back...last server install was yesterday, today's a dead day, tomorrow I go meet my project manager to transfer all my tools and etc back to her care (along with a couple last expense reports), then nada. And by 'nada' I mean "call the IRS and the Oregon unemployment office as soon as I get home." Weekend off, Monday revamp the resume, Tuesday hit the road.
I'm not worried, there's another last check or two coming in plus a lot of expense report money that'll keep me going until the unemployment kicks in, and based on my wages between the last time I set up a claim and now I ought to be eligible for a LITTLE more than about $100/week, just a smidge.
Things will look up after the holidays, I'm sure of it, and this time I know I can get by until then.
In other news, I'm doing NaNo this month. So far I'm about 3K words behind, thanks to a point where I was about 12K words behind from skipping, er, a few days, and I can catch this backlog up in an inspired day no problem. My novel is a four-way universe mashup...alternate history NAZIS IN SPACE (don't ask, it was another case of 'Give Alaric a ridiculous premise and watch him figure out what would have to happen to make that be true and then extrapolate from there), ret-conned early days of pre-Federation Star Trek IN that alternate history, the Descent computer game setup (extrapolated forward and backwards from 7 paragraphs of mid-90s typical snarky dodgy writing), and a private RP that's been going on for a long, long time now. So far I'm at about 25K and I JUST finished the part of the story where the mission briefing that sets up the rest of the plot happens. By one metric I'm doing quite well. From an editing perspective, it's horrid and I need to go back and reformat all the dialog to one consistant standard and make a bunch of tweaks to structure. From a readibility perspective, well, there's only been one test reader so far and I'm just hoping to avoid the description of "like Clancy, but without any of the interesting battles" that I feel it's probably earning.
I've done my research, though. The Navy is already in advanced testing of the weapons I have, the propulsion concepts (although not in the combinations I'm using them in) were demonstrated in the 60s, the Air Force is ordering laser cannons like the kind I've postulated (found that out after the fact, whoops) so the only real breakthroughs have been working more or less portable fusion power, materials advanced enough to allow hypersonic flight, and the whole idea of the impulse drive bubble--turns the ship into what looks like a charged particle to the universe and it's filled with strange and exotic particles that also have a sort of shielding effect. (See the SWTC discussion about Star Trek shields as being exotic-matter envelopes). You reshape it to fly, VERY CAREFULLY or you tear apart with Gs (no compensators) or wreck the spaceframe (no structural integrity fields). With the technology sorted, human nature hasn't really changed and all the political and personal drama that's going on in the novel is a direct result of realistic conflicts, which I'm very proud of. Take your setpiece. Work backwards, find out what it says about its universe. Work forward under those assumptions, find out where it leads. For example, fixing the plot hole in the initial briefing (although the rendered ones on the Playstation port are nice, there's not as much exposition from the nameless suit) results in a mission that logically has to be betrayed and is suicide, but for the cause of keeping humanity more or less united by hiding the threat they're under. It's sure keeping me busy...
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| Friday, November 13th, 2009
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4:26 pm
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Well, it's happened again. No projects after Tuesday or so, no hours, no work. No field assists, no depot maintenance, nothing. Another 'happy holidays, have some unemployment', as has happened about every year. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) lowercasedee, swear to Boss, between the two of us it seems like we only have one good job. Looks like it's your turn to have it for a while, eh? All's not without hope, the roomie has her Leapforce stuff to fall back on and I'm retooling my resume from scratch (AAAAAUUUUUUUGH, that is all.) There's a college that needs a tech, I'd be happy to go back to my roots, there's also an armored car company that's looking for a reliable technician...and I did work for NCR for a while there. I've got prospects, I've got contacts to fall back on...call Jay at DSI, see what's going on, see if Cathy at NCR remembers me. Hell, even call Kevin, see if the Nike situation ever stablized. It was a little boring there but not so bad. We'll see how it goes.
In Nano news, I wrote about 5K words yesterday. Sure, I was 10K behind but I think I'm catching up...
Home audio news, I ordered a Sony STR-DE575 amp offa Ebay to replace the one I lost in the storage room snafu. It's here, it still works fine as a multichannel surround setup, and the venerable VSX-308 has been relegated to the TV area, to be hooked up to the media PC when I get another adapter. I picked up a pair of little Fishers for surrounds to replace the crusty four-way foot-tall ones I was using, one of those makes a pretty respectable center channel. I may actually try out the other one of the pair in here. My little surround Jensens in here are an amazing audio gem, they have the sound you'd expect to hear out of something much larger. Clean, so clean and so clear (and not overdriven in the treble) with such a perfect midrange it's achingly sweet to listen to them.
I remember how long it took me with the Soundblaster cards, fiddling and twiddling and trying for HOURS to get something to downmix from stereo to surround, natively. Turns out Windows 7 has a simple little checkbox called 'speaker fill' that does it on even the sound cards that are on the motherboard. And y'know what? I can't hear that there's a difference. In fact, in some ways, it sounds better. Chuck another getting-obsolete skill on the pile.
At any rate, I'm hoping to have some fun this weekend, a bit of distraction and escape, because it may be pretty damn lean for a while. So far the phrasing is "keep you in mind if we get business and are allowed to bring on help", and I've heard that before. Wish me luck.
current music: AC/DC - Rock 'N Roll Train
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| Saturday, October 31st, 2009
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7:56 pm
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I'm still alive. I'm in Idaho for the next week, needless to say I can't really update much because then I'm either logging in on an unsecure wireless connection or checking / posting to LJ on a broadband work connection (plus I might see boobies).
