Category Archives: Geek

Something Computer, Technology, or or otherwise geek related.

How People Find Me

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I’m intrigued, when I look at my statistics, as to how people come to my blog, what they see, etc.

There are 3 groups. Naturally there is a miscellaneous group, they tend to just fall in here either by the next-blog function in the wordpress toolbar, or by an automated link being clicked. There are my friends on facebook and twitter who click my links, and I also get a small amount of traffic from a few friends blogs.

But the biggest group, and this actually surprises me, is the group searching for information on USCIS Form I-797C, Notice of Action. In fact, on a test-search for “i 797c notice of action” my post about receiving it is on the first page (about #6). I intended to write a summary of when things happened, and how my immigration to the United States worked out in reality, but obviously that hasn’t happened yet. Maybe next week.. (though I doubt it!)

You know your needs are met if..

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…all you can come up with for gift ideas are toys. I figure people would start asking me what I want for Christmas soon, and it seems a good idea to sum up for myself what I’d like to acquire in the next few months. That being the case, a few of these things are specifically for me to buy, and I lay absolutely no obligation on anyone to spend $5000 on me (I feel bad when people spend $20 on me). In fact, if you did, I’d be worried and would probably have to refuse your gift. Owing to lack of ideas, and some things I still don’t have (and/or want more of) since last year, I’ve copied some across from last years list.

  1. Remote control car. Full function! None of this “Straight forward, turn right in reverse” nonsense 😉 Fun to play with dogs and cats, I’m sure.
  2. Remote control boat. No idea where I’ll use it though..
  3. Model trains/accessories. For reference, I’m working with HO and N scales.
  4. Misc. tools. I’d like a cordless drill, but anything else that can be used for general handy-work would be useful. I have screwdrivers, and all kinds of drill/driver bits. Maybe a saw?
  5. Something from ThinkGeek (or a similar site).
  6. Something geeky.
  7. Xbox 360.
  8. Wii.
  9. Xbox imported from NZ/Australia.
  10. PAL in/NTSC out converter. I have a PAL DVD player to convert to NTSC output for US TV’s. Make sure it’s the right way round!
  11. Clothing – Pants: about a 32-34in waist, top half is L or XL. Extra points for geek-themed clothing.
  12. Something from the XKCD store.
  13. Something from http://www.cafepress.com/ial Also, consider purchasing from the Cafepress store for others also 😉
  14. Just money. I can put it towards other other things with other money received, or my savings.
  15. Gift cards. Gamestop and Walmart are ones that come to mind. Maybe Paypal? I dunno.
  16. Anything computer or guitar related if you think I’ll use it. Was going to provide an example of things I would and wouldn’t use, couldn’t think of any. Flash drives (larger than 2GB), guitar cables (longer than 10ft). Extra points if it can tie musical and computer together – I’d like to be able to record music using the computers.
  17. A cheap keyboard to play around with (recording etc, as above).
  18. Lego
  19. DVDs: NCIS, The Office, Fringe, House, etc.
  20. A UPS. I know, I already have one, but I need a second..
  21. Dog/Cat stuff.
  22. Books: Computer programming languages (Perl, C, C++) Terry Pratchett (Johnny and the Dead, Johnny and the Bomb), Face, and I am Not Esther.
  23. Book: Perl for Dummies, C++ for Dummies, C for Dummies, and any other relevant Perl/C/C++ books that could serve as a kickstart for learning the languages.
  24. Blank DV tapes.
  25. Music CDs. (Queen, Christian music)
  26. Guitar amp.
  27. Bass guitar.
  28. Acoustic guitar case/bag.

I’ll update more over the next few days. That’s probably the majority though. Hopefully this gives those of you who will be asking me what I want some ideas! Because I really don’t want to know what I’m getting until I get it.

Current Balance: $1,041.77

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Money isn’t really my friend. I have a bad habit of getting money and immediately spending money. I guess it’s a reflex left over from the idea of “Well, there’s money, let’s spend it before someone else does, or we find something else that it has to go towards.”

