Monday, June 30, 2003

Beach Party 2003 - Aftermath

Well, we had great grilled chicken, for those of you hanging in suspense. But Thursday was a lot of bumming around time. This house we were staying in was so great, we never wanted to leave, and since the weather was really hot and humid in the daytime, we stayed in a lot, or hung by the pool. Sadly, April had to leave us Friday morning, but she was going to see some friends in South Carolina. It's a good thing she likes driving, because it was a 6-8 hour trip to see them, then another 12 - 18 hour trip to drive back to Ohio. We missed April. She's so smart and junk. Of course, we're seeing her Friday at CastleCon, because she's insane and driving back from Ohio to Reston. Dang. She's going to need a butt donut if she keeps this up. I think she's doing tech and music for the Ballroom.

Thursday night also brought Roberta, but Anne was a flake and never showed all weekend. Bummer. Roberta cooked a really great meal Friday night, but I was already bummed we only had one more day left. I slept a lot, and swam in the pool. I took the dogs to the beach again, hoping Ahfu could get Widget interested in digging for smells, while Widget could help get Ahfu less afraid of the surf. No way. Ahfu nearly buried Widget, and I found out that the woolly properties of Widget's fur also has water repelling properties; while his feet and legs got soaked into hairy little sticks, the rest of his coat stayed dry, even when he got washed ashore by a wave. Just as well. When we shampoo him, he looks like an angry Chihuahua covered with wet hairy oatmeal. It takes soap to break down the water repellent in his wool. Widget did get to see a toad, which freaked him out. He couldn't figure out if he wanted to chase it or run away in terror. So he kind of sniffed it for a while, then gave up.

Saturday we went out gift shopping, and while we didn't get all that much (after a while, there's not a whole lot one can buy anymore from Hatteras), I got some nifty toys. One of them was a Wizmo, a toy I used to have years ago when Hot Wheels made one. I also got two cool VW Beetle toys. Christine got some hysterical coasters and "Bitch Body Spray." She also went to a store called "Try My Nuts," which is a theme off Hatteras, it seems, the double entendre. Whether it's "Dirty Dicks Crab House" or just some place that sells "Johnson's Sex Wax for Your Board," you are sure to see something that could be naughty to those with even a barest hint of a dirty mind. One day, I am sure they'll cross over the ribaldry, and go straight for the jugular with titles like "Penis and Vagina with Unrestricted Orgy Sex and Vulgar Nudity Bar and Grill." One I'd like to see: "Insultingly Erotic Laundromat."

Then we had a great pizza dinner from a pizza place that also doubled as a bakery ("You want a cake with that pizza?"), and watched Brad set off (legal) fireworks. I spent most of the evening packing and getting reading for the day I dread most:

The Day of Departure.

What I wouldn't give to avoid this day. I woke up with a migraine because I didn't sleep so well. Then I had to sweep the floors, help clean up the kitchen, clean out our room, wrangle the boys to help carry stuff down to the van, then pack the van, and run up and down four flights of stairs in humid, oppressing heat, until my migraine, lack of sleep, and exhaustion finally culminated in blacking out on the drive back, which was just as well, it made the trip shorter. Part of the problem was the lack of vehicles. On the way up, we had Brad, Sara, and Bandit in Brad's car, April in her car, and the rest of us in the van. April left early, Roberta left early, and Anne never showed, so we had to pack everything in the van and Brad's car.

We lost the directions, got horribly lost in Norfolk/Portsmouth 464/664/64 interchange, but then Sara (the wise) bought a map at a 7-11, which helped tremendously. Go Sara! I have never used a map because of two stupid reasons. One, I usually travel with someone who hates them or doesn't trust them, or two, the map is wrong, which re-enforced the first part. So it was a great relief that the $3.95 map Sara bought was not only correct, but got us un-lost and on the right track. My faith in maps restored, I was hit by enlightenment that revealed most of my past in maps is not from published, well-known maps, like ADC or AAA, but something someone scribbled as directions that was not all correct. I used to have a friend who was so bad at giving directions, that those who knew him never asked, and those that didn't know him would never find any party he gave directions to. "Oh, wait, you can't turn left there, can you?" and "There are FOUR stoplights between here and there?" Feh.

Another problem is around DC (I don't know if it's just us or other major cities), streets, turns, and directions are just plain not logical. Those of in small towns only have a few roads, but around here, where many small towns spread out and merged into one big sprawling complex, street logic is worthless. Some towns have one way roads that literally, if you follow them, you will never escape an eventual circle (I'm looking at you, Old Town Alexandria!) until you disobey one or shortcut through a gas station and/or parking lot.

Posted by Punkie @ 03:08 PM EST [Link]

Wednesday, June 25, 2003

Hatteras Beach Trip 2003 - The Trip So Far...

I wish this had been able to be updated all week, bit sadly, I am forced to do this as one massive dump because indescribably, no one could find the phone cord that went with this laptop, even though my wife uses it for work all the time, it had just been used, and we had a thorough search of the house. Not only that, but any phone cord I could find was either to small (less than a foot in length) or attached to other computers we had, and somehow had managed to snake under heavy desks so that to extract the phone cord, massive movement of boxes and furniture would have to take place, which, by the time we discovered the laptop phone cord was missing, we didn't have time for such a huge coordinated effort. Now, the irony of this is I build wardialers for a living. At work I have more pre-cut phone cord in assorted lengths that anyone but a thieving Kender* would know what to do with. In fact, when I had wardialers at home, some of it got left behind because phone cord for our group is like those metal with paper twisty-ties: you always have too many, but you don't want to throw them away. But those were missing as well. It was like gnomes went through my house and took all the available phone cords we had. It must be, because the phone cord that we have for this laptop is incredibly long, so even when bundled up, it takes up an enormous amount of space. How could it stay hidden? I am mad because my daily entries are hindered by a mere $5 cord, which is often the story of my life. I might have to go to the mainland at some point and find one, because the phones in this beach house all have "proprietary wires" hooked up to them. There's a computer downstairs, and a fax machine, so maybe I'll find wire there I can use. I sure hope so.

Anyway, the beach trip is going fine, which is the important part.

On Friday, we started the mad packing. I had already packed most of my stuff, because being a guy, I don't have to pack much. Women really get the shaft sometimes. It takes them longer to pack because they have so many extra things, like makeup, beauty supplies, and odd clothing. My clothing? Four parts: shirts, pants, socks, and underwear. Sometimes subdivided into "dress shirts" and so on (which I forgot to pack, but that hasn't really hindered us). Any women? They have stockings, hair things, several pairs of shoes, and dozens of other things to worry about. Christine packs less than most women, but she still has to worry about scrunchies, hairbands, hair clips, makeup, cleansers, and stuff. My stuff for a week packs into a small duffel bag, hers fills two suitcases. It also takes longer for them to go to the bathroom, which was illustrated during our rest stops: lines to the women's bathrooms were long, while the men's didn't even have them at all. Men have this luxury of "dump and go," while women do not have that luxury. This year, we were smart, and bought a lot of stuff the week before, and it was already packed: liquor, sundries, snacks, and assorted equipment.

By Saturday, we had gotten most of our stuff packed, and people started to arrive. Sara had been with us since the night before, because she went with Christine to see our friend Anne's boyfriend's band play in Baltimore. I finalized a lot of stuff, but a lot of "pre-trip house prep" was unnecessary, because Rogue is staying at our house while we're gone. My only regret is that in that last 45 days, it had rained 37 of them, and I couldn't even get to mow the lawn. My lawn is long and shaggy. Now I will be gone for a week, and I'll probably come home to a Savannah grassland in my yards. Rogue had already left to be with some friends that weekend, so the guest room was free, although there was a lot of Rogue's voodoo stuff lying about. Brad was the next to arrive, with his dog, Bandit. Bandit... is huge. I knew that, but knowing that a purebred Saint Bernard is huge and then actually SEEING it are two different things. Luckily, Bandit, like Brad, is very laid back and gentle, but I am glad I only read Steven King's "Cujo," and never saw it on the screen. He's loud, and one thing you have to realize with dogs this size is they are loud doing everything: walking, breathing, snoring. They can't help it, of course, and Bandit's sweet personalty and calm demeanor have won him over with us, anyway. Later on, April made it, from driving all the way from Ohio. A seven hour drive. Add to that the additional six hour she was about to make to Hatteras the next day. Finally, after talking about driving out the next day, we all went to sleep.

