November 4, 2008

Ker-CHUNK! Yes, I pulled the lever.

You know, the lever. To vote. As in the ancient pea green voting
machine with the curtain and aura of strangeness from watching your
parents vote. Because New York is the only state still lame enough to
be using 1960's tech for elections.

Technically... there are electronic machines available. But they are
not fully certified by the county yet, so there is one per polling
station for disabled use. And as soon as they are fully certified
they'll be put into real use. Oh. Wait. Scratch that. The company that
is supposed to do the certification lost THEIR certification. I guess
I'll be trying to vote down Hillary using the level again next time. :<

They've moved my polling place the last three times. I have a theory
that it isn't Creative Voting Regions, but that they are running out of
machines to cannibalize for parts to keep the others working.

So, yeah. I voted. Not only did I vote, I got to do it "Old School".
And by the way: They really do still go Ker-CHUNK!

Posted by paul at 8:11 AM | Comments (0)

February 20, 2007

It has returned.

It has been months since the Great Server Update, where I basically re-installed EVERYTHING from scratch. But the little bloggies have not been a priority. Well, someone asked. So it took me another week. :>

Consider this a test. Is it nifty?

Posted by paul at 11:07 PM | Comments (0)

April 17, 2006

Yet another lame quiz

Interesting... for a guy that was once told that he somehow had NO "aura" over a decade later this lame quiz comes up with two choices that seem to cancel each other out. Heh. Not that I put any stock in it or anything.

The confused "looker" at the time said that I either didn't have one or it was invisible / blocking. Me, I like to think my Guardian Angel said "Homey don't play dat!" and shut the port down. :>


Your aura colours are overlapped. Your most likely colours are:

Red.

Reds are cowboys. They are physical, bold, lusty, rugged, realistic, tactile, literal and confident. They can be rough around the edges.

Crystal.

Crystals are healers. They are private, spiritual, readers, socially awkward, rehearsed, shy, retiring, proper, misunderstood and unappreciated. They can seem fragile.

Find out what colour your aura is.


Crystal? Well, I guess crystals do have powers. You can make a decent clock out of one. A little cutting and polishing and you have a mirror or window without having to make perfect glass; like they did in reliquaries so you can see the bits inside.

But like I said, they cancel each other other. Only good enough for a "heh", no more.

Posted by paul at 10:49 AM | Comments (0)

November 17, 2005

And so it begins...

I have officially just witnessed the first snowflakes of the season. A couple of flakes floating down from the steely skies. Not even enough to cause a dusting or be called a flurry. As my abode is JUST south of the lake effect snow line and I am working right ON that self-same line... Mel may or may not see any.

Hurm... perhaps I will wind up not raking the leaves this year after all! Is it my fault that it's been too wet since they really started falling to try and collect them? I think not!

Posted by paul at 1:01 PM | Comments (1)

September 12, 2005

Will wonders never cease?

It was a weekend of MUCH work and even a couple milestones!

Lets start with Saturday. Poor Mel was mostly abandoned with the children for most of the day. I grunted up at 09:00, quietly took some work clothes and tip-toed down the creaky stairs. Down there I hastily dressed, used the bathroom and started down into the basement to WORK.


The first task of the day was two-fold. Run laundry and get the three stacks of server equipment installed into the server rack. I had purchased a used server rack for $25, but a full-sized rack won't fit in the basement. It would have been close, the rafters are almost 7' from the floor. But my chosen spot has a (now) unused steam pipe running over it. "So cut it down!" you may say, but that's a lot more effort than I can spend this year. It has a skin of cloth covering a layer of asbestos, so that will have to wait for another season.


So I just start moving things around when I hear some rythmic tapping over my head. BUSTED! I was only up for 40 minutes (including bathroom time) before Mel and the smallest child came down. *sigh*


Anyway, to cut it shorter, I have successfully migrated ALL of the server you are reading this site onto the rack. I cut some "rails" to put the server and drive cage on, put in a shelf for the dual UPS's and stuck the monitor and keyboard on top of the server for now. It's probably too high for my wife, but it's a LOT of stuff to pack into a small space. Thus I was able to move out the tiny little 19U rack and the small pile of bricks it was sitting on out of that corner. I was also able to "neatly" route and label all of the power cables.


WHY did I do all of this right now? Two major worries.




After all of that I have also framed in and hung a breaker panel in the attic. No, I haven't wired any power or anything into there. That will come. Soon.


Why run power to the attic? Because I need to re-power the second floor. Apparently under each light fixture is a ball of 70yr-old wire. I've seen 4 lines running into the space under a light. With no box, just a brace to hang the light off of.