In fact, that $1000 isn’t hanging around very long anyway, there are a couple of credit card bills to be paid, and we’re going shopping tonight, so who knows how much we’ll have in the morning. But we’ve also filled up both vehicles with gas, and set aside our outgoing payments, we just need to keep doing what we’re doing and our standing balance should slowly rise!

I’m still looking for a job, so if anyone in Virginia (or DC) is looking for a Level 1 Helpdesk Analyst or DC Ops Tech (will work any shift if required), hit me up and I’ll send a resume. I don’t mind driving to work, I was quite happy to drive 2 hours each way to Rackspace, and I’ll be happy to do the same for you.

Making Money?

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I typically don’t bother with these sites at all, because most of the time you have to spend money to get anything at all, but this is an exception.

SendEarnings(.com) is a survey site whereby you can make money by taking surveys for which you qualify. Now, these surveys may be few and far between, this isn’t going to be a “Make $150/hr” or “Make $3000/wk” job-replacement style site. What it will give you is various other offers in which you may be interested, most of which reward you in some way. For example, there is currently a Discover card on offer, and they’ll credit $15 to your SendEarnings account if you sign up and they give you the card. (Discover are also advertising a $50 cashback). You’ll get various percentages credited if you make online purchases at online stores like eBay, Walmart, Petsmart, etc. If you’re into playing online games, (this can cost, although after a week they offered $20 in credits free..?) then you can join online competitions against other people for money that can be used to play more games, or withdrawn to your SendEarnings account.

The other way to make money is by receiving email. Seriously: Receive email (around 3 a day), click link, receive $0.02. You don’t have to buy or do anything besides clicking “Confirm reading this email” links, and you’re making money. (Pretty crap money, but still..).

Remember, this does not pay big! I’ve been fairly active over the last week or so and am now approaching $30. I’m running out of offers I can apply for that won’t cost me anything, and I’m not eligible for a lot of surveys (mostly because I’m not very adventurous..). I just started playing with the games today, since I got a credit for free. I’m going to again be cautious, I’m in this thing to make money – not lose it!

So, if easy money is your thing, sign up, maybe you’ll make something!

Angus Burger

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So the other day I was in need of dinner, and nothing at home seemed appealing. I had to decide between stopping at KFC to try the grilled chicken, or McDonald’s to try the new Angus Burgers. By the title of the post, you can probably guess that I went to McD’s.

So, simple review. Of the three burgers on offer, the bacon one is the only one that I stood any chance of liking at all. In the bacon one were a pile of red onions, which I got Kelly to take out, and she ate them (I was driving at the time). It’s bigger around than most McDonald’s burgers, it may stack up size-wise with the Big Mac (given that the Big Mac is stacked). In short, the Bacon and Beef Angus Burger at McDonald’s is awesome. I can hardly wait to try another one. Although it will probably be after I try the grilled chicken at KFC 😉

I Like Free Stuff.

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One of the cool things I’ve discovered since moving to the United States has been the amazing onslaught of eligibility for free stuff. Not many places in New Zealand gave stuff away for free (that was worth anything, at least), and the vast majority of places in the US or Canada giving away stuff wouldn’t ship internationally.

Over the last few days I’ve been trawling the free stuff sites, and getting a whole bunch of free (or very nearly free) stuff or samples. From personal supplies, to pet treats, to t-shirts (custom and generic), bumper stickers, all kinds of things I probably wouldn’t otherwise buy, except that I can get them free. And who knows, maybe some of them will serve their purpose and drive me to buy things from the companies. A couple of them, particularly the t-shirt companies are very likely to again receive my business, although they’re the ones I paid shipping on. Especially if I ever actually start a business of any kind, or come up with more t-shirt designs, somewhere easy to get a startup would be good.

So now I’m sitting back and waiting to see when the free stuff starts rolling in!

Today is Boring.

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Really. It is. You probably don’t even want to read this, because it is only going to be boring.

I received an email from my potential employer pretty much saying I have a job. I am going in on Wednesday to do paperwork and generally hang out. I *do* need to get documentation from my former “employers” regarding number of hours working with children. If I can’t prove 1000 hours then I’ll be an aide rather than a leader, and the pay rate drops accordingly. But hey, a job is a job.