Sunday, we got up early, and left late. We always are late. We planned to leave 7:30 - 8:00am, but we left shortly before 9:00. We did have a time limit, we had to get to the rental office before they closed at 4:00pm. So we drove. And drove. And drove. Each year, the trip seems shorter for some reason, but it's still a long drive. We had rented a van, a Chrysler Mini-van of some kind, but the cargo space was a lot less, so Sara ended up riding with Brad and Bandit, April drove in her own car, and Christine, CR, Dominic, Ahfu, Widget, and I were in the van, with stuff packed from floor to ceiling. The trip was long and uneventful. Widget, despite vet-recommended Dramamine, got car sick anyway, and drooled heavily as he always does when he gets car sick. CR and Dominic played on their new Nintendo Gameboy Advance SP and Pokemon Sapphire. Christine and I played music or talked, but we got to play Weird Al's Latest album, "Poodle Hat," which is like most of Weird Al's albums: funny and strange, with some songs that were totally hysterical. We got to the shores around 2:30, and got to Hatteras proper at about 3:15.

One of the things about Hatteras is that "Hatteras" is really a series of towns along a thing strip of coastline that stretches like a thin thread of beach about 20-40 miles away from the mainland called "The Outer Banks," or just "The Eastern Shore." It's really a series of islands, and the towns are named things like Duck, Nag's Head, Manteo, Buxton, Waves, Salvo, Avon, Cape Hatteras, Frisco, and Okracoke. Our house has been, in the past, up north like Waves and Avon. This time, it was way down south in Cape Hatteras. It's not really too terribly commercialized, except up north near Nag's Head, but even then it's nothing like the mess of Ocean City or something. No boardwalk, no huge skyrises, nothing like that. Just a lot of gray houses that weather a lot of hurricanes.

It took us a while to find the rental agency, and then a bit longer to find the house. But when we got there... wow. This is a damn nice house. I mean, the houses we have been at before have been nice, but this house... woah. Part of the niceness of this house is the attention to detail. A lot of the beach houses are pretty generic things. They all have the same exterior look, and while they have different floor plans and amenities (hot tub, pool, and so on), the insides all have the same carpeting and the walls have the same stucco or paneling. The pictures are sparse and generic, the furniture is typical "low-maintenance rental" stuff you'd find in hotels. Not this house. This house is more like a home, and the attention to detail is amazing. I used to decorate furniture showrooms, and this house is done like that. A lot of unique collectibles, wallpaper, trim, and stained glass windows decorate this place. I mean, I know we say this from the pictures, but to see it is just amazing. The place has pool, hot tub, billiard table, and TVs are everywhere. Our master bedroom has a huge whirlpool bath, and every bedroom has its own private deck. This house was expensive, and I don't know if we'll ever be able to afford to come back, but wow... it's the best we've ever rented.

Sunday night, we had to do a huge food shopping at the only supermarket on the islands: The Food Lion. They generally don't run out of things, but then again, we have usually done a Saturday-to-Saturday thing, not Sunday-Sunday. So we found out that on Sunday night, they are out of things. Not a whole lot, but enough to be a little bit hard to do shopping if you're picky. Truthfully, I don't know how they manage to keep in what they do, because they are the size of a normal supermarket, but they have the volume of so many vacationers packing the walls with their sunburnt beer gut bodies screaming after their barefoot kids with mullets. I mean the place is open 24/7, is the only major source of shopping for 120 miles around, and even at 10pm, they are packed. Plus they also serve the interests of people who live here, who are probably the majority of those sporting mullets or buzz cuts. By the end of the shopping, which was done by a list made in the order people thought of things and not by any grouping of where things might be in the store, Brad and I were exhausted for doing the shopping. Brad was more than 50% of the sheer brain power that got me through that night. When we got back, the kids (CR and Dominic) hauled up the groceries, and I took a whirlpool bath before I went right to sleep.

By the way, Widget and Ahfu really get along well with Bandit. Bandit is really like any other dog, except he's the size of a Shetland pony, and weighs the same I did when I graduated high school. He also sometimes steps on your foot which REALLY hurts, but he's always sorry he did it because he has the soul of a lamb. We took Bandit to the beach, and you'd think a big ol' dog like him would love the surf, but nope, he hated it. He ran away. Ahfu has seen the surf and doesn't care for it. He splays all his feet outwards and holds back, and it's like dragging a sea turtle. Ahfu likes to dig, though, and digs a lot of holes, sniffing deeply into each one until his face is covered with sand. Widget didn't like getting wet in the surf, but he got mad at the waves and chased them back, snapping at the foam. Sometimes Widget loses his tiny Pomeranian mind and barks at bandit, but he does that with people, too, so that doesn't mean much. At least he's becoming more socialized to different people, places, and dogs, which has been a big problem with him.

Monday morning, we slept. Then we bummed around. I spent most of the day reading and finishing the latest "Harry Potter" book, which was good, as always, and while I won't give away any spoilers, I did correctly predict who dies by the end of chapter two (JK does some things I do when I have to kill off a main character, accidentally foreshadowing a character she has trouble with letting go), even though the death doesn't come until near the end. The book is definitely a stronger, darker book, I think perhaps reflecting a change in JK's writing style. She's maturing, and when you read about a lot of stuff in her first book versus this book, the tone and mood or so different, when a lot of stuff from the first four books are actually referenced in book five, you think, "But that was ages ago... written another, more cheerful way." Harry is definitely pissed, gets a lot of illusions broken, and many characters make some serious mistakes in their choices that seem realistic. Fred and George? My heroes. But besides the book, CR got a little sunburnt, but brushed it off in true style. April made yummy steaks and some sort of potato/onion thing that was also great.

Tuesday marked the 14th year since Christine and I got married. It was very hot and hazy, so we didn't go out until the evening. I got stung by a wasp, and over the next 24 hours, this would be a common thing. I am not allergic to bees (or wasps), and truthfully, while the sting hurts like holy hell, the sting lasts about an hour, throbs some more, then a few hours later fades to nothing. I hadn't been stung since a Renn Faire many years ago, where I got stung *seven times* in four hours by various bees and wasps (I went home early, I said, "screw this!"). But wasps had started to make a home on the Eastern side of the house, which was one of the entrances to the private swimming pool. Later, Christine and I went down to "Dirty Dicks" crab house where I had some okay "crab fingers" (really, just the lower part of a crab claw, breaded) and over-salted fries. While Christine partied into the night with Sara, April, and Brad, I retired early because my asthma had gotten really bad, and my medicine knocked me out. Christine conked out around 5am.

Wednesday, there were more wasps (Dominic got stung just over his eye, but he's fine), so we went out and bought wasp spray. I sprayed about six nests, got stung twice more, and later, Christine got stung while she was in the pool. There are less wasps, but the ones that came back after I sprayed and saw their homes in ruins were MAD! I soaked again in the whirlpool bath, but wanted suds. I didn't find bubble bath anywhere on the island, and so I used Dawn Dish washing soap. That worked GREAT! Lots of suds. Maybe too many, but it was the first time since I was a kid I had suds that came to my head. And my skin feels smooth and soft! I want a deep whirlpool tub (pout). Then I finished writing this diary entry, and in the process of looking for a phone cord, I found one right next to my bed! How cool is that? I also just finished a book I got for the trip, The Idiot Girls' Action Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro, a hysterical series of essays much like a blog of a writer who has a painful past and an uncertain present. Also to read next, Robert Asprin's latest "Phule" book, "A Phule and His Money."

After I upload this, we're having some grilled Lime Chicken, I am going to try and be bartender, and hopefully have enough energy to party into the night. In the next few days, Roberta and Anne are supposed to come by, and April sadly has to leave on Friday to see some friends in South Carolina. Then she's actually driving back to Ohio, only to drive back down to DC for Castlecon over 4th of July weekend. Man.

* Did he just pull out an obscure Dragonlance reference? Yes, yes, I believe he did...

Posted by Punkie @ 08:28 PM EST [Link]

Saturday, June 21, 2003

What is the Master Plan?

What is the master plan? A lot of my life seems to have this arrogant "WTF?" attitude when I look at it. I don't know what I expect out of life, really. A lot of my problems seem to stem from an indignant feline attitude that things should be better for me when they never really are. I am never sure if I suffer more than the average person, or just notice it more. Looking at my entries, you'd surely THINK my life sucked, but really, it doesn't. Of course, my comparison is skewed, considering my whole life view is some sort of aftermath of the first 18 years of my life. Literally. I was watching a thing on the History Channel about "living memories" or something, where they interviewed people who lived through famous historical events, from the Great Depression to September 11th. One Japanese person, who spoke about the Atomic Blast and the aftermath afterwards, seemed to have her whole life as a "post-blast" summary. She even gave tours at the Hiroshima Museum. The way she spoke (even through a translator), reminded me of myself and these entries. She said something that I have ruminated through my own thoughts from time to time, and that was "I think this happened to me for a reason." Makes me wonder if there is a master plan, and what it might be? I once had this dream about it...