Other than money woes, things are going fine. Stupid hours, etc, nothing new. I discovered the Craters of the Moon and Arco, along with SL-1 and EBR-1 for my dose of atomic tourism, and I swear to god I'm coming back here some fall when the reactor sites are open to tour them and go ATVing through the Craters area. Despite being a rock collector and volcano-obsessed guy (not without good reasons, really) I of course don't have any lava with me, because removing any rocks from 26 acres of it, a fair bit along empty back roads, would be considered against applicable Federal laws and violation of national preserves and all that. It would be completely reprehensible to remove or disturb even the slightest piece.
I also finally figured out how to make the ignition setup for the engine swap work...turns out that going with the Ford EDIS system will let the spark setup run at 10 BDTC even without a computer controlling things. Megasquirt can run EDIS nicely, and for the first time not only do I believe that it really is possible to get the engine swapped in next weekened, but to also have it running properly, and on Megasquirt as a piggyback. I still have my concerns about how to get the EDIS system to work with the stock tach signal, but first things first.
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| Friday, October 16th, 2009
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9:15 pm
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So I just tore down my old system and have an Koolance Exos I no longer need--anybody interested?
http://www.koolance.com/water-cooling/product_info.php?product_id=376
It's not this style, it's the previous generation with 3x 80mm fans and the detachable nozzles at the back. Everything's included and complete, including a CPU-200G waterblock and bracket (http://www.koolance.com/water-cooling/product_info.php?product_id=115 , I honestly think this is the same block, only the center mounting style is a little different) and a generic chipset waterblock (http://www.koolance.com/water-cooling/product_info.php?product_id=104), including the back plate with the spring hoses and pass-through circuits, the thermal probe, the motherboard power splitter so it turns on the pumps when you hit the switch...I can throw in a X800 waterblock if you want, my X800 wasn't compatible with the reference block design so I never could use it. All you'd need is maybe a socket adapter and a bottle of coolant from Koolance and you'd be good to go--your own stylish silver watercooling solution! I'd like to see $150 for the whole thing plus whatever shipping runs. C'mon, who wants this?
current music: Def Leppard - Animal
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| Thursday, October 8th, 2009
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2:38 am - In Which the Overlord Derives Benefit From the Chinese Curse
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Things that make me happy, another double-day entry.
Tuesday: Contrasts. The contrast between learning I would not have enough money for gas to return home (since remedied, if sketchily and barely) and the surroundings it was discovered in, specifically a hotel suite with a jacuzzi and handicap-sized and featured shower. The contrast between a technical nowhere-road that involved me to such a degree of precision control (at a phenomenally low speed, only 45-55) that I literally did not have the presence of mind to recall that I could slow down and the later mainstream backroads that could be taken as lazy overdrive one-handed sweepers. The contrast between the groomed speed-central aorta of I-5 and the no markings, no railings, blind reverse-camber decreasing-radius curves between rocky cliffs and sheer dropoffs of Cow Creek. Ignominous memories of involuntary micro-naps on the five versus wheel-destroying rocks just over the shadeline, invariably fallen where a moment's inattention would've resulted in an unstoppable plummet down a 200-foot drop far away from civilization and the eyes-pinned-open rabbit fixation they engendered.
Wednesday: Perspective. The perspective to resolve mutual selfishness in mature manners, instead of reflexively puffing up and yodelling while beating my ego's chest. The perspective of feeling far safer surrounded at a dead stop by a work crew of prisoners than I felt with the van that had refused to legally yield dogging my six so close he may have rubbed my plate bracket. Being able to treat the two California-entering border patrol / agricultural forced-stops with equanimity. Although my temptation was as always to say "Allez kla, herr Commissar?" I had the perspective to answer simply the first time and joke with the oddly-Wisconsin-accented lady at 2:30 on a bored morning. (Tip...when asked if you have any fruits and vegetables, declaring with a smile that you're enjoying the fruits of your labor and you feel like a vegetable may make somebody's day a little easier.) Being able to appreciate both the cramped confines of a little dinosaur-exploding box and the clear black night up through which you can see forever when you pull over. Being able to be gracious about failing to remember that I couldn't legally top off my own tank in this state, and exultant in the welcoming velvet black that I was remembering the names of every clearly visible star in Orion and Mars-and-Venus spotting. Taking delight in both the embrace of wind and g-forces and loved ones' arms. Realizing that just as two great minds, both alike in dignity (well, so we like to pretend) can collaborate for great effect, so too can two vastly different worldviews collide to produce fascinating synergies.
Ancient and Chinese this human start may've been, but I still maintain that interesting times are the only kind I'd WANT to be living in.
current mood:  cheerful
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| Monday, October 5th, 2009
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12:50 pm
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Things that make me happy, day 4, one day behind.
Sunday was nice in that I remembered what it was like to have the world mostly to myself. Also, completely unexpectedly while driving through Central Oregon's thick night fog, the letter A (very large and unmistakeable) drifted out of the fog from a random streetlamp. It caught my eye, inevitably, as it made its way across the road, growing. I don't know what random fluke of winds and geometry produced a perfectly-shaped letter, but I know enough to know there are no coincidences if something's that strange. I don't know if it was a grade or an acknowledgement, but it made me feel good.
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| Sunday, October 4th, 2009
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8:25 am
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Happiness Meme, catchup.
Day 2: (Friday)
My new stuff was assembled into some semblance of a working system. Further happiness came from being able to cram the power supply and gigantic video card into the case in a sane way with all screws fitting, despite the nay-sayers online who claimed the case was too small. A bit of a happiness loss at stupid-early in the morning when I realized I'd put in the motherboard without the backing plate, but a gain back when I eschewed my little multitool in favor of my cordless work drill set to 'squeak and fall over at the first sign of objection' levels of torque and a couple good screwdriver bits chucked up. Took me maybe 40 minutes to put the mobo in, took me maybe about 10 to pop it out and resecure it again with MORE POWAH.
