Category Archives: Geek

Something Computer, Technology, or or otherwise geek related.

2010 Self Review

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With the dawn of 2011, many people are making resolutions, as they always do. I believe in looking forward, but not forgetting to check behind occasionally, and having just completed an employment-based self review it seemed fitting to perform one on a more personal level. Am I happy with my life? If not, why not, and either way, how can I make it better – or at least not get worse? What significant things have I achieved in the last 365 days? What do I hope to succeed in doing in the next 52 weeks? Anything? Nothing? I tried (albeit briefly) to find a form to follow, but couldn’t find anything suitable, so I’m making it up. Seems to be something I’m not bad at..

Goals I had for 2010:

  • Find a permanent, full time job.
    • Between February and June I had a full-time temporary position working as a Testing Analyst for Rosetta Stone, in their test lab. Working many hours of overtime had it’s ups and downs, and in August I was offered a permanent, part-time position doing the same thing on the night shift working core hours of 5pm to midnight.
  • Pay off debts.
    • While this was only partially achieved, we are well on track to paying off several debts to zero. The initial goal was to utilize overtime money while working as a temporary employee to pay off debt, however there were several other events that required our attention. The car needed some work done on it, in addition to Crash needing veterinary visits. We were able to pay large amounts on one of Kelly’s student loans, which has brought our monthly outgoing amount down somewhat.
  • Purchase a second vehicle.
    • This was achieved late in the game. In September a second car was procured, which meets it’s requirements and it’s desirements. A ’97 Outback, it is a year older than the car we had, it’s a stick shift (so I’m happy!) and it seems to run well. It does have some work needing to be done, which will hopefully not be major.

Goals for 2011:

  • Find a way to full time, dayshift employment, ideally within Rosetta Stone, and ideally within the IT department.
  • Pay off more loans and other debt.
  • Move out of Kelly’s parents house.
  • Spend more time with friends in various formats. EG continuing/restarting “Thursday Night Office/30 Rock/etc,” game nights (board game and video game), day or (maybe?) weekend trips to nearby places, etc.
  • Find a church that Kelly and I can both agree with and attend regularly. Become involved where possible.

Comments:

This year has been a good year. A vast improvement over 2009 in terms of finance especially, we have been able to take a much-needed trip over 300 miles away (which we have just returned from) and have no fear regarding the ongoing payment of bills. Additionally, we have a basic plan laid out for paying off several loans in the next 3 to 4 months, to be reviewed and updated on a regular basis.

I am also realizing the impact that working in the evenings, combined with living in Broadway, is having on my social life and thus my overall happiness. I had forgotten how much of a social creature I am, and while introversion may be a part of my personality I am finding it difficult surviving without people. An important feature in any house we look at, for me at least, is that it be in or very close to Harrisonburg. The actual rent may be higher (although I doubt it would be by a whole lot), but being closer (or more central) to an increased number of friends would make up for it. That is certainly not to say that friends in Broadway/Timberville are less important, simply that there are less of you and it has to be factored in.

This coming year holds several challenges that are not listed as goals. To name just a few, there is another USCIS related cost coming up, as my green card expires in July and will require some more forms completed and some more money paid 90 days before that happens. Secondly we have a wedding to attend (one of Kelly’s old school friends, Sarah) is getting married in May, around the same time as our anniversary. This will involve a drive to Mississippi, with a side-trip to New Orleans (since we’ll be so close!).

A high priority on my list is a trip to visit New Zealand. This year will mark 3 years since I left, and a third year of wishing I could visit and see the many friends and family members I left behind to miss me. While the inability to return is entirely related to our financial situation and said financial situation is finally improving, I have minimal hope that the situation will be sufficiently rectified any time soon, unless both Kelly and I have significant pay increases. Chances are also good that to receive the pay increases needed will require us both to find new positions – mine may or may not be within RS, Kelly’s most certainly won’t be with the day care.

I have high hopes for 2011. Expectations are lagging slightly behind, but also high. I believe my goals are reasonable and achievable, while still being challenging. I wish everyone else the best with their goals for the coming year, and a happy new year to all.