I say this because my stomach hurts, I have a headache, and my blood pressure lately has been soaring to new heights. This is stupid, because really, nothing horribly bad is happening to me, so it can't be stress. For the last week, my blood has felt thick, like it's having trouble pushing through my blood stream, my heart strains, I am exhausted most of the time, and my circulation is wonky. The only change I had done in my daily activities was to take 500mg of Vitamin C. Vitamin C, in pill form, never bode well for me. It's usually in chewable form, and ever since my best friend in high school tried to get me to take them daily, and I reacted badly, I have realized there was something in C that didn't agree with me. Which is funny, because I love oranges and orange juice, and don't have trouble with that. But lately, with all the colds and sicknesses I had been having, I thought I'd try to take C again, but as part of my morning pills. Then I started to feel bad. I have no idea if it was coincidence, psychosomatic, or what, but that's when the blood pressure started to go awry. So I stopped because it was really interfering with everything. I also stopped all caffeine, and cut down my intake of food because I was becoming sick every time I ate. The problems subsided, but then on Thursday, I ate some pizza that nearly made me pass out from abdominal pain. I am not sure why, I don't think the pizza was bad (it tasted great, no one else got sick from it, and I didn't have a fever or anything else associated with food poisoning), but since then, I have felt like a bomb has gone off in my stomach, and nothing feels right now. We got the pizza as a celebration because...

... my son got a math award from his school, and I am really proud of him! We weren't expecting it, and I know he sure wasn't. But he excelled in math, as I did, which further proves that he wasn't switched at birth like I worried about when they showed me his baby picture, and he looked Chinese.

But I am supposed to be going on a beach trip! Not being sick! Last beach trip, I had just had root canal, and could only eat certain things, which royally sucked, so what is this, now? Bugger! I am indignant!

But still more good news to offset disapproving looks from Benny: I got the new Harry Potter book! It came shortly before I typed this entry. It came from FedEx, if you can believe it, and was in a white box, labeled with a green warning: "CARRIER: PLEASE DELIVER ON JUNE 21. Do not under any circumstances deliver before June 21!" Also on the box was an unnecessary ad, "Deeper Secrets. Darker powers. Stronger magic." I say unnecessary because if you see the ad, you must already have, and thus paid for, the book. I read super-fast, but 870 pages (the last page number here) will be a challenge. I could, uninterrupted, read this book in about a day, but that's not possible right now. I should be finished with this book by the halfway week point, because I suspect half the other people on the beach trip will want to read it too, so I can't afford to be leisurely reading the book while people salivate for it.

Posted by Punkie @ 12:02 PM EST [Link]

Friday, June 20, 2003

Pre-beach Bingo

Okay, I made my list, and checked it twice. Two days until Beach Time!

I don't like my legs or feet. My legs are hairy with shiny skin, and my feet are huge and ugly. I almost always wear long pants and hightop steel-tipped boots, even in the summer. But for the beach, I wear shorts and sandals because otherwise I'd roast to death in the sun. Dressing like a Goth in the summer sucks, as I witnessed in Salem, Mass a few years ago. I watched pagan-y and goth people wilting in the heat, hiding out in air conditioned coffee houses. So I have had the same pair of cheap, $9.99 sandals since 1998 because, well, I only used them one week a year. Last year, they finally broke. So I had to get a new pair from Target, again $9.99, and these are slip-on sandals that I see soccer players wear after games (I used to know this one soccer player, Gretchen, who used to freak when she saw pre-teen and teen player wear their cleats off the field and in the mall. "They are ruining those expensive shoes!" she'd scream. The joke is that cleats are TERRIBLE on slick floors, so that made those kids double-dumb to her). I figure I can wear white socks with them, and look sort of trendy. Also, when winter comes, I can leave them by the sliding glass door, so I can slip them on to get firewood, and not have to walk in cold, damp grass in my socks or bare feet.

The weather for Hatteras looks GREAT! Sunny all the time. No Hurricanes, freak Nor'Easters, hot hail, anything like that. I plan to sleep a lot. Plus, my Harry Potter book is *supposed* to arrive June 21st, according to Amazon.com, which is tomorrow, a day before we leave. BUT, I have also heard the USPS and UPS are swammped with the books, and thus, it may arrive a few days late. Well, if that's the case, our friend will pick it up, and I might get another copy while I am in and around Hatteras... although I'll have to find a book store... that's not religious... somewhere... The only book store on the island is a religous shop, so I doubt they will have Harry Potter. But I bet you that places like Wal-Mart on the mainland will have it. I have to read it before July 4th, see, because I am doing a panel on it at Castlecon... on the 5th.

In other news, we have a house-guest who will be with us for a little while. She's staying at our house while we're gone to keep an eye on things while she sorts her life back into order, which in the last few days, she has made great strides in doing so. She's not bitter at her estranged husband; she's still hurt, but not bitter. She's going to finalize some training in the middle of July, and will be in Pennsylvania for that. Plus, she may have a permenant place to stay soon, as an old roommate whom she got along well with for years said he'd throw his current rommate (whom he can't stand) out, and take our friend in, although we're not sure when that would be. We set some small house rules about noise and hours, and she's met every one of them without complaint. In fact, she's been pretty innocuous, polite, and very accomidating, and sometimes I forget she's in the guest room, until I look outside and see her car... a 1995 Saturn with a lot of stickers of skulls, radiation symbols, and bumper stickers like "Free Kevin!" and "Spooky girl." Hee! The neighbors are surely talking about this one.

Posted by Punkie @ 10:37 AM EST [Link]

Wednesday, June 18, 2003

Potty Potty Boomba-lotty

It seems I am always repeating this topic for someone, so I am writing it here so I can just link to it in the future. It seems that a lot of my coworkers do not know correct potty etiquette. I also hear this from a lot of other people. Here are some basic rules to follow.

1. Please do not speak to people while they are doing their business. It makes most of them nervous, and I don't think you want to get to know someone who DOESN'T get nervous. Trust me. This includes phones. The person at the other end of the phone will not like thinking of you in this private moment. I have hung up on people who have flushed when I was speaking to them.
2. When doing one is doing their business, some noises one can't help. Escaped flatulence, crispy sounds, and the splash of a successful offloading of cargo are normal. But please try not to make the following sounds.
- Unnecessary grunts like a rhinoceros: "NNggggRRRAAHH!"
- Exclamation of joy like getting a massage: "OOOhhh yeah! Aaaaah... yeaaaah... oooo... aaah..."
- Humming or singing, especially while pausing for the exit of waste, like it's an impromptu jazz movement: "Hmmm hmmm hmm-NGRRRHHMM-aaah hmmm hmmm..." While I do appreciate the pun of "scat," it should not be used in a stall. You know, "Dummm dummm la dooo... doo doo d-NGHRA-oooo... scooby do wah..."
- Comments of wonder and praise. "Ooh, that felt good. Hey, I don't remember eating carrots?"
3. Aim to please or please aim. If you miss, wipe it up. Don't assume "the janitor will deal with it," because we ALL have to deal with it until the janitor does!
4. Flush. Your waste and toilet paper. Until its gone.
5. If the toilet is clogged, do not, and I repeat DO NOT excrete on top of it like you're finishing the top of an undone cake. Nobody's impressed.
6. Wash your hands afterwards. With soap. This means wet hands, use soap on hand, cover and lather hands with soap, scrub for at least ten seconds (EMTs recommend 30 second minimum, but that's more than most people can stand), shake off excess water, turn off water, dry hands, throw away towel (if any) in trash can provided. Leave.

I was spoiled as a kid. My mother would clean the toilets at least a few times a month, and required us to do it between. Then I went into retail, and I guess I was lucky, because I had bosses (or I was the boss) that required the toilet be cleaned as part of our daily routine.

But then I started working in a building shared by computer geeks and government employees. While I am sure that 99% of them were clean and neat people, the 1% sure made an impression. A bad one. We had people who would pee in the corner of stalls, or on the wall next to urinals. Not even trying to aim for the toilet at all. We had one guy, we suspect a night guard, who would take a dump in the urinals or on the drain in the middle of the floor. Toilets clogged with rolls, not wads, but a whole rolls of toilet paper just ripped off and tossed in. Was that person making a statement? Toilets flooded a lot, even though the restrooms were cleaned twice a day by a janitorial staff. I can only speak for the mens' rooms, but I heard the ladies' rooms were just as bad. Blood-soaked blue wads of madness, tampons left on the floors, and that's in addition to the same problems we had. I had to ask, what if you came in on the mad pooper while leaving a steaming pile of man-loaf on the drain? It all but stopped when we hired a different guard company, which is why we still think it was some of them.