From/To, as I AM a geek and this journal wouldn't be complete without a bit of e-peen bragging. To be fair, I haven't had an e-peen worthy of bragging about since about 2001-2002.
Lian Li PC-60 -> Lian Li PC-33 (HTPC case)
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (socket 754 and with 1 meg of cache instead of 512K and speedbumped to compensate, yes it's one of the very first ones) -> Intel i7 920 (quad-core at 2.6 Ghz, running at 3.6 Ghz on air effortlessly)
2.4 gigs of DDR2-400 RAM, twin-channel -> 6 gigs of DDR3-2000 RAM, triple-channel
NForce 3 chipset -> X58 chipset
NVidia GeForce 7800 GS (last and greatest AGP board, 128 megs VRAM) -> Nvidia GTX 295 (twin processors on the same PCB, 1800 megs VRAM)
300-gig drive / 150 gig drive -> 1 Tb drive
600-watt power supply -> 1200 watt power supply
21" CRT -> 24" LCD (for the curious, a 24" widescreen LCD has the exact screen height as a 21" CRT, just more around the margins.)
16X DVD burner -> 16X DVD burner that also reads Blu-Ray
5x80mm/1x120mm fans -> 2x80mm/2x120mm fans (very much quieter--sounds like my old rig at idle when under load)
Windows XP SP3, original 2001 install -> Windows 7 x64 Ultimate Super Turbo Championship World Edition (I may've lied a little on the last few)
Logitech MX610 mouse (drove ~200 miles to get the first one some years ago) -> Logitech Revolution wireless mouse.
Day 3: Saturday
A day off, a chance to sleep in, a chance to install the OS and get going with the new system. The first game I wound up playing was a little Need for Speed: Shift, which led to the happiness. I was maybe about 8 then, with a copy of Test Drive II running in dubious EGA on a small VGA monitor on an old IBM XT souped up like the Millenium Falcon. It was my first racing game,but inside my young head I was sitting in that Lotus Esprit blasting at full tilt up twisty mountain roads. The PC speaker and my imagination combined to sound like a British sports car driven in anger, and despite primitive 16-color graphics it looked real to me.
Now, for one of the first times since then, I felt that primal surge of imagination fulfilled--playing with my peripheral vision completely filled, insanely high resolution and details, something more responsive than a keyboard at hand, ears assaulted by true-to-life recordings of the cars, complete with a proper cockpit view. It's like going back 20 years and playing my imagination, no mess, no fuss, no compromises to any of the senses.
(For the record, I'm pretty sure my Tier 2 car now has to be an Elise. It seems only proper).
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My work week is completely insane this week. I'm heading out to Tillamook for a brief install then down to Eugene tonight. Back here, then it's to Medford, stay, somewhere else to the east of that but at the same north/south position, then to Brookings on the coastline and back up along 101--again--to home. Too bad I have a rental.
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| Thursday, October 1st, 2009
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2:01 am
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Meme, stolen from a high-class (if low-coordination sometimes) broad:
1. Post about something that made you happy today even if it's just a small thing.
2. Do this everyday for eight days without fail.
Backdating a little to yesterday.
Day One.
It Wasn't Me / The Cushion.
Yesterday coming home on Old Evergreen, a twisty windy back route parallel to the highway that it is eminently possible and somewhat pleasurable to take at double the speed limit (or so I've heard) I--traveling with legal velocity--found myself stuck behind two fire engines in line, lights strobing, cruising up toward town in the absolute middle of the road. Beyond the logging plant, I saw why. An ambulance was already there, and a police car, and all I could see of somebody's pickup truck was the underside, plaintively viewing the midnight sky, at rest perhaps 30 feet to the right of the road and perhaps 15 feet below its surface level, supported by a leaning pine tree. As I watched, the EMTs and cops and firefighters were scrambling into their full gear and heading down that steep slope to do what they could. I gave them plenty of room to manuever their engines about, and only got past eventually on the other slope of the road, feeling the car start to skid down it with my slow speed and having to gas up to stay on the tarmac, at a distressing angle the whole time. It must've happened mere minutes before I came through--had I walked quicker through the Fred Meyer to the exit, I might've been following the poor bastard. Or might've been ahead. Or might've had it happen to me. Animal in the road? Vicious gas stomp with bad tires and RWD on slick roads? I'll never know. But from the leisurely pace of the emergency workers, I don't think whoever piloted that blue pickup will be coming back this lifetime.
When I'd set out that evening, the driver's side headlight was out. Possibly the first rain of the season, possibly the carwash, moisture in my hell-wired relays...but as I hit the black highway it came on again, my loyal steed looking out for me. As soon as we pulled into the well-lit parking lot, it was off again, but by the time I was on the highway back (and on Old Evergreen) full illumination was again available. As if that weren't enough of a visceral blip for the evening, once Evergreen dumped through its little residential neighborhood onto the main drag, I saw a car with the blinkers on facing the wrong way on the other side of the road. A young man stood there, looking forlorn in the glare of his headlights and looking up toward the houses, a motionless cat lying very distinctly by the front of his car. Two friends lost within two miles of each other, due to carelessness or simply their numbers having come up. A double-whammy. Then, down around the curve, not a half-mile later and doing well under the limit, lost in thought, I rounded a blind corner to see a deer in the middle of the road, staring incuriously at me. Thanks to my low speed I barely had to tap the brakes as it wandered leisurely up onto the grassy berm and vanishing into the treeline. (This makes the second surprise-deer, although the first was in the high desert buttes of central Oregon). Three in a night...looking back on the ways I've driven, the chances I've taken, the number of times I've succumbed to the devil's symphony of redline and rubber with more lives than mine on the line...I'm not horrified and appalled as I should be, and it scares me that I'm not. Instead, all I can think..in a sort of numb gratitude..is that It Wasn't Me. Skill is one thing, Luck another, and Fate a third. I think that Fate (or the Great Hand Loading the Dice) has been what's mostly been behind my luck, for all my life.