Life is Good, with Few Minor Interruptions to Goodness

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As life goes, I have little, some might argue nothing, to complain about. As Christmas rolls around, Kelly and I have marked off most of our Christmas gift recipients, and the gifts themselves are arriving ready to be wrapped and placed under the tree which was chosen on Sunday and will probably come inside this weekend to be decorated.

Our money management skills aren’t doing too badly – almost all of our bill payments are scheduled and there should be little problem with our trip to Charlotte at the end of the month. So really, there is little for me to complain about that doesn’t just sound like whiny drivel.

Somehow, the bed broke again. It’s hard to justify any suggestions of abuse through the commonly considered manner, because Kelly works from 9:30 to 6, and goes to bed around 12, I start work at 5 and usually finish around 12 or 12:30, and Kelly is usually asleep when I get home around 1-ish. A while back several of the slats (is that the right word?) in the box-spring snapped. I repaired them with a glue-and-screw type brace using some spare 1x3s I had laying around from the model train layout. For a while it worked fine. A couple of weeks ago one of them broke again. Then another one. Last night I came home and sat on the bed and thought “This doesn’t feel right.” I couldn’t pin it. I looked around the outside of the bed, and there was no reason I could see for it to have been leaning the way it was. I took a look under it this morning and realized, in broken horror, why that would be the case. Down the middle, presumably a primary source of support, is what looks like either a 2×6 or a 2×8. And it’s broken in a couple of places (looks kinda like a Z) in the middle, causing the bed to lean somewhat inwards.

And I get paid tomorrow. I think today will involve a planning session, tomorrow will involve buying materials and the weekend will be putting it together. Here’s hoping the broken one lasts that long.

(It’s most likely Crash that is responsible, he enjoys jumping on the bed, and 100lbs of sudden force will do that to a structure after a while..)

Schedules

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I’ve learned a few things over the last week or more (mostly more). I find organization to be easy in some areas, and difficult in others. My ability to stay on task can sometimes be hampered by my willingness to do things I probably shouldn’t be doing. For example, I’ve recently spent a lot of time (and gas) driving around the area looking for trains to either watch or take photos of. Not something that hurts anyone, but it’s not something I should be doing every day – it’s unproductive and it costs money that is better spent on other things. I’ve also been spending a lot of money on fast food, because a lack of planning means I don’t have time or motivation to stop at a grocery store and get something better for me, and definitely better for my budget.

So this week I’m trying something new. I’ve alotted time for the things I like doing, like trainspotting, and a little eating out, but also making sure that I’m spending my time at home productively, not needlessly wandering around the countryside because it’s what I felt like doing.

So here is roughly how my schedule works:

Monday is very much a domestic day. It’s the day I’ll be doing all my laundry, and after lunch I’ll be making a run to the store to get lunch and dinner supplies for the week (4.5 days)

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are comprised similarly – I spend three hours in the morning working on “something” (this week it’s supposed to be the bookshelf that I stopped working on a few weeks ago for no real reason). Then I make lunch, Tuesday’s and Thursday’s I’ll walk Crash (Wednesday’s will be a cleanup day for either the green room or the bedroom), then I make/organize dinner and go to work.

Friday, assuming I’ve achieved all I set out to achieve during the week, is the day I get to go wandering. I doubt that I’ll go very far every week, but based on the assumption that I’m not going to Staunton or Elkton every day of the week, I can justify making a trip to Charlottesville or Roanoke on a Friday. I also have a few other places I’d like to try out, but it may be that I just take the day to work on things too.

Speaking of schedules, my work schedule is slightly different the next two weeks – to take the day off on Thursday (Thanksgiving) and still be able to make 70 hours for the fortnight, I’m electing to work 8 hours a day over 9 days, rather than 7 hours each over 10 days. Doing that will also mean I get to leave early next Friday, as usually ends up happening.

I’m still working out how I might get close to the 70 hours after Christmas/New Year in order to make up the entire week off for going to North Carolina, but that’s not quite so important.

I just got a message from my Google Calendar that it’s time to leave for work, but I just wanted to add in completely unrelated news, my wishlist has been revised for the 2010 Christmas year (I’ve already had a few questions about whether I was updating it for this year).