Public restrooms, to no one's surprise, are disgusting most of the time, especially malls. Even upscale malls look like gas station stalls after a while. Who are these messy people? Do they do this at home, or is this an abstract territorial thing they only do in other stalls?

Really, I don't care. I just want them to stop.

One final note: When I worked a 24x7 International Tech Help desk, we were required to take the cell phone, linked to the hotline, with us. You had to pick up the phone when it rings, no exceptions. In the 18 months I worked that desk, the phone only rang while I was in the potty a few times. Often, I was alone in the restroom (my shift was midnight to noon), but I'd always cut it short, going, "I am away from the desk, let me go there call you right back." One day, the head of our Canadian division kept talking and talking about a non-critical issue, despite trying to but in. Finally, she asked, "Home come you aren't at the desk?" I told her, "I am actually trying to take a break in the lavatory." "Oh my god!" she said, "I am so sorry, call me back!" Heh. Awkwardness.

One more final quote, from my friend Dawn, who told me, "One decision I hope you never have to make is when you step away from the toilet after your business, and just as you turn around to flush, and your pager falls in the bowl. The next decision you make will reveal your true thoughts on how loyal you are as an employee."

Posted by Punkie @ 04:49 PM EST [Link]

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

Losing friends to ... anything

I think I am losing a good friend today.

I don't have her permission to post anything yet, but her life is pretty terrible right now. In less than 24 hours, she lost her job, her husband, and a place to live. She lost her job to layoffs, came home, found her husband was in love with their roommate, so she can't stand to be there anymore. She's been staying at our house, looking like an atom bomb dropped on her. Today she got her things, and will probably be packing her stuff and moving in with some friends in Pennsylvania, then after getting her bearings, she's moving to California, like she's always planned, but never got around to.

Perhaps this is the best route she can take, but I am going to miss her a lot. I am greedy, I know, to want my friends to stay close to me, but I feel I lost my good friend Eden this way, along with other assorted friends who moved away and we never kept in touch like we planned. Logically, I know, if she's gonna go, now is the time. She's got nothing but her friends to keep her here. She's got no job, no husband, no cat (it ran away a few months ago), no conventions she works at anymore, no place to worry about rental contracts... a fully-paid car... it's a prime time. I know that. But she's been like a sister to me, and it's going to hurt.

Ouch.

Posted by Punkie @ 11:15 AM EST [Link]

Sunday, June 15, 2003

Some Random Stuff - Nemo, Father's day, Replanting, Shopping for the Beach, and Slackware

Here's some odd tidbits I forgot to mention in my journal in no real order.

I saw "Finding Nemo." Hysterical. Just as funny as Monsters's Inc. Ellen Degeneres is GREAT as Dory, the forgetful fish. She makes the film, and was perfect for the part. Lot of adult in-jokes. Lot of surprises. All in all, a very well-done film. I now know how to speak whale (or upset stomach).

Today is father's day. Bitter for us in some respects because both Christine and I don't know where our fathers are. But we have a son, so the day, I'd like to think, is for him. I personally have issues with this day, because of the political crap I had to go through as a kid: like celebrating some patriotic holiday of a country you don't even like. After about age 8, my mother got the gift and the card, made me sign it, we'd have to do what HE wanted (which was spend yet another day his damn yacht), and I'd count the hours until Monday rolled along. CR is going to make me a cake, and as I type this, they are out gift shopping, despite my protests otherwise.

For the last few days, we have been shopping for the beach trip. We are doing a lot of pre-shopping this year because when we get to the beach house, we're always exhausted from the journey (six hour drive), and we don't want to go to the Food Lion on the island and fight all the other people who went to the Food Lion at the same time (Sat-Sun... a madhouse). Also, while the food is not that much more expensive than the mainland, a lot of other stuff is like beach supplies (suntan lotion, burn cream, beach toys, etc) is usually very pricey. We got books to bring along, too, and some games and toys. We also got Liquor. Lots of liquor, because while I don't drink, everyone else has a party almost much every night. I had to pay attention, because I am mixing drinks this year, as part of my plan to "broaden my horizons." I don't drink alcohol, so I have to go by sensibilities, but I got a bartender's guide, some recipes, and plan to go by what my mother taught me about cooking. I will taste what I mix, but will spit it out like they do at wine-tasting events.

Also, I am hoping to do some of this blog work from the beach, because there will be a lot going on. In addition to my family, CR's long-time friend and cool dude Dominick is coming, our usual companion Brad (this time with his dog), long-time friend college student and teacher Sawa, our psychologist-studying-to-be-a-neurosurgeon April, and one of our newer friends, Roberta.

I did some "plant work" today. I have been accumulating plants on our deck. I have two rose ... plants (not really bushes), a Strawberry plant (which the squirrels ate all the berries, yet again, but if I really cared that much, I'd build a cover or something), some fake "lucky" bamboo (I think it's actually drysophila or something), and a small fir tree, which until today, had been inside for two and a half years. The fir tree I got during Christmas of 2001, I think, as a sort of "Hey, it's only $10, it's a pine tree, and looks neat." What then unfolded was a nightmare of price checks and counter-checks at the supermarket. I ended up wasting 5 minutes of my day just waiting for people at the store to agree on the price. It was one of those "What should have taken 10 seconds took much too long, and by the end was nearly a saga," points in my life. I kept the tree in the kitchen, and it was a nice, cheerful tree. But it just kept growing, and was now far too big for the pot, so I replanted it outside in a huge pot. I hope it grows well out there. It's supposed to be in bright light, but not direct sun, so I put it under the gutter. If it starts to look ill, I'll take it back in, and try and find a place for it where the cats won't eat it.

WARNING: GEEK TECH NOTES

I installed Slackware Friday night, and I like it a lot. But then I got sleepy and tired, so I stopped reviewing it. Slackware 9.0 installed on the Dell nicely (which I had used for the Debian install), but the Slackware 8.0 did not install X-windows on my P166. Well, it did, but it crashed pretty badly, saying the same problem I have always gotten on this system: it could not recognize my mouse. I am going to try Slackware 9 on the P166, but expect a lot of the same. See, this system is on a serial mouse with a KVM converter to a PS/2 Mouse, which usually confounds every OS I have tried to install. I mean, I'm using a PS/2 mouse... but through COM1. Feh.

Posted by Punkie @ 01:47 PM EST [Link]

Thursday, June 12, 2003

Best Friend - Worst Enemy

I am going to try a Tuesday Twofer entry, and it's about "Friends and Enemies." Besides, I can't sleep. My legs hurt (dumb, I know).

Who is your best friend?
Hmmm... I hate to place one friend over another. I have many GOOD friends that are close, like Brad, Rogue, Neal, Jason, Nate, and a few others who, for security reasons, probably don't want to be linked by name, like Sean Heare, who lives in Reston, and keeps his spare key under the ivy bush next to the Carmen Ghia. But I'd hate to label any one of them as "the best" because... what make them better than anyone else? Then I have a lot of satellite friends, which number in the dozens. I usually only see them a few times a year, although we call and e-mail each other fairly extensively.

Who is your worst enemy?
Easy, without even thinking. Myself. I have done more harm to myself than any one person, and that includes all the bullies in school, my parents, and asshats at work... combined. And maliciously, too! I mean, the guy who yelled at me at Katsucon 5 ... because I wouldn't let him take a handful of program books because we were low and were only allowing people one per person .... ranked pretty high for a while, but even Mr. "Wears Pajamas Thinking It Makes Him Look Cool Like Anime" heaping verbal abuse about me barely made a dent in my self-esteem, which has been hardened by years of internal infighting. For a few years of my life, my id, ego, and superego stopped talking to each other altogether, and that was really awful. They still squabble a lot.

Posted by Punkie @ 01:08 AM EST [Link]

Wednesday, June 11, 2003

My Geekiness

I am 61.34122% geek, an "Extreme Geek" according to this site. I am glad I score so high, but wished I had scored the top of "Geek God" right before "Dysfunctional Geek."