I'm happy to be here, now, alive. This is not a game.
current mood:  intimidated
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| Sunday, September 27th, 2009
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7:28 pm - In Which the Overlord Makes It Easier For Stalkers (and Chronicles a Work Day).
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(The following was typed on the work laptop, one handed at times, two-handed when I had the luxury. I've gone through and cleaned up spelling but not content or formatting.)
i push on through the reservation at speed. one hand pecks for letters to chronicle my adventures this day. nobody but me and older, insaner, faster nuts in an ex-cop impala are chasing a destination in this direction. no signal, no cell, no broadband, rapidly dwindling fuel supplies with no more for many miles. cruise and call it good, relying on the rental. not for the first time my attention drifts back to the windsufing crowd i left behind along the columbia. one of these days.
normally the radio would erase monotony--nothing like npr to keep this metalhead awake and engaged on those late nights--but out here it's nothing but christ, cowboys, and cholos. i find myself listening to a spanish news station for several minutes. the lady could be talking about tragedy, but her tone and delivery are comforting, soothing. like a running stream, and i understand just as much.this road has no exits, no turnoffs except for the insane to go over the barriers. somewat like life, i reflect, wanting to slap myself for the cliche. one-handedly i correspond with my boss, an easy task on a straight road. ah. nestled in the middle of nasal whining cowboy poser djs i stumble across disco. keeps the miles ticking. i was going to chronicle a full day so as i find myself stuck behind another rv i may as well flashback.
10 am. i went to sleep at 4;30 but it's both too close for my body to be happy and too far away for my mind to remember. something occurs to me that ought to be passed along, that first burst of energy and sanity in which i usually get my glasses. instead i pull unwillingly from a warm welcoming embrace and fight to shut off the damnalarm on the damnphone, screaming a cheery mockery of my exhaustion. i abuse my awareness and--as penance for not meticulously detailing even the things that were fixed on our completion forms--call Jeannie. I am melliflous, honeyed baritone, and miraculously coherent. i have been known, when making wakeup calls, to promise to be somewhere 3 hours away in 30minutes. the mr. spock side of my brain is still trying to figure out where he is and so the romulan babes on either side of him are doing the bubbleheaded chatting. i hang up after communicating the issue and marveling that i only repeated my central theme three times in the course of the conversation, stagger into the computer room and attempt for the next fifteen minutes to gain the power and thought back. i have apparently woken up the roomie and asked for her aid-although i recall3 attempts to say 'wake up please' and all that my mouth was able to form was a zombie like groan. One thing leads to another and soon enough I'm on the road. Four hours to Yakima, untold hours of installation, four hours back (via different back roads) and then a night of relaxation but stil working. Between home and the Dalles--albeit on the 14 side of the Columbia, I find my mind drifting back to descriptive phrases like 'the cardboard monolith of progress serves only to impede the movable altars of commerce' and figure I ought to do this right, sober Hunter S Thompson-esque except without most of the skill. A voice recorder would be helpful.
Now time finds me in the parking lot. Quick, quick! Pack up the laptop, the AC adapter, and go negotiate with the person in charge who's got the keys! I could care less about giving them a full rundown unless they ask. A handoff of keys from a busy PIC to a less busy PIC gets me in. Good. Boxes are here--one less hassle to chase down--and they left me the moving dolly. Bad. One power outlet, I need six. Good. I have a power strip on a deinstalled IDF sitting in the corner. Time to put on the gloves and begin ripping things apart. The time is now 2:45.
3:00 sharp. I have the boxes unpacked and the ones that are to be disposed of--by me, as the store's unreliable, always--stacked on the dolly that brought them in. Stomach rumbles--is it really 5 hours since I got up already? Am I really starting to get tired? I'm out of shape for the install, the servers seem more frustratingly balky to lift and manhandle into place than usual, my sore left pectoral muscle reminding me every second that I heal slowly, that I've had it bruised/strained/whatever for months now and still haven't been able to get it checked out.
3:20. The servers are all manhandled into place, screwed down, rails installed, all that good stuff. I think, for no apparent reason, of perhaps getting a ring equivalent tattooed around my left ring finger as I'm bad at remembering jewelry. It produces interesting results and I find myself thinking back, when I contemplate design, to the tripartite initial band. A few deeper philosophical musings on the nature of a deeply intertwined three, conceived of when I was thinking I was merely a silly boy, and I wonder if I wasn't onto something that's since been taken to be a more literal equivalent. Now for the cables. Eyeballing the rack, I grin. The switches are far removed from the new rack, which means I don't have to coil the 12 cables like cowboy ropes but can just bundle and run straight across without making service loops. Same with the power cords, I'll have to put it all into one powerbar. Much less effort...much less time...and I might be able to make it back to Portland by 9 after all if I hustle. Gloves off. Hands sweaty, gloves torn, gloves back on. Time to untwist massive amounts of cable ties and that always eats very quickly through my delicate fingertips.
3:35. Power and drive data cables are connected. I pause to gaze in awe and terror at Cordthuhu, stirring restlessly in Ryack'leh and bound only tenuously by four dark twist ties, bonded end to end in rituals that will not long hold. Only one mighty tentacle remains to be given sustenance from the three-phase blue bottom and then great eldritch power will pour from our world into the next and stir to life the glittering green lights in the black expanse so far above.