But why now? Because I desperately need to insulate the attic. We had some horrible gas bills last winter, and I have to fix that. And the only real way to re-wire the second floor... is up from the attic. Since I am already going to


JUST so that I can put in the insulation, I might as well run the new SAFER wiring since the ceiling and walls are going to be exposed. It's like an episode of Monster House or This Old House. Every time I look behind a wall or fixture I find MORE things to fix!



And now for the Good News! The oldest one has GONE TO SLEEP BY HERSELF TWO DAYS IN A ROW! As in, I tuck her in, turn around and LEAVE. While she is STILL AWAKE! I'm in shock! Putting her to bed means I lay down beside her until one or both of us is unconsious. AMAZING! Will this continue? Could the specter of free time truely be approaching? We shall see!

Posted by paul at 9:05 AM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2005

Was this month wasted?

Well, it all over, except for the driving. The entire family, except for me, trucked themselves over to a grandparent's house to hang around for a month. The stated major reason was to give me time to do some major construction on the house.


Major construction without children getting into dangerous situations, or breathing in any foul things that I have to use. A laudable thing. So... what have I gotten done with my time?

Instead of listing ALL of the things that were not touched at all (The wish list is rather large) let's just go over the things I DID do.




All-in-all, I'm tired. Nothing is completely done. I am very tired. And tomorrow at "0-dark-thirty" I drive 18 hours to pick everyone up again. Did I mention I was tired?

Posted by moochie at 9:59 AM | Comments (0)

May 31, 2005

Weekend of Work

Memorial day weekend. The fabled 3-day weekend! What did I do this weekend?

Work. Hard.

Saturday

But, I DID have help. My father, brother and significant other all showed up, ready and roaring to get down to business. Luckily, I had two projects lined up to wear down all of that entheusiasm. Replace the ceiling in the nursury, re-wire the room and ready it for a ceiling fan. And take down the huge pine tree looming over the house that lost it's top in a storm who knows how long ago.

My plans were to do the nursery first, since that's the job I most want done and figured would take the longest. The current ceiling is stretched CANVAS. Yes, you read that right, CANVAS.. From tears in the canvas in another room I suspected a layer of some kind of paper/plyboard with wooden slats holding it to, possibly, the rafters. So I bought $30 of firring strips (1x3 sticks) to nail up and provide a base to staple the ceiling to. But nope, my Father decided that the tree needs to come down first.

And so, 10am on Saturday morning we begain. Needless to say, I learned a plethora of new things from the ex-lumberjack. First we tied some truck load webbing around my waist. This gave something trustworthy to tie myself to the tree with. Then he tied a light rope to that, just for me to carry it up the tree. Using a ladder I gained access to the lower branches, then up the branches to the top of three, about 30' up and higher than the roof of the house.

First I tied myself to the tree. Then I untied the light rope, looped it around a branch and sent the end back down. My brother then used it to send up an electric chain saw (lighter than the gas model also waiting below) with a heavier rope, a power cord and a short length of rope. The short length was to tie the chainsaw to the tree, dropping stuff is considered a Bad Thing. The Power cord was tied to the chainsaw. And the heavy rope was looped over the top of the tree and sent back down.

There was no need to try and "top" the tree, it had already lost it's top third-to-half in a storm long before I had bought the house. I should do some tree-ring counts and figure out how long ago it was. But I did need to clear out some branches so that I could see what I was doing. A couple of cuts, and it was time to begin in earnest.

The first several branches did as you'd expect them to. I tied the heavy rope to each one so that the ground guys could pull if needed. Then I attempted to cut the branch down, but it would usually split. Then when I succeeded in cutting it free, it would get caught on it's way down. As it's not worth fighting each branch this way, I was sent back down to the lowest branches.

I untied the chainsaw from the tree, and let it dangle on the light rope. My brother tieing that line off down below to keep it airborn. Then I untied myself, and back down I went. I re-tied myself, caught the chainsaw lowered back down to me and started the positioning dance.

Positioning Dance

The Positioning Dance is where I go from branch to branch based on where I can safely reach each branch below me. Add to that coaching from my Father as to where it ACTUALLY is safe to cut said branch. Note that this is more subtle than simply "Don't cut the branch you are standing on, dummy!".



Basically, then just work your way up the tree, taking out all of the branches. I did this, while taking care of any branches that got stuck on the ladder-pieces I left below me.

Finally, we make it to the top again. Now are some really tricky branches, ones that are hanging OVER the house. Now it's time to use the heavy rope again. Tie the rope to the branch, and cut it slowly, waiting for it to start to drop. Stop then, and let the branch lower away from the house, so that you can finish the job, having it drop right where you want it.