I have never been normal, and for most of my life, this has been an okay thing. There are times, though, when being strange and geeky can be a bad thing. Usually to upper management. Once, at a party after a business meeting, I got to talking to George Allen, the vice president of Cargo Furniture, my company at the time. He asked if I wanted a mixed drink. I told him I didn't drink, and he said he felt bad that they didn't think of that, but wouldn't I just like to drink something just to try? I tried to change the topic to something, anything, to avoid saying to my company VP, "No, I don't drink alcohol, and no, I don't want to try." So I blurted out an article I read in Omni magazine about mixed drinks (trying to segue), and how they had a contest where people submitted funny things like "Nair and Bailey's Irish Creme = A Sineaid O'Connor," or "Midori and Dawn Dishwashing detergent = Honeydew the Dishes." The party for some reason got real quiet, and the VP said (as honestly as he could) that Nair was probably poisonous, which made everyone in the hotel room look at me. What an odd thing for the VP to comment on to the new guy. "What else did you read?" he asked with amusement tinted with possible concern. Well, "How to Built an AI Robot that thinks like an insect... ..." Silence. Dead silence. "Well," he said, trying to rescue me (George was a good guy, I later found out) "How ... obscure." Nervous laughter. My ears were burning, but I knew George just didn't know what to say. It all ended well (George got a Sprite from somewhere), but I will always remember those few times as an adult where being geeky and obscure were ... uncomfortable.

I rarely get along with other parents of kids. Either the dads are really sports-oriented, or scary. It seems the jock parents I have met are usually gentle people (on average), which goes against the media stereotype. But we have nothing to say. They try to bond with me on some sports team, and I either nod along or they ask me a question that sounds like, "So Benfry is doing point guard next season for the Red Devils, giving them a RBI advantage but that could mean coach Dennison will have a lot of team washout on his hands by the playoffs! Am I right? Do you think grep neek norp nock booya will ding helf nerp with the ball or will they snick the jep tork on halfright?" Total gibberish. I shrug. They are usually smart enough to realize I am not into sports by that point, and they slink away, like somehow they might have offended me.

Then there are the scary ones. Ones that have to mention how horrible it is that young girls are trying to look sexy. Repeatedly. Like they are trying to convince themselves more than me. "See that girl there, with the short shorts? What is she like, 12? I don't think she's sexy. Not me! No way! That's gross! Why don't her parents put something more respectable on her!?!?" Uh... dude? We're at a swimming pool. That's what people wear, see... "Mr. Sulu, ahead squick factor ten!"

So... I am a geek. I have always been so. I was reading by age 2, reading college level by age 8. I had a programmable calculator before anyone else my age knew what "RPN" stood for on an HP. I have corrected salespeople at computer stores, even to the point where I lost patience with them (recently, one salesperson tried to convince me that only a "trained professional" could install a computer power supply). I don't think I am better than anyone else, which is often the response you get. It was moreso in school, but in the adult world, you still have to curb what you say. I have had to repeat, "It's not worth being right," many, many times to avoid continuing pointless arguments. It's hard to hear someone say something so blatantly ignorant and just take it. There have been times I have caught lies and pinned people down with them, and that's not what I meant to do...

Years ago, someone I knew was talking about Lightsabers you could get from Park Sabers. The speaker, which we'll call Jimbo, started spouting stuff about how scientists were actually building Lightsabers. This sparked my interest. "What do you mean?" I asked. Jimbo puffed himself up. "Yeah, the people at Park Sabers have been sharing technology with the government."

Man, this was too good. Now, I could have just been a nice guy and said, "Oh, really? Wow..." and dropped it. But my geek muscles flexed, my hair bristled, and my lizard ridge changed colors. I was hooked. "Sharing technology?"

"Yeah," said Jimbo. Then he started going on and on about laser containment fields and EMI interference, and all kinds of stuff that ... to the average person, might sound as perfectly reasonable as reversing the polarity of the neutron flow. I kept asking him questions, and the facts became more and more wild and inaccurate. I started to ask him about where he got his info, because, as far as I knew, Park Sabers was invented by a machinist who liked Star Wars and had some spare aluminum parts, and a good eye for art and detail. In effect, I looked as if I was calling his bullshit, but in reality, I REALLY wanted this to be true. Real Lightsabers, how cool would that be? By the time I had realized that he was making stuff up, I had practically backed him into a corner. In front of people. Like an ass.

So I tried to save the situation by giving him what I call "feasible exit," which I used a lot when I used to work at an International Computer Help Desk. I the tech world, you do this when you catch a vendor in a lie, but instead of forcing him to confess he's a liar like we're all back in elementary school, you give him an exit by suggesting something that would save face, and thus, the pressure would be there to fix the result of the lie just to never have it brought up again. I told him, "But the magazine you quoted might have just theorized this, right? You're basing this on that one article." He saw his escape, and went for it, "Yes, I mean, it could be wrong, but it's a VERY good magazine." I agreed. We changed the topic. Jimbo avoided me after that, and with good reason. My geekiness and social ineptitude almost harpooned his ego. In front of people. Very bad move on my part.

But I am still glad I am geeky. I just have to remember to use my power for good.

Posted by Punkie @ 08:54 PM EST [Link]

Sunday, June 8, 2003

Somehow, I always knew I'd never be pyschic...

I was reading someone's journal where he was discussing precognitive dreams she was having. I am not going to link to it, because I don't want to make it look like I'm making fun of it, but seeing these entries reminded me about how I don't think I have a scrap of psychic power when it comes to predictions.

I recall vividly the dream I had the morning of 9/11. I was doing tarot in a desert tent, and a bearded man asked me to give him the outcome of his friend's travels. I drew The Tower card. It did not look good. Then I drew a second Tower card. How could there be 2 Tower cards in the deck? Then I looked at them, side by side, on a tablecloth where a huge pentagram was. They were inside the pentagram, in a pentagon. I smelled smoke. I called 9-1-1...

That would have been cool, right? No way. I totally made that up. The real dream I had was stupid. I was on the edge of a pier at a marina. My keys, which are usually clipped to the side of my belt, fell off and into the water. I reached into the water as they sunk, but my attempts at grabbing the keys only made them sink faster into the murky green depths. I woke up, feeling very strong emotions of loss, self-hatred, and anger. How could I be so stupid and lose my keys? I have dreams like that from time to time. They seem so vivid and emotional when they happen, but when I wake up, I feel sheepish to have gotten so worked up over stupid crap.

Those emotions were shoved aside and did not match the emotions or any sense of "deja vu" when the morning of 9/11 happened all around me. The only reason I remembered at all was the fact I had written someone a letter that morning about it (in reply to her letter about a stupid dream she had, and "what did it mean" a few days earlier), before my wife called me and said a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers. I have been cleaning out an old "sent-mail" folder, and read the time stamp: 8:15am, Sept 11, 2001. The last e-mail I wrote before the world changed. I would think, if I was going to have any sense of prediction and psychic powers, I would have at least been warned about such a vast calamity. I'd even go for the "hindsight is 20/20" over-interpretation Nostradamus fans use, but the truth of the matter is, it totally surprised me. Totally. Not even a hint of a prediction. All my notes from before and after have a distinct line. In fact, when I look at all my life events, I was not warned.

I think the only exception might be my mother's suicide, but as time has gone by, the "hints of what's to come" could have just as easily been triggered by my sense of impending change of graduating high school. I did recall during Christmas, discussing with my best friend at the time what I'd do if my mother ever died: I'd be totally fucked. She assured me that I had friends who would make sure that didn't happen (and she was right), but I think both of us at the time both thought, "You'll be an adult before your mom dies." My mother died about 3 weeks later. And that's really just coincidence, I think, but for years I wondered if I had a sense of impending doom. Then I realized, I always had a sense of impending doom. Hell, my life WAS doom back then, so you didn't have to be a rocket scientist to predict what kept happening. That's like predicting you'll get wet if you stand out in the rain.

I once played with an Ouija board at age 13 from an "ESP Kit." I got total gibberish to everything I asked. It would spell "HR1F73MAS8yes7EMS90CNRno" or something equally as useless. Also in that kit was a pyramid (sharpened nothing), a pendulum (found/predicted nothing), and a Zener deck (which gave me almost exact chance readings of 1/5 correct, although when I did get the right cards, they were usually all in a row for some reason).

Bummer.