Trainspotting Failure

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I like trains. I think everyone knows that. I like looking for trains, taking photos and videos of trains, following trains to find out where they come from and where they go. I don’t always succeed in my quests to find, and take photos and/or videos of said trains. Sometimes I just don’t see anything at all.

The other day I knew the train had headed through Broadway going north, and after a visit to Harrisonburg I decided to see if I could snap some photos of it headed through Timberville, as there is a really nice bridge visible from the park there. It was around 2:30pm, and I know that if they get too close to 3pm then they park up in Broadway and drive the crew back to the Burg. I drove down main street in Broadway, no sign of it. “Excellent,” I thought, and continued on to Timberville. I parked up at the park, and waited. At 3, after no sign of the train, I decided to wait until 3:30. 3:25 came and I gave up. I snapped a couple of photos of the playground equipment and headed off to work. Driving back down main street in Broadway, I saw the train. I’d gone around it while driving to Timberville..

Today I headed out to Elkton around 2. I’d planned to go earlier, but decided to stop and see my wife in Harrisonburg on her break, and hang out with her for a while. I got to Elkton around 3, and drove around a little to acquaint myself with the rails in the area. Last time I’d gotten close a couple of times, but really just headed north to Shenandoah and didn’t hang around Elkton for very long. This time I sat in a park right on the tracks – I thought I heard a horn a couple of times, and after a mad dash with SLR and DV camera across to the fence, I waited, and waited, and waited, and nothing. I left Elkton around 4 to head back to Harrisonburg to be ready for work at 5.

I’ve joined a couple of railfan groups on Yahoo! and will be watching for the next day or two for messages coming through that might help me in my train-hunting efforts. Also coming soon will be some photos I took a while back with the SLR, developed yesterday. What I’m excited about is the Black and White film that I put in it yesterday! Now I just need to find subjects to photograph with it..

Coworkers Discovered Via Mutual Friends

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So I was walking my dog yesterday afternoon, when I ran into a family friend. She asked how the job was going, and she asked if I knew a particular person (as I get from time to time – almost everyone in the county either works for Rosetta Stone or knows someone who does. At best it seems there is something like 3 degrees of separation for any person living in Rockingham County or Harrisonburg and employees of Rosetta Stone). It was a rare case where I remembered enough of the name to look them up on the internal directory, and ran across their blog.

I took a brief look at some of the posts and I’m already intrigued. I may spend some of my spare time (I get a lot of that at work, with reimaging and other things I have to wait for) going back through the archives. If you like computer stuff, take a look, but on the surface at least there seems to be something for just about everyone..

http://blog.aharbick.com/2010/11/build_assuming_a_paying_custom.html

Rallying to Restore Sanity and Fear

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We started out expecting a fairly average day in the capital of the nation. That was not to be. Who knew that when you hold a rally with 215,000 people (as estimated by aerial photographers [Citation: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20021284-503544.html]) most of whom were traveling into the city from outside of it, it puts a strain on the transportation systems?

The roads were fairly empty once we got past mile 62 on I-66. According to WMATA, they set a Saturday record of 825,437 trips. That’s compared to 350,000 on an average Saturday. [Citation: http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/news/PressReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=4717]

We left Broadway just after 7:30am. Kelly and I and our friend KBru took our car and headed North, making a brief stop at McDonalds in Newmarket for breakfast before getting on I-81. We were right on schedule for the Vienna/Fairfax Metro exit at about 9:15am when we reached the queue. It stretched back about 2 miles, and after sitting in it for 20 minutes we decided to try our luck at one of the next exits. This turned out to be one of the three best decisions we made that day. It proves that prior basic knowledge of the system works in favor of those trying to use it in ways they never have before.

We got to the West Falls Church exit at about 9:45 (literally just a couple of miles down the road). We found a parking space in record time, and proceeded to the station. It was at this point that we went back to waiting, and shortly afterward I started taking photos on my ‘new’ cell phone, received the day before. (It’s a certified pre-owned, and it replaces the Nokia that I washed a few months ago. It also has a camera!)

10:12am: West Falls Church bridge over I-66 East. The bridge is crowded by the line to the ticket machines. The road underneath is practically empty. The view back two miles on the same road is VERY crowded.