Six power cords, all folded up upon themselves, make an ungainly bundle. One is left dangling to feed my laptop while I while away time with bad similes. I rather like comparing drive array blinkenlights to celestial horrors unleashed, it makes me feel briefly clever, but there is still a spaghetti spray of data cables to wrestle into submission lest I end up dangling suspended from the rack in suspiciously sentient data tentacle bondage.
I'm doing it again.
4:05. It crosses my mind to add to that description above. "Glisteningly black" or something akin to that. It also occurs to me to add the phrase 'great power squid' to my completion form because the customer doesn't read them. One is revisionist, the other is silly. I may include it anyway. All data cables are secure, fastened, managed, and I forget to turn the servers on for a few minutes, wondering why it's taking so long to get them accessible on the network. Two pictures of front and back sent to Jeannie--an idea I'd suggested months beforehand that she denied, then after a couple interesting messups (including me having a Mihoshi moment and putting all the hardware in facing the wrong way) requested we all start doing. I'll be out of here soon.
If I left now, not taking into account traffic on I-5 -- for I will take the other half of the square of roads to get back -- I would arrive at home at 8. But my install is in Portland. I haven't checked where. I ought to.
Maploli claims it's 207 miles and will take me about 3:45. This sounds more or less right, but I also will need to stop for gas and for food as the panko-based casserole in my lunchbox will only carry me so far. I connect the last tentacle of Cordthulu and prepare to exit the server room, saving the map file of my newly altered route and letting the battery of the laptop do the work for once.
On the phone with the helpdesk, I get blamed by the store for the master controller having gone down. I panic, think I crushed some fiber. With my phone to one ear and theirs to another, I get a ticket number and we work out that the switches are fine, things work fine, and the MC mysteriously comes back up again. The managers and directors leave and I bug out, to greet a friend, get gas, and get the holy hell back on the road. 34 average MPG in a Kia Spectra...a KIA SPECTER!...and I still can't fill out a completion form because the broadband is being a piece of fail. A quick scribble of essential details and I'm off, looking for fast food and fast roads. I can still do this if I get lucky.
6:30. 60 miles from 5, 135 miles from the target. jeannie's text that all the company servers are down blinks at me from the damnphone, no eta, no info. i keep expecting email updates. illogical, yet habitual. i've had bad coffee and gone out of my way to get rid of it. i parked on a turnout to watch a 10-15mph stream, whipped to grey/green with whitecaps, pass by in ripples. Climbed most of the way down, avoiding river snake holes, to stand precariously on rocks and let Boss help it wash my troubles away.
10 PM. There's a gap in my perception of time, in my short-term memory. The roads were winding, I was stuck behind a white Mustang and a brown van for most of it, and spent some quality time exhorting the values of honesty via IM. I-5 was a blur, all I recall was the audio soundtrack. Marion somebody and Roy Eldritch, reminiscing and playing with and for each other, unpolished, a couple of old musicians at the top of their craft still. I was sorry when the show ended, and one DQ later I entered the parking lot, dodging indolent teenagers who look like they're hanging about to cause trouble. Rough area. I laugh on my way in, taking time to rechain my wallet which has tied me to the car's seat lever. It's not MY CAR. If it gets ripped off, I shan't care. The person in charge here wants to see the memo, a memo I shouldn't even have if it weren't for copying it with permission from a previous store. She calls two Loss Prevention goons at home, as since I'm not good enough for Fred Meyer (you mean Kroger, honey) to employ directly I need constant babysitting afterhours. Reluctantly, she shows me the phone room and abandons me with a cursory answer about the location of the price change room where I can sit down and work in peace. She has a copy of the memo, now, so I don't bother to tell her that all the handheld scan guns are going down as soon as I find a PC. It's pissery, sure, but it says it in the memo. I plonk myself at the freight desk and get to work on the PC there.
A few changes in menus and it's time to run the backup. Tolt's systems are still down but I have the hardcopy of the sheet so I know the network address of the virtual server's network card, and the ticket number. Wall mounted phones are nice on speakerphone and save my battery--the night crew knows I'm here and things proceed along. I have the next while free and spend it getting a hotel for my weekend reserved. As of midnight, I'm up to 63.5 hours and still have tomorrow AM's chunk of migration as well as a run back to the depot to drop off the divers hard drives. I think I'll do it in the morning rush. May as well get the most use out of the rental whip and the most time out of it. Back to Hornblower and desultory conversation.
10:20. Backup's done, the virtual server's already logged in. It takes me 15 seconds to enter the two commands to start the restore, and now I have nothing more to do for several hours. Store closes in about 40 minutes, I wonder if LP will show up? Time to check email, Jason from the tuning place was supposed to be getting back to me. I wonder if he sent mail to Nike or Gmail? Apparently not Gmail, because it's Thursday night and nada.
11:00-11:10: LP isn't here that I know of, but the night receiving crew is. I give up the freight desk (everything closes right out and because it's running on a Java applet on a virtual machine, it can be accessed from anywhere) and am let into the phone room. Mid-Rice Krispie, the night manager bursts in, freight manager in tow, and asks me who I am and tells me to get out of the store. I show him the memo I shouldn't have, tell him I spoke with a PIC to get redirected to the lady who called the LP guys, he says she doesn't run the store and she does, I tell him that she was the one I was directed to speak with and that she had made a copy of the memo. He never got shown it, despite him being in the store and right there when she made it. I sign the signin book for him, which seems to placate his anger somewhat, and manage to get him to give me a decent new pen and the code for the locked door back here. He walks away mumbling something and thanks me. I think he's going to go shout at the previous lady, which ought to be fun. Personally, if they kick me out of the store, I'll be making two calls. First to Chris, my two-levels-up boss, the night owl who will rip this guy a new one, second to the helpdesk, who will get level 3 or senior store staff up to call the store and rip this guy a new one. And I'll either stay there or go home. I don't even care. Back to work, by which I mean catching up on slashdot while the restore runs.