Posted by Punkie @ 12:20 PM EST [Link]

Saturday, June 7, 2003

More about Installing Debian - The Punkie Way: KDE 3.1.2

WARNING: GEEK TECH NOTES

Part of my problem in upgrading KDE was this. I had to add this line to my /etc/apt/sources.list: deb http://download.kde.org/stable/3.1.2/Debian stable main. I thought I had done that (as per the KDE site instructions), but when I went to edit it today, I found out it wasn't there after all. So I added it again, and as we speak, it's trying to update. I also noticed that when I turned the computer back on this morning, I got a logon screen! Not only that, it wouldn't let me log on as root. I had to log on as another user I had set up, and then I saw I was logged in as Gnome 1.4 by default! Gnome on like 2.2 now, isn't it? For the most recent set, this CD-ROM set for 3.0 sure had some moldy oldies on there. So I did an "su" (superuser), and do my root stuff that way, which I guess I am supposed to do. No, as a side note here, I hear all kinds of taboo about being logged in as root. There's the "You'll screw up your system!" which is very true, if you do something that would screw up your system that would be otherwise blocked for non-root people. There's always a guilt cloud hanging over my head about doing normal stuff as root. This cloud has been built by many, many years of brainwashing attempts by all the teachers, professors, and everything I ever read. So I usually create a second user, but goshdarnit, I really hate login screens that won't LET you log in as root. That's one of the reasons I hated Microsoft, it always claimed it "knew better" than I did. "You don't really want a bulleted list over a page break," MSWord would tell me, "so I won't give you one. Here, I'll make half the first page blank, and put the bulleted list all on the second page." Grrrr! No! That's why I do most of my writing, heck, even this entry right now, in a Notepad-like text editor. Plain. Simple. Stupid. Then I run it through a spell checker to catch most of my errors. Most. But back to Linux. Red Hat lets me log in as root from their login screen, which I do all the time. I find that with my tinkering, I have to either be root or at the very least do an "su" every other day. Hey! The update was a success, but it did exactly what it was supposed to and only updated the KDE 3.1.2, which meant I was still running 1,2, or even 3 year old versions of everything else. Mozilla was 1.0, but I couldn't find out how to update that without also updating GNOME. Updating GNOME turned out to be a lot harder, and as of this writing, I have given up for today, and probably this weekend. I had to change my login to "Debian" which gave me the slick and cool KDE 3.1 type environment. I played around with it, tried to get other updates, failed, and gave up for the night. One thing I have noticed though: This P2/450 seems to run GUIs, even KDE 3.1.2, faster than my Red Hat 7.3 install on my main Linux box. Not like a LOT faster, but noticeably faster. I had heard that before; a lot of people have also said the same about Gentoo. I looked at Gentoo as a probable next project, but they have yet another different way to do things I'd have to re-learn: emerge sync, which is their version of apt-get. But the whole install process looks very daunting.

Posted by Punkie @ 09:43 PM EST [Link]

Friday, June 6, 2003

Installing Debian - The Punkie Way

Here's my really geeky entry. Skip if you don't grok geek.

WARNING: GEEK TECH NOTES

I have heard about Debian for a while, how great it was, and so on. I have Red Hat as my main Linux box, but I have always wanted to try Debian. Here is my adventure. Christine's work is a cornucopia of dying computers. Most are Pentium 166 to P2/450 Dell systems. When they die, she brings them to me. I find spare parts to make them work, with mixed success. Sometimes, as you saw from a previous entry, they have blown up on me. This week, she brought how a Dell Optiplex system, out of warrantee, with a bad hard drive, a dead video card, and enough dust to fill a mason jar. I blew it all out, washed it up, and tried to fix the hard drive. It was a Maxtor (blecch), but I downloaded a Maxtor "Power Drive tool" to fix the low-level errors. But before I did that, I browsed the system to see what it had. It had memory errors, so I installed some different RAM, and that cleared it up. The Windows 98 that was on it was in bad shape: the previous owner was really into chubby girl porn (hey, it's a free country, but at work?), and I saw some classic cartoon porn that was... interesting. Once I satisfied my morbid curiosity (was that King Neptune?), I took off the plastic parts, washed them up, put them back on, and the system didn't look so bad. In case Mr. Chubby Porn was also into underage porn, I wiped it with "Derek's Disk Nuke," re-initialized the drive with the Maxtor power tool, and made sure the drive would be okay, and leave nothing funny in some partition. The Master boot record was reporting "unknown condition, possibly compromised" and so when it asked me to "re-initialize it," I said yes.. Now it really boots a lot faster, and the BIOS reports the correct size with no errors. It might have been the result of a virus, which made me glad I didn't hook it up to my network right away. I couldn't get the video card to work. I suspect it fried a long time ago. Luckily, the default one built into the motherboard was okay, and that's a 4MB ATI chip, so that should be enough. I debated all of today what to put on it. I debated between OpenBSD (it might be nice to have OpenBSD on a system faster than 166mhz), but instead decided to try Debian. Thus started this blog entry for those who might find my adventure helpful. Luckily, this system does allow booting from the CD-ROM; previous computers did not have this option, which left me with floppy-friendly OS's. I loaded Debian Disk one, booted, and found a nice blue screen with yellow text and red highlights taking me through the steps. I heard Debian install was really unfriendly, but I have been though so much of that recently, I decided to see first hand what that meant. I researched my hardware, and one of the great things about Dells is that if you have the service tag ID, you can find everything for it that Dell carries. Specs, drivers, whatever. I found out what my video chip was, as well as my NIC. With this info, I went through the steps of Debian 3.0 CD 1. It asked me at some point if I wanted to install odd drivers, and didn't make this clear. I was alarmed it didn't have my NIC in there. It was a common 3c905 series NIC. I later deduced I was on the "install weird drivers" screen for those who have odd and obscure hardware. It set up my network via DHCP, I gave the computer a name ("Sen" from "Spirited Away"), Debian installed base packages, and rapidly (less than 3 minutes) asked me top remove CD 1 and reboot. So I did. A blue screen came up, telling me the install was successful, and I started this journal. I then found out my KVM doesn't switch well when Debian was in install mode. I had to hit a key to get my video back, which told Debian to continue with the install. It asked me where I was from (US), what time zone I was in (ET), what passwords to set up (MD5/Shadow), and then asked me for the root password. It then asked me to create a new user, and explained why. This let me know the install was at least a little user friendly. In fact, no problems so far! Next, it told me I didn't have PCMCIA, and asked if I wanted to remove those packages. How nice! Then it ejected my CD-ROM without telling me why. Then it said it could not read the media, and I thought, "Of course! You asked me to remove it!" I put in disk one, and told it the packages were in the CD. It read it for a while, and then asked if I had more CDs. I have 7, which I downloaded and burned a few months ago. So I entered them in, one by one. I had actually tried to install Debian once before on a machine at work, but it was a weird proprietary i386-based thing, and even Windows barely works on them (the manufacturer had special drivers). So it crapped out halfway through this process, and I gave up and installed OpenBSD, which didn't complain as long as I didn't try to run X. Now it asks me if I wanted to select another apt-source (where Debian gets its packages). I said yes, selected their us mirror, and then it asked me if I wanted to update my security patches. I said I did. Then it asked me if I wanted to run "Tasksel." a package selection tool. I said I did, then it wanted to know if I wanted dselect for detailed selections. I said no, because with 7 disks, that's like 500 million selections (not really, but it might as well be). So then it went through some stuff, and then asked me to insert CD 1 again. Then it asked for various CDs, not in order, and I might add, took a while because it asked for CD 1, then 2, then 4, then 1 again, then 5, then 2 again, and so on. It was like being on an Apple II again with 5.25" floppies and a huge game. Ah well. I notice that while it was installing, it was checking against the security updates. One of them was for KDE wallpapers! How unsafe could a wallpaper file be? Hmm.... Other things during install. I got a notice that something called Xaw3dg was no longer some sort of replacement for libXaw. Then it said my Binutilities might make the kernel unstable if used. Then a whole lot of stuff about Mozilla True Type fonts (uh, sure!), dsp configurations (hold on, what?), non-Less mime handlers (uh... yeah), antisize my zim configuration, reverse the polarity shift... okay, I can see what some people mean by unfriendly. I mean, I knew most of this stuff, but thinks flashed by with words I knew, but never seen them quite in that order. Most flew by, because it only gave you "OK" as default. I chose some defaults I was unsure about, and I am pretty experienced in Linux, so some of these were crap shoots. xdm or gdm? HellifIknow... there was even one part that went "Pondering....." Lots of stuff went by. Once in a while, it asked me a question. I answered best I could. The it told me that some packages had errors during install and that, "Hey, Debian isn't perfect!" (true quote). I decided to ignore those, because they were in some functions I probably wouldn't use. Then it asked me how I wanted my mail setup, and I chose "4" for local machine mail only. Then it congratulated me, Debian was installed! I was now at a login prompt. I logged in as root, and for kicked, did a "startx." I was stunned it set up KDE for me! How nice! It was only 2.2.2, which is old (right now it's 3.1, and was at 3.0 when this disks I burned were new). But now I will use what is considered Debian's great strength: apt-get. I wonder if I can get it to install KDE 3.1? I tried, and no. I put in the KDE path to my /etc/apt/sources.list, did an apt-get update, and then did an apt-get install kdebase. It said I already had the most current version. I noticed I had no Samba, so I installed that through apt-get, and wow, 2.2.3a? The most current and secure is 2.2.8a. It installed, and even had a little helper smb.conf tool I liked, but obviously, I am doing something wrong with my apt-get. It's late now, and I'll just make mistakes, so I am shutting down for the night and will resume tomorrow.