This is where the tree tried to get me. One big branch landed on the roof after getting cut, and is threatening a couple of exhaust pipes. I grab it and start pulling it straight off of roof towards me. The branch is heavier than it looks. Much heavier. I have it lifted up from below me when the end slips off the roof. The end I am holding, up over my head, then falls, pivoting off of the truck and attempts a sizzor action on my head and arm as it falls. This produces an immediate *WHAM!* and *SCRRRRRRAPE!*. I am literally stunned for a couple of seconds, but I am OK. Damage is a whale of a bruise on one arm and some light scrapeage behind one ear and some ugly swelling that went away overnight. Branch is down, get back to work.

A couple more branches and it is time to come down! Lower everything down, and position the heavy rope at the top of the tree for pulling. Then come on down.

it is now time for the actual cut-down. Dad gets to do the honors, while the rest of us position ourselves for pulling. You don't actually pull the tree down. The guy on the chainsaw makes a notch in the direction you want the tree to fall, then makes the real cut on the opposite side. He also has the job of letting the pullers know when the tree is starting to think about moving. This is the Critical Moment. There is now way you can hope to direct something that huge when it is falling. BUT there are a few short moments when the tree is starting to break free when you can DIRECT it's fall. Once the tree actually starts to fall just drop the rope, your job is done. When the man at the chainsaw hears the tree start to snap, he nods to the rest of us, that's the signal to start pulling. The tree will teeter for a tiny moment, that's the only chance you have to direct it. We pull, Dad continues cutting, the tree actually starts to move. It's all over except for the *thud*. Watching my father take that tree down was like watching an artist. EXACTLY where we wanted it.

All that was left to do is clear the brush away and cut enough of the trunk away so that we could get the vehicles out of the driveway. This is also the point at which I discovered that the chain in the chainsaw needs to be replaced. Oh well.




Now to the ceiling!

First step: Tear down the cloth. And what do we find above it??? Lath! As in "Plaster and lath", but without the plaster. Apparently there was a leak in the roof that destroyed the prior plaster. So they took down the plaster and covered it with the fabric.

This is a Good Thing. It means that we won't have to do anything special to attach the new ceiling. But the electrical... that's a different story, indeed.

I was hoping that the electrical was simple, just pull the old stuff out while taping the new wire to the old. No way. There was a knassty/scarey bundle of wires in the tiny little light box. Apparently the entire second story is on the same circuit as the basement and the drier. And the entire second floor routes THROUGH that same, said tiny little box. Other than starting the GREAT 2nd Story Wire-out earlier than planned, we scrapped that idea. Instead we put in a nice, LARGE ceiling box. It is big enought to hold all of that ugly wiring, is notched into a joist AND is held in with 4 screws. That box literally held up my father (He laughed when I was concerned with hanging off of a box attached to that ugly ball of wiring.) Bottom line, there is a nice and STRONG ceiling box with a new pair of wires ready to attach a ceiling fan to. It is currently occupied with a $2 bare bulb fixture. The two wall sconces have been removed persuant to having the walls redone.

As for the ceiling proper... there's nothing to say. It went up as slick as could be. Joe was worried about any possible bubbling or such by the old ceiling. But my father has us do a stepped blocking of the tiles, thus giving it more strength and fewer straight lines for critical eyes to find flaws in.




Sunday.

With everything done that I wanted done we went to Mass, had lunch, and I sent the whole gang home. Thanks for the help! Enjoy the holiday! I did the same, namely NOTHING, the rest of the day.




Monday.

Time to WORK again. I spent the entire day cleaning up the pine tree and friends. The small branches and brush made a pile 8' high and 15' wide by the street. Luckily my high city taxes includes brush and leave pickups once a month. The next pickup is in a week. They had better empty the truck before hitting my street. :>

I also sawed down all of the branches into fireplace-sized logs and stacked everything into a couple of woodpiles behind the garage/workshop. I even moved the tiny bundle of wood I had stacked elsewhere to the larger piles. And to top it off I split 3 logs, again into fireplace-sized chunks. Just 12 more of those suckers to do... and almost every one has knots in them. That and the 15' section of tree that's still lying there.

I basically worked until I collapsed. After resting for a couple of hours I did a little server maintenance. Put in the tape drive, closed up the case, applied any new patches that've come out. And I also mostly finished getting the old 1600 server ready to sell at a local Ham Fest.




All told, a busy weekend. No, the nursery isn't finished yet. I still have to replace a broken window, remove wallpaper and prep the room for paint. My father also put a bug in my ear about the plaster... Knock out all of the plaster, THEN I could run new electric AND insulate the outside wall... Hurm... maybe JUST that one wall...




Explicit.

Posted by moochie at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)