11:30: Even from in here I can hear the freight guys bellowing about SPA guns being down. I told the one guy who showed me the room. For their sake I hope this is done relatively soon. For my not-getting-taken-out-and-beaten sake I hope this doesn't count as my third strike. Ha ha.
12:02: Several seconds from being done, the restore halts and catches fire, metaphorically speaking. I call the helpdesk, they escalate, and I sit back to wait, and by wait I mean catch up on jalopnik.
1:15: Been on the phone for 40 minutes with level 3. The difference between backed-up files and non-backed-up filesets (one "this is in progress file" appears to have caused the error) means I have to run the restoration script again and the last segment is going to be running for another 30-40 minutes. If it fails again the helpdesk folks will copy the one damn file over in the first place and it'll be another 40-minute stint. My ear feels like a cauliflower and my fingers are hurting again.
1:45: It failed and bailed. Helpdesk gets a call. The analyst who helped last time is gone, so there's going to be quite the wait while the next poor sa....analyst...gets up to speed. I share the room with the freight guy who showed me the room for a bit. He tells me a way around the handhelds whereby they can still do their jobs, I write it down and counter with a little more information about the project and why I'm just sitting idle.
1:50: Helpdesk calls me back. Things look good, although he had to talk to the guy who's been bodging together this script for the past 8 years. Stupid, stupid error. As if to keep the overall level of suck constant, mobile broadband goes out. Still no email or deployment completion form (or sharepoint at all!) access.
2:15: Why isn't the wireless server working right? Oh, right, this was set up back when we had been told it was OK to put those cables in the 2810 switches instead of the 2610 switch. Three stores in a row have had problems here for me...and from the symptoms it's looking like 4 in a row.
3:50: Fixed. Old stuff deinstalled, mostly, and I'm gone. We still don't have servers up so I scribble stuff in a text file and GTFO. I've been paid, so it's home to do a little Newegging, fill out labor for this week, and I still have to get the drives back to the depot and get the rental car back before I can sleep--but I can't sleep too long, we've got a day trip on Friday and Saturday.
current mood:  accomplished
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| Monday, September 21st, 2009
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7:25 pm - A brief meditation on d([d(x)/t)]/t) or D(V/T) and its practical applications.
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Perceptual speed is effectively magnified by proximity to surface, and enhanced by other senses such as hearing and feel. A bumpy noisy low ride, straining and vibrating and feeling it's going to shake apart the harder you bury the needle, all other things being equal, feels a hell of a lot faster than something built for effortless cruising and dead silence and swaddled comfort, despite one being able to do perhaps 60+ MPH faster on the top end.
For those of you in older cars out there, you know what I'm talking about. Take an American luxobarge with a big V8, wind the tach to the devil's song of redline--preferably with authentic 70s steering, suspension, tires, and brakes, and you know that even cruising at highway speeds can be a terrifying exercise in control, and if you start heading for the ton, you're heading for trouble and every primitive monkey nerve knows it and thrills to it.
Those of you with fancy European whips? You can cruise on the Autobahn or your local freeway, handling the sweepers with no effort at comfortably over legal speeds, and never think much of it unless you see gumballs on your tail. You're pushing nothing.
Those of you on motorcycles, when your limits are 180 mph and nearly horizontal, I think I pity you the most. You've got such fast machines that to really explore the envelope not only pushes you to or beyond your limits as a driver, but you're out there in instant death / license loss territory when you do.
Me? Speed limiter at 112, last time I dynoed (about 90,000 hard miles ago) only 70 horses still making it to the pavement, soggy-soft front struts that I can't adjust, missing an end link still on the front swaybar, rear junkyard struts on their way out. Lousy rings, lousy seals, front and rear motor mounts with urethane probably coming out, sloppy CV axles again, but sticky tires, great springs, a shift kit, and gigantic swaybars, plus the breathing mods--my god, I have a ball just doing 10 mph hot with traffic on I-5. It's a little noisy inside, and I feel the road wonderfully (albeit a bit underdamped) but I stay awake and engaged in a way that a rental car (that could probably run all day at 130) hasn't yet come close to.
Old, very nicely noisy, head-turner, cheaper than you'd think, distinctive. I can't help but think it's got more in common than would seem initially apparent with, say, 
But then again, the Ferarri can get into higher gears all it likes, and it's still a red Ferarri. Distinctive. The Corolla? I can just get back in overdrive and purr on by any....'Imperial entanglements'...looking like just another working stiff in a high-schooler's old ricer. And that's what's kept me a licensed driver with a clean record.
Enough of that.
Krissi and I went to Malibu Raceway (www.maliburaceway.com) down in Beaverton today. They've got mini Indy karts that require a driver's license, driving helmet, and can hit an honest 60. Half-mile track, average lap time was 60 seconds, Krissi was turning 62s-64s and I'm proud to say that after I did a leisurely 72-second first lap (seriously, guys, LOOK at that track, the back straight after the checkered flags you have to come down nice and slow and stop at the start marker toward the top right to get your time recorded, so it's ALL a technical course) I was turning predictable 56 second (56.003 for the best) laps. The record's 50, but honestly I'm probably too big at 240 pounds to be able to be THAT tiny and zippy. Some more time on the track and I may be able to get down to 55, maybe 54. We were out there for probably an hour straight, must've done 40-50 laps total for $22 each and could've stayed another hour too, but...I have seven blisters that I know about, am dripping sweat, and sore. We were out there long enough that I was starting to lose focus and slow down, and the tires were so hot that I spent more time drifting corners than gripping them for the last couple laps. Not bad for somebody who fits so tightly in the kart that I had to reposition my hands every time I wanted to turn the wheel because my knees touched the outsides. It hurts to walk because my kneecaps were sandwiched against the chassis solidly, but I don't really care. Who needs a masseuse? I'll let G-forces give my muscles a beating any day.