Posted by Punkie @ 07:11 PM EST [Link]

My New Friend Benny

I made a new friend a few days ago. I am going to call him "Benny," because I don't really know his real name. All I know about Benny is what I can extrapolate from his comments in my blog. My adventures began with Benny when he left a very angry sarcastic comment in my blog. I replied, and then he sent another. From the same IP.

When people leave comments on my blog, or even load a web page here (or anywhere), they leave an IP address behind in the logs. I wanted to know more about Benny, so I traced the IP address to a web server at Rutgers University. When he was informed of this, and when I told him I informed them they'd been hacked, he changed to a server on the outskirts of Chicago, owned by a major long distance carrier. Now, I could report it to this LD carrier, but the harsh facts of life are that they care about as much about their internal network as modern poultry farmer cares that one of his six million chickens has died due to a preventable sickness. "As long as it doesn't affect a whole lot of chickens, I don't care." I know. I used to work with them (and still have to put up with them from time to time, since we have a few T1's from them at work). Let's just say they've been bitter since 1982.

Benny cares a great deal about me. He reads a lot of my work, and while he angrily states he doesn't like what he sees, the fact is that his he reads it a lot, according to my logs. Kind of like how sexually repressed people keep seeing sex everywhere. Benny is at least at my level of intelligence, judging from his use of words, grammar, and sarcasm, and while I personally think his emotional maturity needs a little work, you can't fault him for that. But what is obvious is that Benny needs to see my stuff, he's probably not going to go away, and while I could easily be rid of him (block IP, delete comments, and so on), I don't think he's really all that bad. He's just a little angry. I think he sees things in my blog that he sees in himself, and while he hasn't quite learned to deal with that, not everyone matures at the same rate. So I hope he keeps reading and posting, and the rest of my readers can deal with him like that grumpy guy on the bus who screams Armageddon is coming, and we'll all be judged. He's got a right to free speech as much as I have. Benny is the loyal opposition, I welcome his comments, and I hope I learn good things from him.

"Learn from him?" you say. I am sure he'll make a comment about that! "Oh, you are SO kind and forgiving!" he'll say with angry sarcasm, hoping I'll retract what I say, scared of looking like a martyr. No, I do hope to learn from him. When I was guest artist at Evecon 4 (with my stuff in the program book, back cover, and even the badges), I was pretty full of myself. I introduced myself to a young girl who asked "Who are you?" as "The Guest Artist." I'll never forget what she said next: "So what?" Hee! That showed me. I learned from that event not to take myself so seriously. That's what Benny's for. He'll be like that guy in the audience, heckling the Emcee. "You suck!" Then I say, "It's a shame when cousins marry and have kids." He'll go, "Yeah, you're proof of that!" And I go, "Do I come to your work and knock the mop out of your hand?" And then he'll say something else. Then I'll steal his material (just kidding, Benny). While I want to assure him that I am not going to "get him back," if I find out who he really is (which I can, but won't), I do hope that he changes his mind about hacking other people's systems. That's illegal Benny, and while you think you may be one of a bazillion anonymous hacker-types, I can't be responsible if you get traced eventually. Those odds are low, yes, but I'd hate to see you go when I just got to meet you.

Benny, welcome! You wanted attention, and you've got it! There's a table waiting for you, right by the kitchen. The waiter will be with you in a moment. It is good to see you again.

Posted by Punkie @ 08:33 AM EST [Link]

Tuesday, June 3, 2003

Dear Diary... shhhhh!

I never kept a journal as a kid.

Well, that's not entirely true. I never kept a written diary or journal for privacy reasons. I had no privacy. My parents would have given anything, I am sure, to get ahold of my innermost thoughts, and only because I had to foresight to prevent that did I ever come out alive. I mean, they had trouble with reality as it was, if it was written down, it would have been like spraying graffiti on the living room wall. Massive punishment, no matter what the truth was. But one piece of evidence lies in a padded envelope in a file drawer next to my computer. The tapes. But more on that later.

Of course, I still have this problem to a degree with this diary being online. But it has to be online because otherwise, I wouldn't feel the need to do it. It also keeps me honest (you can't lie if everyone's reading your stuff). But there are some times I want to share a story, or rant about some dumbass thing someone I know did, but can't, because that would be like telling the whole world what a dumbass I thought that person was. And while I could get over it, it would still be there, for any search engine to find. Then I'd really have to hold to something I did out of a moment of anger, and that's not wise. Of course, that almost like lying. I can say, "Joe got mad," and not say, "because Susan called him a pedophile." Alters the whole perspective, doesn't it? So I have to wonder whether to include Joe in an entry at all. Often, I won't. Or I'll be vague and anonymous about it. "I saw someone today get mad when someone he used to like accused him of pedophilia, which is not the love of feet as I had been previously led to believe."

Of course, I get the obvious, "You say stuff about your parents... uh, what if they read it?" Well, my mom is dead, and has been for over 16 years. My father is still alive, and I know he reads these. I captured his IP address once or twice, and he once sent me mail stating "You must have reasons to make up the stuff you do." Frankly, I tried to make up with him for about 12 years, but he never reciprocated, and I'd say giving it 12 years was an honest try. In fact, if he said right now, "Man, our past is screwed up, let's start all over and try and fix this," I'd be game. Hell, I'd be pretty happy. But he won't. He can't. He'd have to admit to the fact he was wrong about some things (I was too!), and then his universe might collapse like a schizophrenic panic attack. So all my problems with him go unresolved, and thus, have to be vented on a regular basis. This journal has been 34 years in the making, and I am not holding back anymore.

Some entries I have retracted or altered. A few have been by request of someone who didn't want the story about them or people they knew up, and a few have been because it was totally misunderstood due to some poor choice of words on my part. But only a few have had this happen.

I used to have a friend named Dawn (actually, still do, but I haven't heard from her since 1997 or so). Dawn was someone I knew from a Fairfax County play production I was in, back when I got involved in regional theater as a young teen. Dawn was from a family of people who were so obsessed being the normal, successful family, it was almost like the Dursley family in the Harry Potter series. Dawn was the eldest, with one little brother. Dawn told me that her PBS-pledging family did all the "educational" stuff, and that it was impossible to have fun without some lesson being made of it. Like if you wanted to play a simple game of catch, you had to learn about gravity and the arc path of the ball. Everything was a lecture, and while I (personally) thought "how neat!" Dawn apparently said it was agonizingly distant. Since she learned to write, her parents made her keep a journal. By the time she was 8, she was fully aware they read her journal, and by age 10, she was manipulating what they knew by writing fake entries.

"June 10: Dear diary," she started when she described this to people. She batted her eyes, clasped her hands, and spoke in a singsong fairy princess voice. "Last night, I went to Tammy's house for a slumber party. We played Monopoly, drank soda, had a taffy pull, and oh so much fun!" She'd giggle like a cheerleader. Then she'd add in her normal voice, "Truth was, Tammy's parents were away that night, so we went out to Georgetown with fake IDs, and got drunk with some punk band." Later, at the end of her reign as party girl, she became angry and apathetic, and wrote some entry about her brother dying from some disease. She knew her bother read her diary. Her brother totally freaked out, and had a panic attack because of this.

Sadly, her rebel lifestyle, unpredicted by her parents, led her to drug addiction by age 13 (after I knew her, when we parted ways), and when she showed up at the house with the police in tow, she totally confessed to the last few years of her life. Her parents responded the only way the knew how: they disowned her. She went into drug therapy, then halfway houses, and woke up at age 22 in someone's back yard and realized only she could save herself. Last I spoke to her (when she told me the rest of this story), she was married to a guy she loved and was a receptionist at Vet's office in rural Maryland.