10:13am: We got bored and did what we usually do – take photos of ourselves.

10:25am: We’re getting close to the ticket machines. This lady we saw a couple of times, she looked like a white lady, and was wearing a big sombrero that said something like “I-legal, fear me!” on it.

10:29am: This is the set of lines for the ticket machines. KBru has started knitting in line. Kelly is off to the side as per the request of WMATA. She rejoined us not long after this.

10:45am: We made it on to the platform.

It was shortly after this point we made the second of our best three decisions of the day. Every train coming into the station (the third on the line) was crowded. One or two people were getting on. After about three trains we decided to try doing the non-obvious. We got on a train going the other way. This spawned our catchphrase for the day – “Backwards is the new forwards.” Someone on one of the trains had yelled out the door that they had boarded a train headed away from the city and stayed on it. After all, once they reach Vienna they just go straight back in to DC, and the trains were pretty empty going that way. When we got to Vienna we found (as we expected) that the trains were full leaving there.

The journey into the city was fairly uneventful. Almost every stop had someone with a hilarious costume or sign (a couple of Waldo characters, at least one person wearing a grape costume, I even saw a TARDIS cutout. The one sign I remember said something along the lines of “Three words that will solve the economy: Gay Bridal Registry”).

12:27pm: The museum of American History (if I’m reading it correctly). Those of you who know the Smithsonian will know that at this point we are practically there. This guy also has a really cool improvised drum kit, and he plays really well. Unfortunately I didn’t get a video at all.

Here is just a stream of photos I took while on the mall. I don’t remember enough details to caption each one. There are a few doubles of things, mostly cool signs I saw. We took a photo of KBru outside the Canadian Embassy, and there are photos of the several thousand people who just walked up one of the streets (I forget which, it was headed towards Chinatown).

I run out of photos about now because my camera battery died, but we walked through Chinatown looking for a place to eat, but they were all really busy. We walked up to Union Station – not a bad idea but not great. We ended up eating standing up, having been sitting on the floor in an alcove and being asked to stand as we were considered a safety hazard. Being reasonable and understanding people, we complied – there was nothing we could do to change the minds of the people enforcing the rules, they appeared to think the rule in particular was stupid anyway. We took the metro from Union Station back to Metro Center, where we made the third and final “best decision” of the day, taking the Metro towards Maryland a few stops and then heading back through the crowded city.

The trip from there was uneventful – I remember a little girl who was obviously tired who I talked to briefly about “coming out from the ground” – she had said it and then thought it was a silly thing to say, I told her it wasn’t. We disagreed politely.

A brief stop was made outside of DC (I always forget what it’s called, but there’s a Sheetz and a McDonalds right beside each other, and we almost always stop there on the way out of DC either for food or gas or both..). We were all in need of a bathroom break and some snacks for the ride home, which brought as back to Broadway at around 9pm. An enjoyably sane day in the city of Washington DC.

Something Wrong With This Picture?

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I bought a car this week. Kelly and I now have two cars (ironically, the car I’m driving is in Kelly’s name and the car she is driving is in my name..). They are practically exactly the same, though I’ll post more about that probably next week after I take some more photos. But because there are certain things I like to have in my car, I have been wandering the aisles of the auto sections of stores grabbing the couple of things I really really like to have. While I was there, I noticed ‘racing pedals’ to replace (or cover) the ones that came with the car. Fair enough. What I don’t get is the idea of racing pedals for automatic transmissions:

This may just be my full-of-crap opinion, but I don’t think that using an automatic transmission to race should count at all, and to that end I think that racing pedals for automatic transmissions are off the horrible end of cheesy when it comes to mostly pointless car ‘upgrades.’

The Greatest Form of Flattery …

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From Wikipedia:

Flattery (also called adulation or blandishment) is the act of giving excessive compliments, generally for the purpose of ingratiating oneself with the subject.

Historically, flattery has been used as a standard form of discourse when addressing a king or queen. In the Renaissance, it was a common practice among writers to flatter the reigning monarch, as Edmund Spenser flattered Queen Elizabeth I in The Faerie Queene, William Shakespeare flattered King James I in Macbeth and Niccolo Machiavelli flattered Lorenzo II di Piero de’ Medici, ruler of Florence and Duke of Urbino, in The Prince.