Sure, we had to keep coming to a held stop at the staging line to let the little kids get far enough ahead of us (the kid carts are the same metal-frame ones you guys probably think of as 'normal' go-karts) so we wouldn't run over them, but I came close to lapping them at least twice. Sure, there's no straights to build up speed and no room to pass, so it's pretty much exclusively you versus your lap ghost, but...
I had an absolute ball. And I get to go to work tonight and spend a lot of time reading Hornblower--I owe you guys a conversion night tale, and I promise not to disappoint.
...Incidentally, the night I ripped the latest end link out, I was running like I've never run before or since, suicidally fast, trying to get away from something that wanted my life in no way I could define. Looking back on it, I'm sure that was my last coherent moment of sanity as my normal self in those bad months and Jez and I were trying our level best to get away from something inimical that was in the passenger seat for the entire run. We didn't make it away, obviously, and I nearly didn't make it out of the entire affair. But it's comforting to know that I've got so many people watching my back, even the four-wheeled ones.
Nobody gonna take my head, I got speed inside my brain
Nobody gonna steal my head now that I'm on the road again...
current mood:  jubilant
current music: Deep Purple - Highway Star
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1:43 am
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Good thing: Shredding an old Sentra in the curves. Catching up to another car going quite quickly through those curves much later at night.
Bad thing: Later in the night, realizing that the previous car that just went through those same curves was a cop Vic at Ludicrous Speed.
Good thing: Dropping enough speed and gaining enough gears to be thoroughly inoffensive and doing the recommended limit coming out of the sweeper.
Bad thing: Seeing his brake lights flicker repeatedly as he tried to figure out if me getting so much closer so quickly was an optical illusion or something ticketable.
Good thing: The gumball-free decision.
Tonight, I completed a fourfecta of food fail. I have now been to a KFC that was out of chicken, a Taco Bell out of tortillas, an Arbys devoid of roast beef, and now a Burger King doing broiler maintenance meaning they had no burgers. I reflexively quipped that that probably just made them a "King" for the night, a comment which provoked surprising hilarity.
Also let it be said that holding your dong with one hand while holding HIPAA-sensitive drives with the other is a strange, strange combination. The confluence of dicks with protected information is not one that usually arises.
I can dead-lift 300 pounds. Demonstrably and repeatedly. I feel a lot better about my minor spare tire and lack of truly visible arm muscle (although my legs are stupidly well toned). See, when you've got long arms and huge bone structure for leverage, being sinewy is more than enough to get the job done. I can also lift Z and Krissi as they're under the weight limit. It's entertaining and I may have to start weight-lifting by doing one-handed cat curls as a warmup, then moving up to computers, monitors, and finally the housemates.
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| Sunday, September 20th, 2009
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10:11 am
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For the record? 131.5 hours last pay period (up from the usual 80), with last week's expense report topping $600 by itself.
Although the buyer still hasn't contacted me again to pick up the damnBuick, despite several emails, I'm going to continue to regard that money as available to put the new engine in (still gotta email the PSI guys and talk with Chris) but as far as what to do with this overage, it's more than time to get a new computer. I'm a PC gamer, I always have been, and given that I have to pay for three people's living needs I no longer have the budget to upgrade that I once did, and this poor old thing is at the end of its useful life as a modern gaming machine and arguably has been for years. I may, once the data's moved off, ditch the water cooling system, put a gigantically beefy HSF on it, and relegate it to use for TV output--AKA music, movies, MAME (or whatever) and the like, because 2.something gigs of RAM and a 7800 GS video card and the first 64-bit processor AMD put out still isn't too shabby as a browser box and ought to absolutely ravage through something like MythTV.
The new rig that I've specced out? Quad-core I7, 6 gigs of RAM, overclocked GTX 295, 800-watt power supply, a FAST terabyte drive, Lian-Li HTPC case and (as a sort of crowning glory) I'm finally going to move away from the gigantic CRT and to a 24.5" LCD. Oh, and a Revolution mouse, with the free-spinning weighted flywheel for scrolling. I used one once and it was impressive enough to be a must-have. Good enough to get the job done for the next several years and be upgradedable to boot, like always, and I pay the premium for my godboxes. I'll deal with OS later--although it should be said that the color of my discs so far (95, 98, 98SE, XP, and the latest XP MCE) have all been shiny and gold, if you know what I mean. Windows 7 Ultimate is $399. Hmm.
Next 'toy' project: Making the IRS get off my back about back taxes for a certain sum that, to the uninitiated, could be paid off with that OT and expense report...but, dammit, there's no shortage of work and I'd like to actually spend some of MY money for MY comfort first for once.