I also have 2 Saturdays coming up working high and low ropes at Camp Horizons for two larger groups. That’s an extra $70/day too.

The only other “excitement” today involved getting lunch at Subway. I won a free 21oz. FUZE Tea, and a scrabble letter. Other than that I’ve been sitting here watching nothing happen on TV and watching facebook. I guess I could do some programming stuff, there is an outstanding bug in my ticketing system that is to be fixed, and I have an idea for fixing my service detection system reading false positives. I should also work on expanding the system and stuff. Maybe a website? Could be a good moneymaker. Who knows.

See? Boring. If you made it this far, congratulations. Have a nice day.

Get-Out-Of-Debt Quick Plan

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My apologies to all who find this to be boring crap, obvious crap, useless crap, or otherwise crap.

For the last 12+ months my wife and I have been in rather large debt, primarily owing to her student loans, but also loans to pay for immigration forms and some credit-card stuff, and now our new car is on that list too.

It got so bad we moved back in with her parents, where we’ve been since November last year.

But, things are looking up again. She now has a full time job, I have the promise of casual work and possibly a permanent part-time job at an after-school program (will hear from them tomorrow, hopefully). We have a budget surplus of around $300/mo after all the income and most of our outgoings are paid for. If I get the part-time job then our outgoings increase slightly (gas, mostly), but our surplus will increase to around $800/mo. Now, we need to save something, in case of emergencies etc, and $800/mo isn’t really enough to comfortably move out again. My plan for us to change our circumstances doesn’t come from moving out and then paying off debt, it comes from paying off debt and then moving out.

See, right now we have two credit cards, one of which is more than twice it’s limit, the other we are trying very hard to keep below the limit, and as close to $0 as possible (so far we are succeeding). We also have a couple of loans that are either small or rather annoying which we can get rid of fairly quickly. My solution is to take about $400 of our surplus per month and put it towards a single loan.

For example, the over-limit credit card charges us about $50/mo. If we add $400 to that, we can pay $450/mo until it is paid off. That will take roughly 3 months. Then we can take that $450 and put it towards something else, like one of our smaller loans that is $65/mo, so we’ll be paying $450 + $65 = $515/mo until that is paid off. A third smaller loan is about $75-80/mo, so we can take the $515 from our two previously paid off loans, and add it to the $80/mo, and be paying $595 on an $80 loan payment – how fast do you think that loan will go away? I think fairly quickly. And all it costs us extra per month is the $400 we put in to begin with. Once those three payments are knocked out, we could take our $400 back out again, and we’ve just found an extra $195 a month, bringing our budget surplus up to nearly $1000 – we’re getting closer to being self-sufficient now. The other two loans we have are $138 and $159, and I haven’t done the calculations based on how quickly these would have an effect on our current loan balances, but I envisage we could be fairly debt free (one loan has a huge balance) within 24 months.

Buying a New Car

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Just when I was getting to thinking that buying a new car would be easy, I was hit with a sharp burst of reality.

I went around 4 used car dealers on Monday, and got good prices on several vehicles that would meet our needs. Today, I went to the bank and got information on our loan options. Next, I need to talk to Kelly and confirm the vehicle selection and have her speak to the bank officer handling our loan with regards to income confirmation. This is where it goes pear-shaped, because the next steps are all specific in what needs to be done when. I need to see the dealer and actually make the purchase, I need the bank to write a money order for the loan, I need to see the DMV with regards to title and registration, and I need to see the insurance company about taking out a policy for the vehicle.

The good news is that we will easily be able to afford the vehicle we want/need. The bad news is that we may need to stretch a little for the up front costs, as well as questions looming over the new tires that the vehicle needs. We also need to deal with proof of income as today was Kelly’s first day of full-time work at her new job.

Hopefully this all works out and we’ll have a new car this week..

Driving Experience

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This summer I’ve driven at least 9 different vehicles. 3 trucks, 2 vans, and 4 cars. 4 owned by the Cullers family in some way, 3 owned by Highland and 2 owned by other Highland employees. 4 of which had cruise control (2 of which I used it on), 2 were stick-shift. I also drove a trailer for the first time, and went 4-wheel driving on several occasions in the two trucks that were 4×4-capable.