They say that the greatest form of flattery is imitation. I hope so, because I’d like to introduce my brother, ZeKeSbRo. He started a blog recently, and the similarities between his and mine are remarkable 😉

I’m sure he’ll have some interesting things to say and things that bore the poop out of you, just like mine. Only time can tell.

In other news, my wife and I are looking at buying another car, probably purchasing on Monday.

It’s a 1997 Subaru Outback, it’s black, it’s a 5-speed manual, and ran great when I test-drove it. It is the limited edition – leather seats and a few other things I probably haven’t spotted. It’ll match our 1998 Subaru Outback nicely!

Diary, Model Railroad, 7, etc..

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This is really stretching out! Anyway, since the last post I’ve done little but prepared much. Or at least, that’s what I’m telling myself.

What I’ve achieved: Completed painting both sections.

Yes, that’s all.

That said, I have ordered more ballast (since I have one pack of light and two packs of dark – not very close to meeting my requirements), I have ordered more terminal blocks (so I can rewire the second section much more cleanly), I have ordered a 20->24 pin ATX adapter and a 24->20 pin ATX adapter – this should give me both male and female sockets for 20 and 24 pin. I’ve also ordered DPDT switches and momentary on switches – enough to build a control panel. I’ve also printed onto paper some cardstock buildings, and I’ll be gluing those to the poster board that I also acquired at some point in the near future.

My coming plans involve forming a road (I’m thinking a paved road and a dirt/gravel road or two) through part of a section. The problem I’m having is deciding where. I thought I had left space in the track layout, but it seems there are some tight spaces where I’m thinking of putting buildings. It would also be cool to have a rail-in-road space somewhere, I’m thinking along the back where I was planning on putting a one-car container terminal, and building a fence around the facility for security etc. Lastly, I realized that I hadn’t made any account for uncoupling magnets, and I don’t like the idea of them being incredibly visible (unless they can be disguised as something else in some way?) Therefore I either need to lift pieces of track just enough to squeeze magnets in underneath (perhaps thin magnets?) or use stronger ones under the baseboard.

These problems and more to be found and hopefully resolved, soon. Here are some photos.

The messy module is seen above a Lighting Direct box (all the way from New Zealand). It is also the one with the least paint (although it is now finished – no photos as yet.) The other module is facing the wrong way, but is otherwise ready for the next step, whatever that may end up being.

Diary of a Model Railroad, part… 6?

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I think I’m up to part 6, at least. Anyway, there was a long period of no-development on the layout mostly due to finance. I now have a job (cheers, applause, etc, etc) which means in addition to being able to pay all our bills, we have enough spare money that I can devote a little more to the trains.

A while back I picked up a cheap terminal block on eBay, and will likely need another one soon for the other half. Also, I bought a sampler-sized pot of brown paint yesterday and I utilized both the terminal block and the paint this morning.

So today there were three things achieved, albeit small. Firstly I replaced a section of track that had been bothering me for a while, ever since I laid it and it didn’t really work out. So today it was removed and replaced with a better job. I’m yet to test it, but it looked fine to the eyes.

The second job was rewiring the underside of one module using the terminal block. It now looks a lot tidier, and I just need to run the master feeds back to the end and work out how I’m going to connect the two modules electrically.

The third and final task completed today was painting around the track with the brown paint. The idea behind this is that when I put down grass or whatever other scenery, if it becomes chipped or I miss a spot, it looks more like dirt than just a piece of real-sized hardboard. It probably needs a second coat, but that will have to wait.

That leaves my to-do list rather short: I need to figure out the electrical connections (20/24 pin ATX connectors?), I need to figure out how I’m going to cover or otherwise hide the turnout motors (long ones, sitting along the straight-leg of each one) and I need to actually wire the turnouts, even if they don’t go anywhere. I’m also planning on ballasting track soon, so my t0-buy list is slowly growing again: another pack of lighter colored ballast, another terminal block, some DPDT switches and some momentary switches for the atlas turnout motors.