Monday, if all goes right, is go-karting at a place where the karts hit 60 mph and you need a driver's license for--$25 buys two hours of track time, unlimited laps, average lap time is 60 seconds. I plan to thoroughly lose myself in speed and precision and try to unwind. (http://www.maliburaceway.com/)
Still need to touch base with Greg--I'm afraid that the falling house prices plus the cratering market out there in general is going to pull down the value of the house to the point where selling it won't even cover the loan on it. I guess my inheritance was free college and being brought up to understand and believe in Depression-era values, neither of which have helped me get ahead in this amoral world but at least let me go to sleep more or less satisfied with where I am in life at the moment. It's not much, call it a voluntary conduct challenge ALA Nethack, but (on the off-chance that I can still someday aspire to ~60K instead of temping for a bit over 30) knowing that I got here legitimately will be worth it. Back to work...
current mood:  exhausted
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| Saturday, September 19th, 2009
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9:49 pm
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| Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
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2:47 am
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I don't know whether it amuses or depresses me that the Duality is still dealing with matters which each of us are the most ill-equipped to resolve. A possibly worse aspect (if one pauses longer than I typically do) is that while the lessons are painful, they never seem to do any concrete good for the future except to mold our instinctual behaviours via simple remembered discomfort-avoidance. Arguably even beating that into our heads is a smashing success given that our general approach to running into an obstacle is to back up and charge it again, confident that it'll break before we will.
Nevertheless--it has been an equally hard lesson to learn to be able to sit back and--both for growth purposes and by request--NOT render material aid and comfort, at least as material as the strangely directed whims of Fate permit. Can I do it? Yes. Is it easy? Never. Do I anticipate it continuing to be heartrending? Yes. Does it matter to duty? The answer has always eventually been clear.
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| Sunday, September 13th, 2009
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9:47 pm
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| Saturday, September 12th, 2009
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4:05 am
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Item the first...18 hours of OT as of right now. No travel wankery wherein I am not in charge of my destiny (read: airplanes/airports/cabs) and therefore making less than min wage, but straight up $27/hr glory. I still have to return the car at 9 AM, a scant 5 hours away, so there'll be more.
Item the second...I get to drive my own car all next week and there should be some righteous mileage associated with it.
Item the third...the last payment for the Buick has been recieved, I am now waiting on the buyer to give me an address to send the title to so he can send transport for HIS DAMN FAILBOAT. My second lead overshoe (the first being, of course, The Girlfriend I Don't Discuss) is finally coming off and I feel light and floaty and liberated and like I have a chance to recover my life.
Item the fourth...this means the 7AGE engine I've had somewhat miraculously built is FINALLY GOING IN THE DAMN COROLLA. Throttle bodies and all. And new shocks. And taxes are going to start being paid off with the extra labor fruit.
Item the fifth, while certain of my friends become even more adorable when they're drunk off their asses, I feel as if I still retain some bragging rights to wackyland for nearly laughing myself off the road (while cold sober) at the phrase "your MOM's ten minutes long" and convincing myself utterly that Jay Leno is Freakazoid. (He is!) What's it take? Just the right hour of the day, the right amount of exhaustion, and a little caffiene for a spark. Yes, it's quite repeatable.
current mood: cheerful
current music: Fans
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| Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
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4:42 pm
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There are times I do love my job.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=camas,+wa&daddr=tillamook,+or+to:44.304196,-124.098816+to:springfield,+or+to:camas,+wa&hl=en&geocode=&mra=dpe&mrcr=1&mrsp=2&sz=9&via=2&sll=44.783785,-123.667603&sspn=1.701833,3.348083&ie=UTF8&ll=44.818864,-122.835388&spn=1.700799,3.348083&z=9
Granted, not in my own car (and it's business, not pleasure, when I'm not in a car with a personality) but it was still a rather nice drive to get paid for making.
Tonight?
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=camas,+wa&daddr=bend,+or+to:45.348285,-121.124268+to:camas,+wa&hl=en&geocode=&mra=dpe&mrcr=1&mrsp=2&sz=9&via=2&sll=44.885066,-121.116028&sspn=1.698845,3.348083&ie=UTF8&z=9
Tomorrow?
Just out to the Dalles on 84, although it's still a stunningly pretty drive down the Columbia River gorge.
What will I be doing while I'm there? Oh, typing a few console commands, letting the backups do their thing--sitting and talking with friends and family on AIM and, out of the 4+ hours I'm there, only actually having to go grunt and lift things and unwire things for maybe 30 minutes total out of the night.
Friday? Seattle, alas that's one where I'll have to do real work. Still, though, given I get paid $18/hr for being a wheelman and RPing (and it works out to $30+/hr when I drive my own car), I can live with this.
current mood:  content
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| Sunday, September 6th, 2009
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8:02 pm
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I'm not sure if it's that I smell like gasoline or now that /everything/ smells like gasoline thanks to an open porch door and an undumpable half-gallon sitting out there to evaporate away. All I do know is that I'd better not start tripping balls from dead smashed dino juice.
current music: Kashim - Al-Naafijsh (The Soul)
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7:57 pm - An Ode to the Younger Woman.
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A third the age.
Half the weight.
Half the size.
Can take so much more crammed savagely in.
Begs to be used roughly.
Never complains.
Trivially easy to turn on.
Has never said no.
At her best when others are watching.
Doesn't mind a crowd...but saves the best moves for in private.
Swallows everything I can give her.
Anybody can have a go but she'll only come alive for me.
So much pep she'll eagerly do something welcome for a stranger at the side of the road in public--but only with my permission.
Nice curves.
Goes out of her way to touch every part of every other set of horizontal pretty curves she sees to please herself and to please me.
You want background? I was going to move the Riviera to the mother-in-law's place, due to having a buyer in the next couple weeks and the landlord not giving me a couple weeks. Out of gas, impossible to fill (thank you, below-bumper gas cap and shorty can spout) and then the battery died when I was trying to restart the thing. Damn bastard is determined to stay here and be my one remaining albatross. The younger woman here is of course Jez the Corolla.
I think it's funnier without background, though.
current mood: Redolent of high-test
current music: BRUCE DICKINSON - JUDAS PRIEST - Hell On Wheels
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