Mark’s car I drove very briefly, and found it to be very heavy steering for such a small car. It was also jerky idling. Other than that it was problem-free, despite it’s reputation for poor performance. It was a Ford Mondeo, I believe.

The blue camp truck was a stick shift, and a rather menacing one at that. A 1987 Ford F-150 (2-wheel drive, long wheelbase), I drove it on a couple of occasions around camp, and then out on the trash run. It was evil to begin with, but after driving Randy’s truck as well, the skills applied back and forth. The clutch was a long way out, and near the end I stalled it multiple times trying to find it. It also had cruise control buttons on the steering wheel, though I never got it to work.

The red camp truck was awesome, a 1997 Chevy 2500 with 4×4 and automatic transmission. It was this that I towed the trailer with, as well as 4-wheel driving some. Being a camp truck, something had to be wrong with it somehow. I can think of 2 things, the first being part of the connection for the electric brakes didn’t work (though that may have been trailer-side), and 4-Low didn’t engage, and if you could get it to, it didn’t engage the 4-wheel drive. Cruise control didn’t engage below 25mph, but it proved useful on the trash run when we got it out onto the long 55mph stretch.

Randy’s truck was also a stick, but not quite so menacing. A 1983 Ford F-150 (4-wheel drive, short wheelbase), I used it to commute to camp a couple of times. I took it up the 4-wheel drive track a couple of times when needed, and it performed really well. The clutch is a lot closer to the floor, and I don’t stall it nearly as much. It’s also the Gilbert-mobile until we buy a new car.

I also drove Gordy’s car (maintenance guy at Highland) when the other vehicles were in use. A Toyota Tercel wagon, it did the job assigned.

I drove our 1999 Ford Escort until it died last week (see last post).

I drove the green camp van on one occasion during the last week, when I needed to go to the tab and pick up some large items and the two trucks were in use. Didn’t really drive it long enough to get a feel for it, but it seemed nice enough. It was a Dodge or a Chrysler.. not sure which.

I also drove the Culler’s van to Harrisonburg and back tonight to drop off Marsha for discussion group, and got to use the cruise control – much fun. Pretty sure it is a Dodge..?

Lastly is the ’91 Chevy Corsica, Matt’s car now (was Randy’s long-time vehicle until he bought the Explorer). Not much to say for it, it does its job well enough. I’ve driven it several times, mostly to Harrisonburg and back for various things.

This is a much unneeded rundown of the vehicles I’ve driven this summer, but I felt like posting something.

What have I learned from these vehicles? Several things.

  1. 4-wheel driving is fun. Vehicle doesn’t make a huge difference in terms of fun-factor – it’s more about the driver.
  2. Vans aren’t as bad as some people make them out to be.
  3. Stick-shift in trucks, while not awesome, aren’t really all that bad – they just take a little getting used-to and some practice.
  4. Cruise control is also really awesome. I look forward to inter-stating with it, rather than 8-hour drives to OBX in a vehicle without it 🙁
  5. Driving with the park brake on is not advisable.
  6. Check you know how to engage 4×4 before setting out. Some older 4×4’s require the hubs to be locked 😉
  7. Driving with a trailer is pretty easy. Backing with a trailer is slightly harder than normal. I was able to turn the consist 180 degrees in a space about 6′ wider than the truck and trailer in about 5 points.
  8. Always consider that other people with different habits may have driven the vehicle before you. Check the park brake’s position, and that it isn’t in gear, for example, before beginning your normal routines.
  9. Listen to those who have driven the vehicle before and know it’s quirks. Especially when you’re learning about a vehicle. This happened twice for me, once in the blue camp truck (stalled several times with Gordy beside me trying to help me hill-start it), and once in Randy’s truck, when Randy was explaining the intricacies of starting and driving a carburetor-driven vehicle.
  10. Find out where the keys are before you set out. It saves a lot of time in getting to the vehicle, not being able to find the keys, only to find out that a) the owner still has them, or b) they’re in an obscure hiding place that you didn’t think to check.

Enjoy my experiences. Or ignore them. Whichever.