I recall in some high school English class, my best friend Kate and I were forced to write some sort of daily journal as an exercise. Now, I don't fault the teacher for this. I mean, how was she to know my life was hell, and my friend's was... well, not to be made public? We discussed how we were going to do this. We could write something really fantastic, like "April 14: I built a gate to hell today. Hell isn't as bad as everyone thinks. In fact, it's fast running out of money, and we saw that the demons are only prodding people in front of space heaters with plastic sporks." I think we decided to go with "make it as bland as totally possible." Like, "April 1: I woke up. I took a shower. I got dressed. My pants need washed. I got clean pants. I ate 2 eggs and drank 1 glass of orange juice. It was good. I could not find my left shoe for 2 minutes and 18 seconds. I got mad. Then I found it. I stopped being mad. I walked to school. I saw grass. I walked on the grass. It is quicker than walking on the sidewalk. I got to first period. My teacher has a mustache. He taught us about the Crimean war. People got hurt..." you can see where this was going. I wish I'd remembered what we actually did. Planning it was far more fun.

Last year, there was a lot of hubub about Ali Davis and her blog about working as a porn clerk. I was mesmerized by this blog. Not that I like porn that much, but her gripping portrayal of retail in a desperate environment was very well written and captivating. But I have often wondered if one of her ex-customers ever got back to her about her journal, and yelled at her. In her summarizing notes, she did say, " ... people who hold a given point of view too passionately tend not to be careful readers," and "...accused me of writing things I hadn't - and sometimes accused me of taking positions when I'd clearly written the opposite sentiment." I have found the same thing in the almost 12 years I have been on the Internet, posting stuff. I used to say, "People assume I am evil," which was my personal response to an attack based on some truth I attempted to make. One group went so far into this, that they tried to deny my life, my marriage, my child, my job, and my reality. One person started the crusade, his friends joined, and soon, a whole community thought everything I had ever said was made up. And you know what? No matter what I could have ever said, once the mob has you against the wall, the truth as accurate a weapon as a split whiffle bat. That was over five years ago, and they still talk about me, even though I am long gone.

Knowing this, one day, someone will say something about an entry here. Someone will take offense, use it as a spin to their own agenda. I could say I like pancakes, and they will say, "What do you have against waffles?!?!" Already, I have had incidents where someone I know and love thought I was talking badly about them, claiming some vague anonymous statement I had said was "not what happened at all!" Well then, it wasn't about you, now, was it? I could have said, "I had a friend who took his shirt to the cleaners, and when he got it back, it was missing some buttons," and gotten a letter from another friend entirely claiming, "I never went to the cleaners! I use wrinkle free fabrics! I have never lost a button in my life. Stop making up false stories about me!" That's what I have had to deal with from time to time. Often, an apologetic letter explaining I was not talking about them, but some other person, will suffice. But a few people are insistent I am "really talking about them," and I can't help that. But I'd rather not use real names, like Sean Heare, who lives in Reston, who ALWAYS thinks I am talking about him, and I can't stand that! [just kidding, Sean :-P] But if I was talking about them, and they'd rather I didn't, I can (and have) removed entries or parts of entries if I respect their wishes.

Seriously, though, that is the responsibility of a journal, whether it's online or not. But as I said earlier, I have to let some of this out. So it's a balancing of truth and privacy. I could say too much, and someone could get hurt that I don't want to get hurt. I could say too little and keep it bottled inside. Then years later, I'll be forced to look back and wonder what really happened. I have already done this with the only recorded legacy of my childhood: the tapes.

What are the tapes? They are ordinary cassette tapes, very old ones at that, and they were cheap when I bought them. My friend Neal and I had taped letters we sent back and forth for over seven years from sixth grade until I got married. While I just recorded over them, he actually was thoughtful enough to save some as "The Best of Grig." Years ago, he sent them back to me. I have listened to one of them partway through, and such a terror rose in my chest, I haven't touched them since. My childhood was a place of darkness and pain, and they sparked memories I had long forgotten. But I know I must play them. And write them down.

That's when this journal will get a WHOLE lot more interesting.

Posted by Punkie @ 05:39 PM EST [Link]

Monday, June 2, 2003

Weekend Wrap-up: Housework, blowing up computers, and relatives having babies

I got a lot of housework done this weekend. I managed to get all the loads of laundry done, did some vacuuming, mowed the lawns, cleaned up the kitchen, and manage to fix up some of those old computers I had lying about.

In the future, I think I am going to put my tech stuff in a separate purple box, so readers know when to skip it if they are not interested.

WARNING: GEEK TECH NOTES

One of them died (Mononoke, my previous printer server). I never knew the keyboard port, of all things, could short out and catch fire. But it did. I am not sure what happened, but when I took the box apart to try and salvage some parts, I noticed there were some loose metal things in them. I am not sure if they were the cause of the short, or the result of the small explosion. The explosion took out the motherboard (a proprietary Dell mobo), a NIC (right next to the port), and the keyboard plug attached to the port. When I plugged it in, there was the curl of white smoke, a "PAP!" and then gray smoke before I unplugged it. I salvaged wheat I could, marked them as "possibly bad" (hard drives, floppy, sound card, CD-ROM, etc.), and chucked the rest in the trash. So I worked on an old 486 DX4 100mhz that my friend Nate had once given me. It was a computer he was fixing for someone, and they never picked it back up. I swear, that machine is old. I think it's from 1995, according to the BIOS. It's the oldest working box I have. I upgraded it to 32mb RAM, swapped the 504mb HD with a 1.2GB one, and played the "which ISA NIC works?" game. I got an old NE2000 card to work with Tomsrtbt (Linux on a floppy) and RedHat 9.0 (which told me *after* install that the box did not meet the specs required, what a waste of an hour that was!), but on OpenBSD, while it detected it, could not seem to read any input the card gave, and I kept getting "device timeout" with DHCP. I did manage to find another ISA NIC in the bottom of a box, an SMC something, and that worked. "Install XFree86?" it asked on install. Hah! Yeah, I have run X on a P133, and it was so slow, I can't image it on this box. Gees, just to do a "make" on bash, it took 10 minutes (on a P166, it takes 40 seconds). No thank you. "/usr/ports/X11/kde/make all" would probably not stop compiling until my son's graduation.

In other news, we found out Christine's niece (Erica, from her oldest sister Debbie), is pregnant, so Christine is going to be a great aunt again! Christine's the youngest sibling of her mother's children, and so she has a lot of nieces around her age. Christine's been a great aunt at least 4 times that I know of, and she has many nieces and nephews. I have no siblings or parents, so I will never have a niece or nephew. The closest I could be "congratulated" on is my cousin Lisa's daughter Sydney, who was born last year. I don't know Lisa that well, I have only met her a few times in my life, and while each time was very pleasant, she and I don't really know each other. So I have to live vicariously through my wife's family.

Posted by Punkie @ 09:31 AM EST [Link]

Sunday, June 1, 2003

Really trying to forgive

Recently, it came to my attention I was still mad at some people for far too long. There have been events in my life where someone did something really mean and stupid to me, and I got mad and bent out of shape, and because I never really learned how to deal with anger, it still sits in the "to be solved" filing cabinet part of my brain.

Part of this cabinet was cleared out when it dawned on me that some people I was mad at were... young when then did the things they did. Like for instance, for many years, I was harboring this anger that someone had really said something mean and nasty behind my back. Not something critical, but an outright lie that could have really screwed me had I not had the friends I did at the time, who promptly told me what she had said. I am still friends with her (although it's been a while since we've seen each other in person), but for a long time, there was this latent unspoken distrust I always had, even though, to my knowledge, she never did this again. I never knew why she did it in the first place, and from time to time I'd remember she said this mean and nasty thing, with obvious intent of harm, and try and figure out why she said it. Then it hit me.

She was 22.

I was 18 at the time, so part of me got angry that an older person would do such a thing, but now I see some of the turmoil that people in their younger 20s still do, and think, "Wow... I remember being that age. What stupid stuff I did back then, thinking stuff mattered that really didn't!" Of course, now she's in her late 30s, matured, become a wonderful person, is married with a career... stuff she didn't have back then. I don't think I can hold her for stuff she did when she was 22. I mean, come on.

Does this mean anyone at that age who does stuff like she did is automatically forgiven? No. I mean, if one of my 22 year old friends now did something mean to me or my family, I'd be hard pressed to blow it off. But it's easier now to give someone young a little slack. That doesn't mean I think I am better than they are, or I am going to patronize them with a pat on the head and go "Oh, that's so cute!" But I know how I was back then, how my friends were, and how some of the stuff we all did... probably wasn't that good of an idea, and was more a result of lack of social experience more than malice. And it's not my place to tell them how to act, either. But what I can do is be a little more tolerant. And just let go.

This was a great revalation to me, and now when I think back to something someone did a long time ago, I can do my best to say, "They were 18," or 20, or 24. But you people who are 35? Jury's still out on you. :-P

Posted by Punkie @ 08:21 AM EST [Link]