http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013229&l=070da&id=1073245885

The roomies busted their asses to get the house in order (I figured I contributed maybe 9-10% to the effort). Web has a job. I've had some dates with ladies 30+, but nothing brewing of yet (and my friend in Lakeland has taken a steady). Obama's President. Claudia's effectively in charge at her office. Ben starts his trip North in a few days to "sow his oats" (good timing too: several at work have gotten the ax or have a foot out the door). A new month begins: hopefully it will be a good one.

P.S. I update my status more frequently on my Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1073245885&ref=profile

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=977663&page=2

At least this will get some newer stuff at work operational for now.

1. Some weeks ago, Claudia & I's toilet begins to fail: it randomly tries to overflow.
2. Around the 1st of the month, I start conversing with "Fer," a geek chic in Lakeland.
3. I go on a date with Fer on the 3rd, resulting in an overnight stay.
4. I come home to use the toilet and then go to work. 3 hours later, Claudia gets a call from Web that the house is half-way flooded.
5. The roomies clean up what they can before I get out of work and join in. The septic tank's pumped. Both toilets are replaced. The wood panel flooring is removed. Thank goodness it wasn't poo water.
6. I go to Goldstar for part of a week and overhaul the wireless there in the process. Meanwhile the roomies find other rooms or camp out here. Plans are done up to redecorate and account for the damage that was done. Among these plans, I will get my own bed again since moving in here.
7. The 10th or the 11th, I go install extra memory at the co-location site for work to help the mail server. Around this time I also build a new server for Joe: now his work stuff will be separate from house crap. I also retrofit my laptop to serve as my work computer.
8. The 12th, I go visit Fer after work for another overnight visit: I'm supposed to help the roomies load up a storage pod so painting and tiling can be done.
9. The 13th, the mail/Intranet server suffers memory corruption: the new chips failed. I piecemeal helping the roomies as I mitigate the work crisis.
10. Overnight 13th & 14th: I replace the defective memory in the work server and replace the mixed Linux/virtual Windows setup with Server 2008.
11. The 15th - 19th: work server stabilized; work with Ben & Charlie to rebuild or plan out work subsystems.
12. The 17th - 20th: the roomies & I stay overnight at the Westgate Palace. Trying to get good wireless there and using my laptop more means tweaking it to a very useful state & replacing my wireless adapter (wish I had that at Goldstar). Scott is thrown a surprise b-day party by the other roomies, and begins dating a woman from OKCupid (I had gotten him on there recently).
13. Tonight we're beginning a stay at a Courtyard-Marriott while renovations are completed: we may get the rooms here in a usable state by Christmas Eve.

It has been a long three weeks. (flush)

I've encountered this before, but actually reached a human this time. I am amused.

I don't know how history would've played out without cheap electronic communication: something only available since the 1980s. Here's a very simple layout of how we got to this point...

1. Internet and dial-up services become readily available. People sign-up for email and stock trading.
2. Lines get faster and companies establish virtually. Investors pump too much into the virtual market and create the dot-com bubble.
3. It becomes cheaper to hire some workers overseas than in home countries: outsourcing increases.
4. Entertainment online becomes more readily available: people have so many options they aren't stuck watching news or culture they don't like. Accelerate trends to create communities based on ideology (i.e. Right-wing radio/books/blogs vs Left-wing counter-responses).
5. E-mail becomes an easy means of scamming people, as well as disseminating myths (chain letters; hoaxes; rumors).
6. Stock-trading becomes easier than it ever has been: more people become day-traders and derive wealth from "not working." Electronic networks also enable more banks to interconnect and make deals not otherwise possible in an earlier time. Some trading and deals are made automatically by computer.
7. An easily amused, misinformed, overworked population cedes political and economic power to those that promise relief from their otherwise miserable lives.
8. The economic and political sectors undergo massive upheaval as the global system shakes out the new inputs and outputs.

btw, we're at step 8.

1. Obama won: woot!
2. Been busy with work: either fixing bad crap, or breaking things on accident and fixing those.
3. Therapist has said for the 3rd month in a row to find a new job. Also said I'm a "visionary."
4. Lich King came out for WoW. I'm level 71 now; Claudia's at 73.
5. Got to play putt putt and eat pizza with a nice geek chic: would enjoy having her come hang out with me and the roomies.
6. Claudia says I need to find a goal in life: I should write about stuff I know, and I keep kicking around an idea for a book or website on networking. Still mulling over how to do it.
7. My Mom and brother think they found our long-lost stepbrother: I actually put myself on Myspace again to say hello, but he's ignoring me. (shrugs)

Part of me wishes I'd get fired, just so I'd be able to do something else with my life. If I spend all my energy fixing problems and making new ones, what good am I accomplishing? As for the family situation, my normal detachment from the other folks seems justified, considering how spread out and distracted everyone is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_4

There are many things good or bad about this day on the calendar. Give it something else to record. Something awesome.

AP news story out this morning that Obama has an aunt "living illegally" and contributing to his campaign from Boston. Dig deeper into the story, and it apparently came up as part of an investigative series by one of Murdoch's big papers, the Times of London.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iVVj5SjAgqpjIbqdmcOB74FtqRIAD94669900
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5042571.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5042666.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5058182.ece

(shakes head) I'm not sure how long they were sitting on this one, but its obviously meant to look bad.

Java 1.6 R10 is out. Its supposed to end the practice of leaving multiple copies of Java on your computer.

1. Get JavaRA and use it to nuke your old versions.
http://raproducts.org/javara.html

2. Grab the new version from FileHippo
http://www.filehippo.com/download_java_runtime/

I seem to have been involved in an odd controversy of late. My landlord Joe, is long-time friends with, and a computer guy for, Barbara and Wade West: the former a local reporter; the latter an auctioneer and (mostly) GOP political consultant. Joe's done stuff with Barbara over the years, and Wade got a job for Joe's wife: I've met Wade, but not Barbara; they seem okay people.

Enter the political crap going on. Joe got very excited the other day because of an interview Barbara did with Joe Biden. Claudia & I watched it, and some of her other interviews: we weren't amused. Political reporting is a dime a dozen, but when the reporter quotes Karl Marx to imply Biden and Obama are Socialists/Marxists, that raises an eyebrow. The right-wing blogs have picked up on the interview for her "toughness" with the Dems. Keith Olbermann picked up the story on Monday: he wasn't thrilled. Stephen Colbert probably handled the situation best last night: he played the Marxist comment... and followed it up with an interview with Brian Moore, the real Socialist Party candidate for President.

Meanwhile, a "wiki war" has erupted on Wikipedia. Joe and Wade started doing damage control on Barbara's article to remove anything they thought was negative or slanderous. I've had to educate Joe on how to use Wiki properly, and I even made an article for his non-profit that he's been bugging me about forever: especially being that people were getting info on Wade from the Solgames page; Wade happens to be the head of the Board of Directors (along with some University Club friends). I'm not sure what will come of all of it: at this point, I've grown weary of trying to control the chaos, and letting the admins duke it out.

6 more days until the election. I hope this crap passes.

http://www.pool.ntp.org/use.html

I have to keep the systems at work and the servers up-to-date. The NTP pool, as well as an NTP daemon I can use to seed the corp systems, helps immensely.

http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/lcddata.html?ticker=PLA&fq=D&ezd=1Y&index=5

News is talking about Hefner losing a gal, so I wikied up on him and his daughter. Didn't know Playboy was publicly traded. Funny enough, the stock's lost 2/3rds of its value in the last year. When even porn isn't selling, you know the economy sucks.

Over the last few days, I've gotten some Linux hacking done, cleaned up a good chunk of the office, and made some new friends on Stumble. I get to see the doc in the morning. Roomies get to go to California for Blizzcon on Thursday: I get to wake up at 5AM to take them up to the airport! Haha... snore...

As for the observation, a New York Times page was advertising "how I saved my marriage." It links to a book by a gal that writes on how to keep the guy around. How many women have this problem? Based on my experience, guys are quite disposable and easily replaced: usually because we become boring, safe, etc. I found a cartoon on that topic by chance.

http://www.havetherelationshipyouwant.com/?s=12942
http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1027

Dad unloaded on me for some crap going on at home, and Liz dumped me ("better off as friends"). Hopefully Dad will be better. As for Liz, she's still a good person: I'm just not her type it seems. Meh.

At least I got a 13 hr day in today. Mark better stop complaining about his computer being slow, lol.

*UPDATE 10-1-2008: Lori must have seen this, because she emailed me; she seemed to be bragging about dating a Catholic guy that affirms her worldview. I'll play that card...

"Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves."

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/phil/2.html

ATE0M1Q0V0X4&C1&D2&K1&N0&U0

Came up with this for a US Robotic 56K EXT modem we use at the work hotel for credit cards. Anyone know what board I can post it to for saving some other admin headache?

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/wamu-fails-sold-jp-morgan/story.aspx?guid={42316B59-4AB5-406B-808E-931513D5763C}&dist=msr_6

It would seem that WaMu was declared dead, fire-saled to JPMorgan-Chase, and operations appear normal, save the name. Curious to see how this works out...

P.S. The wiki article for my new banking overlords...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPMorgan_Chase

http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/09/23/003209.shtml
http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/08/18/34FE-it-under-pressure_1.html

Once upon a time at work, IT was a 5-man crew. Now my boss telecommutes 3-4 days a week from another city, and my co-worker is working part-time at a kiosk. I'm not having to pull 50 hr weeks yet, but I'm definitely behind on updating documentation, juggling multiple projects, and I hate to think of what would happen if I got sidelined right now. And this at a time when two weeks ago, my friends and therapist told me to look for another job to ease the stress. (shakes head) I'm wondering what other people have done in my shoes.

I've setup Google Chrome for a few people now, and the following should be enough to get it and most websites running...

http://www.filehippo.com/download_google_chrome/
http://www.filehippo.com/download_flashplayer_firefox/ (9.0.124 is known-good; 10RC should work)
http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/ea/6u10/6u10rcDownload.jsp#6u10JREs (online or offline installation)

Also, for "easter eggs" and features in Google Chrome...
http://hostintruder.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/google-chrome-superpower-browser/

And my co-worker Will found this for Google Bookmarks support...
http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?answer=100215&topic=14680